Elektra Tpb (Marvel Knights)

Rating:
Summary: Good writing, horrid art
Review: Brain Michael Bendis is one of today's greats.
His work on Alias, Ultimate Spider-man, Daredevil, Powers, Ultimate X-Men - not to mention his past works (Jinx, Goldfish, Sam & Twitch, etc. etc.) - is fantastic. He's a constant main-stay at the top of the charts AND he's a fan-favorite.
I was very excited when he was put on to bring back the Elektra title, especially on "Marvel Knights," with it's slightly harder edge.
I don't want to give away the story, but it basically gives insight into Elektra, an assassin-for-hire and an the interesting tale of the scorpion key. Her character has Daredevil roots, but you won't find daredevil as a character in this story. This is about her, and her post-mortem journey (she was killed with her own sai, and yet came back...). The story starts off pretty nicely, but later on, you get disconnected from Elektra's character. Overall, it's a good story - one that I would give four stars.
This is a graphic novel, a collection of comic books - a visual medium with equal importance to art as writing. The story is good. The art however, is absolutely horrid. Chuck Austen is currently the writer on many books, including Uncanny X-Men, Captain America, Superman: Metropolis, The Eternal, etc. He's known as a mediocre writer, with occasionally good stories. Personally, I like some of his stories, while hating others (i.e. - Endangered Species). However, he does the art on Elektra (as he did on U.S. War Machine - except this time with Colors), and his art (if you can call it that) is disgusting. Think Ugly, misshapen Barbie dolls. There is no passion, no emotion in his pencils and his inability to draw (even with computer assistance) at the calibre one comes to expect from professionals takes away from the book, especially considering how beautiful Greg Horn's covers are. The art gets two stars (with a BIG bump from the covers... Austen alone would barely deserve half a star).
So this book overall gets 3 stars. If you really want to get to know Elektra a little bit, maybe check out some of Frank Miller's work first, he's done a couple of quintessential Elektra stories. This book is good and worth buying only if you can get over the art.

Rating:
Summary: Great writing overshadowed by some very lacking art
Review: Don't let the eye popping cover art fool you, the art contained in Elektra: The Scorpion Key is very lacking to say the least. Chuck Austen (current writer of Uncanny X-Men, and writer/artist for U.S. War Machine) has never been anywhere near solid as an artist before he became an exclusive writer, and it shows here in this book collecting the first few issues of Elektra relaunched under the Marvel Knights banner. Brian Michael Bendis (Daredevil, Alias, Ultimate Spider-Man) has a very well crafted story here, but the disfigured art drags it down. Were it not for Bendis' stellar (as usual) writing, this book wouldn't be worth reading, but if you can get past Austen's art, this is worth reading for Elektra and Daredevil readers.

Rating:
Summary: Solid work from Greg Rucka
Review: I'm a big fan of Greg Rucka. I read virtually everything he writes. The introspective and attentive nature of his works appeals to me. That being said, I found this Elektra trade to be extremely entertaining, although not as good as his work on Whiteout or Queen and Country. I was somewhat let down by the inconsistent art, but in the world of serial comics, you can't always do anything about that. Those who dismiss the work as trite or "out of character", in only my humble opinion, only want characters to "be" a certain way, and don't allow for the changes and doubts that people, and characters, go through. The idea that someone, at a low point in their life, would begin to question their actions or purpose, is a concept almost all can relate to.

Rucka's writing is excellent. The art is also good, if somewhat inconsistent. 4 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Elektra-fying
Review: Ninja-for-hire, Elektra, once killed by Daredevil's greatest foe returns in ELEKTRA: THE SCORPIO KEY. In the past, she had been the world's most feared assassin. In the past, she had been Daredevil's lover. In the past, she had been killed only to rise again. The story opens with Elektra confronting the man who killed her father. She holds the guy at sai-point and begins telling him a story, letting him know she isn't going to kill him--yet. She tells him how the story began a week ago in Paris, how she was approached by S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Stanley Dreyfuss and commissioned to assassinate Saddam Abed Dasam, ruler of Iraq, and steal an ornate box adorned with two black scorpions poised to lash out with their tails. Of course, there is a kicker, HYDRA, the evil organization that constantly wars against S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Western powers, lurks in the shadows. Elektra turns the offer down flat until she is personally contacted by Colonel Nick Fury, legendary World War II hero and rough-and-tough agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Even when talking to Nick Fury face-to-face, Elektra is reluctant to take the deal, in spite of Fury's offer to erase her record and take her off the Most Wanted list. Only when she finds out the true stakes of the high-level espionage capter--the fabled Scorpio Key--does Elektra swing into action. And her decisions are not going to be popular with the people trying to manipulate her.

