WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Daredevil #27, by Chip Zdarsky, Marco Checchetto, Mike Hawthorne, Adriano Di Benedetto, Marcio Menyz & VC's Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
Training since she was a young child in a variety of lethal arts and techniques, Elektra Natchios is one of the deadliest figures in the Marvel Universe. While she's often toed the line between good and evil, Elektra has replaced Matt Murdock as the new Daredevil of Hell's Kitchen while the original Man Without Fear is locked away in a maximum-security prison.
And in Daredevil #27, she quickly displays some of her incredible abilities to evade Knull's grasp as the crossover event King in Black sweeps across New York City which just manages to save her own life.
After Matt accepted a plea deal for manslaughter he accidentally committed on a petty criminal while serving as Daredevil, Elektra agreed to replace him as the latest defender of Hell's Kitchen after quietly buying up most of the real estate for herself to keep it away from unscrupulous buyers. While Elektra defended the Manhattan neighborhood with brutal efficiency, she agreed to Matt's request from refraining to use lethal force as she continued his legacy while he was locked up. And in this change in crimefighting policy is put to the rest as Knull's ravenous symbiotes invade Hell's Kitchen led by a monstrously transformed familiar face: Typhoid Mary.
Mary had been forcibly transformed into Knull's latest symbiote soldier while serving on Mayor Wilson Fisk's security detail. While successful in getting the Mayor the time he needed to escape Knull's initial onslaught, Mary was overwhelmed by symbiotes and transformed. Resisting Knull's telepathic commands, Mary embraced her dark side and went directly to Hell's Kitchen for a chance to kill the new Daredevil, going as far as to fight any of Knull's other symbiotes that got in her way. And while Elektra put up a valiant effort, after luring Mary out of the neighborhood into an abandoned construction site, she realized she didn't stand a chance against the Venomized Mary and decided to stop her own heart to feign death.
This is far from the only time Elektra's heart has stopped beating but one of the first instances where the move is self-inflicted. Elektra's first encounter with death was fighting against Bullseye in 1982's Daredevil #181 by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson, stabbed with her own sai before dying as she reunited with Matt. While resurrected by Stone, an expert martial artist linked to Matt's mentor Stick, Elektra would die again sometime later by The Hand and resurrected as their leader during the classic Wolverine 2004 storyline "Enemy of the State" by Mark Millar, John Romita, Jr. and Janson. Since then, Elektra had largely kept to herself before allying with Daredevil once more.
Elektra's heart-stopping technique is, of course, only temporary, timed just long enough for Elektra to revive herself after the infected Typhoid Mary has left the scene; with the transformed supervillain now partaking in the overall mayhem of King in Black. Knull and his army have been tricked by Elektra's prodigious control over her own heart but, with the symbiotes still running amuck all over the Marvel Universe, this death-defying technique is only a short reprieve before the invaders realize their mistake. And with Typhoid Mary still very much infected and on the loose, a potential rematch will not be pretty.