Ultimate
Elektra
I’m
not old enough to be one of those comic book traditionalists.
You know the type: the ones that tout about the glory of comics
when Lee was writing and Kirby was drawing, the ones that
love nothing more than to see Neal Adams' or Steve Ditko’s
name on the credits page. While I have a great amount of respect
for the artists of these times, and by proxy their fans, I
remind myself that these people are also the ones that sponsor
utterly insipid campaigns like the “Bring Back Hal”
Green Lantern debacle that haunts any current artist seeking
to reinvent or reinvigorate a title. I grew up reading in
the 90s, where the small press became a little less small
and the big three started to branch out and get far more creative
than in passed years. Suffice it to say, I do not fear and
even prefer something new at my comic book shop.
But
oddly enough, I find that I’ve never really been interested
in the Ultimate line from Marvel Comics. It may stem from
a lack of interest in characters I already know or it may
be a sub-conscious response to wanting artists to find a
way to make the existing books good, but I’m just
not a follower. But I have read some Ultimatized material:
I’m fan enough of The Ultimates and I read
Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra, and it is a good
thing that I read the latter, because without having done
so I’m sure I would have been incredibly lost in reading
the recent title from the revamp line, Ultimate Elektra.
Probably
meant to coincide with the release of the movie, Marvel
collected and put out this graphic novel written by Mike
Carey with artwork by Salvador Larroca. With names like
that attached to the title, I would have expected a rather
outstanding book. I was faintly disappointed to find a merely
decent one.
The
story follows the events almost directly proceeding Ultimate
Daredevil & Elektra, in which the characters met,
fell in love, had a fight, and broke up. I’m not reviewing
those four issues, but I did find it a good story that presented
an interesting alternative to the origin of the characters
and their initial tryst, but was also a pretty well structured
story about college life and the darker side of it. The
point in mentioning it lies in the fact that you really
must have read the first series in order to understand this
new attempt by Carey, which seems contrary to the idea that
Ultimate is supposed to attract new fans from the younger
reading community. Also, without at least a cursory understanding
of the characters’ various histories from regular
continuity, the reader might not catch all the nuances or
references that Carey drops.
Which
is not to say that Carey hasn’t put in a valiant effort;
the story itself, while not entirely creative, is a continuance
of the origin of both characters. Carey places subtle hints
as to the characters' futures throughout the script. The
groundwork is laid out for Matt Murdock to avoid criminal
defense and focus on philanthropic litigating and helping
the little guy when Matt sees the corruption of one law
firm. The potential for Elektra to leave a righteous path
and fall into the world of sword-for-hire seems very plausible
from the events that take place.
Even
the Daredevil/Kingpin relationship has its beginning here,
and if the series continues we’ll likely see the maturation
of the much of the Ultimate Daredevil continuity
take place, not just Elektra’s. It’s good set-up
on the part of Carey, but it really is just set-up and at
times it is rather bland. Elektra’s motivations are
all derived from her father’s financial situation,
for which she feels responsible and while this is understandable,
gone is that nearly sociopathic streak that made her such
an interesting character that was nailed so succinctly by
Frank Miller in Man Without Fear. Matt Murdock’s
relationship with Elektra is so sterile that its hard to
believe these characters care about each other at all. And
Bullseye…they named the poor bastard Poindexter, which
may be his original alias, but there are some things that
we need to remember about our comic book history, and then
there’s things we need to forget. Like Brother Power
or that comic about Pope John Paul II.
I like
the fact that they tapped Salvador Larroca, the original
artist from the miniseries, to come back to launch the book
because it's nice when an artist can stay with a title.
I like Larroca’s work, but I’ve noticed that
he tailors his style differently to each title he works
on. In Thunderbolts and Lone Wolf 2100,
Larroca’s work was more suggestive. The sizes and
placements of the characters were somewhat more fluid, and
his character designs were much more interesting. This may
be an editorial factor, but his art here is good, just not
very animated.
Don’t
get me wrong; Larroca has some very well choreographed fights
in UE, and certainly understands how to set up
his panels to create space in the boxes, making the characters
look like they have more than 8 ½ by 11 to move around
in, but much of the story is talking heads stuff and plot
driven dialogue. Here, Larroca slows down his style to accommodate
and ends up sucking the energy out of the scene. Also, his
character design is plain, which is more a result of the
fact that neither character is “in costume”
at this point in their superhero career, Elektra only just
barely getting a character design nod at the end (which
may be the most impractical outfit for fighting I’ve
ever seen, clearly meant to produce a Tara Reid-like nipple
slip at any time).
If you’re
shoring up your Ultimate Marvel collection, or were a big
fan of the miniseries, this is the book for you, but new
readers will be lost in this continuity dependent story
and casual readers of Daredevil may just be bored.
This is another example of a comic that had all the artistic
talent needed to be a really good comic, but ended up failing
in execution. For $11.99, you can decide for yourself, and
let's applaud Marvel for finally putting out cheaper books.
And by cheaper I meant price.
Editor's
Note: As always, the opinions expressed by Mr. Sparling
are his own. We reserve the right to beat him with a copy
of Essential Amazing Spider-Man vol. 1 until he admits that
Ditko is a god.
Ultimate
Elektra Volume 1: Devil's Due
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