‘Elektra: Red, White and Blood #1’ Review
Written by Charles Soule, Leonardo Romero, Declan Shalvey | Art by Mark Bagley, John Dell, Leonardo Romero, Simone D’Armini | Published by Marvel Comics
Elektra is a character that Marvel just can’t seem to make an A-lister. They’ve tried many different approaches down the years, some have worked, most haven’t, but the fact remains that if you take Frank Miller out of the equation, she just ain’t Elektra. As her creator, Miller writes and draws Elektra with a passion that the character needs but usually doesn’t get. She’s aggressive, morally grey at best, a warrior who can also be an assassin and killer. As such, she’s not always easy to write.
She works best in other character’s stories, where she can be a force of nature influencing events. She does, of course, share some traits with the previous characters who have had the black and white treatment, namely Wolverine, Deadpool, and Carnage. Visually distinctive, violent outsiders. I’ve been looking forward to seeing how Elektra will stack up with her turn at the black, white, and red treatment. In this first issue we get 3 stories, with a nice variety of creators, so my hopes are high. Let’s take a look.
We start with ‘Red Dawn’, written by Charles Soule, drawn by Mark Bagley and John Dell, starring what I assume to be an elseworlds style take on Elektra. She’s been bitten by vampires, and must now accept her fate…or must she. Follow or fight? I think we all know the answer to that one. It’s short on dialogue but long on atmosphere, though I must admit I found the choice of art team strange. Bagley and Dell are a great mainstream book art team, but felt a little too cartoony for this story. The script, for me, needed a grittier style of artwork. From a purely technical aspect the artists did a nice job, with lashings of red liberally applied. Elektra the warrior and hero is represented here, and Charles Soule does a great job in just 10 short pages.
Next up is ‘Not the Devil’, by writer/ artist Leonardo Romero, totally different in style and content. Romero favours packing the pages with multiple smaller panels, which does give the story a unique energy. This is an urban crime story, as organised crime goons panic due to the rather high number of fatalities happening all around them. Someone, dressed in red and wielding a sword, is terminating their illegal employment with extreme prejudice. The story is essentially one extended fight scene, but a well choreographed and bloody one. It also makes the point that force of nature that she is, Elektra does have some weaknesses, albeit temporary ones. Brutal and effective stuff.
We close out with ‘The Crimson Path’, by Declan Shalvey and Simone D’Armini, which is again essentially an extended fight scene. This though adds some depth to proceedings by making the philosophical point that we need people like Elektra to do the dirty work so we don’t have to. We moralise, they do. Innocence only survives because some do the bloody, violent fighting to keep it that way. Elektra’s protection of a young girl in this story has echoes of Greek myth, something which becomes even more apparent with its conclusion. It’s a short and sweet take, but I like what Shalvey does with his page count.
Three solid stories, all very different, should satisfy most readers. Will they convert new readers to Elektra? Doubt it. Will they satisfy established fans? To a point, though we are still way below Frank Miller level. Also, the short page count allows little beyond quite shallow storytelling, though each writer here does manage to squeeze the maximum they can out of their allotted page count. The main conceit of this format, the use of red in a black and white book, is done well, with Elektra allowed to cut loose to showcase how her savagery can be on Wolverine’s level at times.
I guess you could say that overall I liked this issue, but didn’t love it. Red suits Elektra though, no denying that.
