Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the moments posted so far!

Today we look at the Frank Miller-Bill Sienkiewciz mini-series, Elektra: Assassin...

Enjoy!

Elektra: Assassin was an eight-issue exercise in Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz just basically cutting loose. The series opens with Elektra in an insane asylum, dealing with the traumas of her life. Sienkiewicz uses a water color style that is out of this world bizarre, but awesome at the same time.

Check out some of her childhood memories...







The other major character in the series is Garrett, a SHIELD agent who Elektra almost kills (he is brought back by SHIELD's cybernetic division as a cyborg), but he soon gets caught up in her web.

Here we see Garrett's obsession with Elektra grow...







There's a great sequence where Garrett and Elektra are attacked by ninjas, and we also see the "big bad" of the series, the "Beast" - who is seeking to control the world by first getting its agent, Ken Wind, elected President of the United States (check out the Beast talking trash to Elektra as she's battling the ninjas)...









Here's a quick page showing you Ken Wind's involvement - SHIELD sends other agents after Garrett and Elektra, including one pyscho who ends up going off the reservation and joins the Beast....



Really, the whole series is more a satire of action books than anything else, making fun of the concept of super-ninjas and cyber-agents of SHIELD.

Released in the mid-80s, it was very much ahead of its time. As critically acclaimed as it was then, if it were released now I could see it being a big mainstream success.