Brian Michael Bendis is a very popular writer among legions of comic book fans. In addition to creating and writing his award-winning series, POWERS, he also regularly scripts ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, ALIAS, and DAREDEVIL. All of his work is fast-tracked into the graphic novel format. Chuck Austen is a good artist and has done work on U.S. WAR MACHINE, but has recently taken over the writing chores on UNCANNY X-MEN. The colorist, Nathan Eyring, developed a style over the books that was simply amazing.

Bendis' dialogue, as always with any project he touches, was great and lent itself to explosive artistic rendering. Even the scene where Elektra held Stanley at bay in Paris with the sai under the table showed the motion and the action about to break loose. The action sequences detailed by Austen are absolutely mesmerizing, and--at times--chilling in their execution (literally!) and raw savagery. In Austen's capable hands, Elektra becomes a poetess of death. Nick Fury comes through as the character most Marvel Comics fans know and love. He's tough and irascible, totally devoted to his view of the world and what should be done in it. Nathan Eyring performed an outstanding display of colors, shading mood, action, and suspense with a skill seldom seen in the comics format.

As good as Bendis is, he was a little loose on this graphic novel. Elektra begins by offering a story that lets the reader inside her mind and heart, but by the fourth section of the story, she is distant from the reader, only a series of images played out against a series of media interviews. The fifth chapter keeps Elektra distant, making the reader guess what she is feeling and thinking when there was so much more in the beginning. Also, the twist with Stanley's true nature was totally unexpected and seemed almost to come out of left field although it was planned. The final chapter in the graphic novel really doesn't mesh well with the first five that complete a whole story, but the inclusion helps Elektra fans keep the series all together in trade paperback format.

ELEKTRA: THE SCORPIO KEY is recommended for fans of Bendis' and Austen's work. Comics fans interested in the field of espionage and Elektra will also want to add this one to their collections. People who enjoy Ed Brubaker's and Greg Rucka's writing will want to give Bendis a try if they've not encountered him before. He knows a lot of tricks as a writer, and he shows quite a few of them here.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but something's wrong
Review: This is a little bit of a departure for the character, as I suspect will be for the rest of the series. And to be quite honest, I'm not sure if she is the right character under the supposed description. Elektra kills, yes, but with good reason. According to Locke and the other characters that surround her, she kills relentlessly even if the person is not the intended target. That's not the Elektra Frank Miller created and crafted. Certainly not the Elektra Brian Michael Bendis provided depth for. This is also part of the problem towards the end of the story when Elektra makes a major confrontation with Locke.

I found this characterization of Elektra to be quite out of character. First time readers probably won't understand this as they have not read any of the previous stories from Miller and the story Bendis wrote that kicked off the Marvel Knights portion of the series. They will think of her the way the characters throughout describe her. And to be quite honest, that's not fair.

Aside from the characterization problem I had, Rucka provides some nice action at the mid point when Elektra is left in a desert and then picks off mercenaries who want to kill her. For those who don't know, Rucka has a martial arts background and uses some of that knowledge to make this scene wonderfully awesome. The illustrations by Carlo Pagulayan improve a little bit from how Chuck Austen illustrated under Bendis' writing. However, it would have been so much better had cover painter Greg Horn create the interiors. Oh well, at least Carlo did a nice job.

This edition includes a story from an issue of Marvel Knights: Double-Shot called "Trust". Rucka does much better with this story and the interiors are painted by Horn. If anything, this was a pleasure to read through and showed exactly the kind of hired assassin Elektra is. Stealthy and creative, using a murder weapon that no one would ever think of. Perhaps Rucka should look back on this story and milk the characterizations as opposed to the Elektra he used in the main story.

"Introspect" is a fine read, but I just can't get over the major characterization change that really doesn't fit her. I'm not sure if long time fans of the character will agree, but I will stand by my decision on this. First time readers will probably not understand what I'm talking about unless they read Daredevil Visionaries: Frank Miller Vol. 2 and the first six issues of the Marvel Knights edition of Elektra as written by Brian Michael Bendis. I have faith that the Rucka stories further down are better, but he appears to be off on a rather questionable start.