[This review of "Elektra Volume 2 #1" is one of the early comic book review that I ever wrote for my “Negromancer” blog (which began as a website) way back in the Summer of 2001. For a few years, I wrote my comic book reviews under the column title, "Why I Love Saturn," which I took from Kyle Baker's 1990 graphic novel, "Why I Hate Saturn."
Recently, I was able to recover my files from two 2000s-era hard drives. Beginning with this review, I am going to go back and re-edit all my original “Negromancer” comic book reviews and post these updated versions on here, my “I Reads You” blog. I hope you enjoy the trip back in time.]
ELEKTRA VOLUME 2 #1
MARVEL COMICS/Marvel Knights
STORY: Brian Michael Bendis
ART: Chuck Austen
COLORS: Nathan Eyring
LETTERS: Comicraft's Wes Abbot
EDITORS: Stuart Moore; Nanci Dakesian
COVER: Greg Horn
52pp, $3.50 U.S., $5.25 CAN (September 2001)
"Why I Love Saturn?" Episode 6
In typical fanboy fashion, I salivated at the thought of the return of Elektra, Frank Miller’s sexy, assassin and anti-heroine from his run as writer/artist of Marvel’s Daredevil back in the early 1980’s. But I only wanted Elektra to come back if she were to be guided Miller, or Miller and one of his cohorts, like Bill Sienkiewicz, so I, of course, ignored Pete Milligan and Mike Deodado’s mid 90’s incarnation.
In true clown fashion, I still bought the new series, starting with this first issue, Elektra Volume 2 #1. It is written by way too busy Brian Michael Bendis; drawn by Chuck Austen; colored by Nathan Eyring; and lettered by Wes Abbot. So many have sung Bendis' praises, via the Internet and magazine articles. Even other customers in my local shop heartily recommend him, but I’ve yet to read anything by him that’s really “knocked my socks off,” although I haven’t yet read Torso or Jinx.
Still, I can’t go crazy over a man whose main claim to fame is his reinvention of the early Spider-Man saga in Ultimate Spider-Man. All he is doing is simply retooling for a “modern” audience stories that were very well told when they first appeared in the early 1960’s created by Stan Lee and the amazing Mr. Steve Ditko. Honestly, John Byrne’s modernization of the early Spidey tales in Spider-Man: Chapter One was excellent.
With his “Ultimate” title and, now, Elektra, Bendis has firmly established himself as the writing equivalent of Ron Frenz. Bendis is now the “Super Adaptoid” of comics. However, Frenz version 2.0 is in dire need of repair, as Elektra is the work of an unoriginal and intellectual impoverished mind. Realistically, I can’t expect anything remotely related to characterization in this book; after all, the only important things about the characters are as follows.
Elektra is a scantily clad assassin whose costume includes a loose, flapping towel to cover her genitalia and another piece to cover the crack of her ass. Her breasts are impractically large for someone who must perform many impossible athletic feats. The men in her book are smug 20-somethings with nothing to say, but think that everything that they have to say is funny and/or witty (see Carson Daly or the cast of the American Pie movies). The established Marvel characters who will visit her book, as Nick Fury does this issue, need no characterization because they’re, well, they are who they are. Nick Fury is an icon, right?
Most of the dialogue in the first issue belongs to a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who is the antithesis of interesting and engaging. He is dull and witless, and it’s not just that he talks too much; his conversations amount to the buzzing of flies. The character is undoubtedly Bendis himself – college and pop culture educated – and possessing of nothing of substance worth conversing to another person.
Chuck Austen, this series' “artist,” uses a computer to model and to produce his work. Much of the art in this issue amounts to poor, stiff renderings and copies of Frank Miller’s work on Elektra, the way Rob Liefeld’s drawings are poor, stiff pencil renderings of Miller and Art Adams' work. Austen's drawings are awkward and clumsy; it’s the work of a mentally challenged man who apparently has never seen people. He draws people as if he were an artist with an arthritic hand who bases his figures on the crayon cave drawings of the Neanderthals of La La Land. If you think that I am being harsh, you are wrong. Harsh is the splash page on page 39 of the book, the one with Elektra leaping the table. ‘Nuff said.
F
0 out of 4 stars
Re-edited: Sunday, June 29, 2025
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