In a break from Avengers covers, this time we have Daredevil 168, the first appearance of Elektra. Which, I think you could guess by now, means we’re getting the backstory of the Elektra Skrull. And it starts where you probably wouldn’t expect, with a recreation of Electro negotiating for the Raft breakout from the opening pages of New Avengers 1. And then, 4 years later, we see the other side of the table.
Pham’s art has this way of reading cool until you look for more than a second. To me. What face is Electro making in panel 2? Is he in one of those old “Wazzup?” commercials? Well, we zap back in time “several months” to Elektra meditating in Japan when she senses someone approach.
Skrullektra wearing a black suit to make it easier for us to tell them apart is very polite.
Ghost Riderlektra! Well, they keep on fightin until, rather surprisingly, Elektra kills the Skrull. Does she do so by recreating the scene where Bullseye killed her in the 80s? You bet! People can’t get enough of redoing that stupid panel! When her foe’s corpse turns into a Skrull, she is confused and disgusted, and burns it immediately. But she doesn’t get much of a break before a Daredevkrull and Skrullverine approach her. And the DD one has Cyclops’ eyebeams and Nightcrawler’s teleportation, and the Wolvie one has Mr. Fantastic’s stretchy powers. And Elektra still manages to kill them both, but then she’s taken down by a Skrull with Colossus and the Thing power. Brute force vs. ninja stuff. Then that one becomes Elektra. Which doesn’t totally line up with what we’ve been seeing, but whatever, because…
…this one’s not really meant to fool people for too long, it seems. A week later, the new Skrullektra saunters into a meeting of the newly allied Hydra & the Hand, kills the Hydra rep, and says the Hand should be ashamed of themselves.
So the real Elektra was never the leader of the Hand. That probably made some people happy. I assume that development was not pleasing to Elektra-heads. But it didn’t happen, so it’s all good.