Credits:
Writer: Larry Hama (all)
Artist: Mike Deodato, Jr. (all)
Inker: Scott Koblish (all)
Letterer: Jack Morelli
Colorist: Christine Scheele
Assistant Editor: Polly Watson (all)
Editor: Bobbie Chase (all)
Editor in Chief: Bob Harras (all)
General comment: Things go from terrible to even worse here. It was a very large tragedy that after the series was slated for cancellation, the creative team did less than nothing to save it. They were merely going through the motions of it all. The Zen and enlightenment that made the series good in the beginning is woefully missing here.
Issue #15: �The Dark Castle�
Story: Elektra stows away a cargo ship bound to Japan, and when she gets there, she is met by assassins of the hand. After defeating a bunch of Hand ninjas, Elektra runs into the Silver Samurai, who informs her that she is wanted for murder in New York. Elektra tells him she�s been in a cargo hold for three weeks while these murders took place. The Silver Samurai then takes Elektra to Yukio, who knows where the valley between Wrath and Mercy is, and will take her there. Also with them is Amiko, the adopted daughter of Wolverine. After they talk for a little, Yukio sends Amiko on an errand. However, Amiko betrays them and tells the Hand that Elektra and Yukio are headed to the valley of Mercy and Wrath.
Once there they are attacked by the Hand, whom they defeat. Yukio then knows a secret passage into the citadel, which she shows Elektra. While going down the passage, Elektra recounts to Yukio the last issue�s events. Suddenly the lamp goes out; the Hand is onto her. Elektra uses an old trick of balancing her sword on its scabbard while she holds a leather strap in her mouth to find her way. Elektra finds an assassin, and kills him. Since the members of the Hand burn when they die, Elektra and Yukio easily dispatch the other ninjas. They enter the citadel at the place where the Hand revived Kuroyama. Yukio scoffs at them being able to raise the dead, but Elektra tells her they did it with her. A door opens then Elektra is faced with a challenge: a ninja named Bizen who wields an axe. He stands on a bunch of tall poles and tells her the only way out is through him. Elektra fights him for awhile, and with the help of Yukio, defeats Bizen. In the end Yukio tells Elektra that she suspected the Five (the heads of the Hand) were seen going to Hong Kong...
My take on this: Bad, bad, bad. Elektra�s been wanted before, and has used air travel (in Wolverine #106.) So why didn�t she this time? Secondly, pages 2-3 sure make the inside of that minivan look very big. Page 4 has a plot hole bigger than the moon in it. Elektra�s about to get killed (being held down by one of the Hand assassins while another swings a sword at her) but they don�t show how she gets out of it! Then the article the Silver Samurai shows her starts out o.k., but the most readable print in it is a bunch of gobbledygook! Then if that wasn�t enough to swallow, the Silver Samurai tells her that he knows her �only by reputation.� Well, Elektra�s reputation is supposed to be one of a cold, bloodthirsty killer. The Silver Samurai doesn�t seem to indicate this, and he seems to trust her... Then there�s Amiko. What�s her motivation for betraying Yukio, other than Wolverine killed her parents? The whole thing is just unbelievable. Next Yukio asks why the ninjas burn when they die. According to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Yukio was once in the Hand... Then Yukio could have told Elektra that she thought the Five were seen going to Hong Kong in the beginning and saved all this assault on the valley of Mercy and Wrath business....
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Issue #16: �And Ne�er the Twain Shall Meet�
Story: Arriving in Hong Kong, Elektra goes into a seedy dive of a bar call Shelly�s, however, on the sign, the ses and the y are burned out, making it read hell. Elektra clears the place out by mentioning the Five, except for one person. That man is Shang-Chi, the master of kung fu. Using his chopsticks, he grabs a fly out of the air and scoffs at Elektra. Elektra demonstrates her ability by decapitating the fly Shang-Chi holds in his chopsticks. Elektra accuses Shang-Chi of being an agent of the Hand, and throws her sais at him. The sais stick in the table. Shang-Chi kicks the table, then the sais fly back to Elektra. Elektra then tells Shang-Chi she knows he�s been spying on her in New York. Together they sail to a remote pleasure boat, and Elektra recounts to Shang-Chi what has happened in the last few issues. Once there Elektra and Shang-Chi are attacked by Si Fan ninjas. After defeating them, Elektra and Shang-Chi enter the place to find the Kingpin smoking a cigar. He tells them that the Five were there, but already left. The Kingpin goes on to show Elektra that she has some kind of doppelganger impersonating her, and killing people.
Elektra returns to New York to enter a business that was a front for a rival gang muscling in on the Kingpin�s turf. She goes into find that someone else has attacked, and killed several people with sais. She realizes the killer is there, and narrowly dodges a sai. She then finds out that the killer is Nina McCabe, who tells her they put what the Hand stole from Elektra in her....
My take on this: Sad, terrible, and even worse. From the opening in Hong Kong, it goes downhill from there. Can anyone really swallow that Elektra throws her sais into the table, Shang-Chi kicks the table, the sais magically remove themselves from the table, reverse direction, and come straight back to Elektra? Let�s not even get into the plate of Chinese noodles that Shang-Chi throws into the air all this time, and they come back down more or less together.... Then Shang-Chi seems to be catching Thoritis (talking in Shakespearean English.) And the Kingpin seems mighty calm for someone facing Elektra. I don�t understand why Elektra has too hard a time realizing that the Hand resurrected Nina. They did it to her, you know, and she told this to Yukio a mere one issue ago...
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Issue #17: �The Circle Unbroken�
Story: Elektra can�t seem to believe that Nina has been resurrected. She tries to come up with excuses of why she sees Nina now. They fight awhile, then Kuroyama enters. He tells Elektra he wants to kill her so that he can bring her back again, this time with the hand of a demon on her, so that she will obey the Hand completely. Elektra defeats Nina by cutting her headband without scratching Nina. Nina realizes that she�s been played for a sap and is stunned. Kuroyama attacks Elektra, and is about to kill her when Nina interferes. The three of them go tumbling out the window, but Elektra manages to catch Kuroyama�s sickle and save herself and Nina. Stick then appears and tells Elektra that what the Hand withheld they put into Nina. Nina then swings up to a ledge and saves herself and Elektra. In the end, Elektra takes Nina climbing up the wall...
My take on this: The cover erroneously lists Peter Milligan as the writer. They make a different huge blunder here, then point it out!! It�s terrible that they�re wasting a good group of characters like Elektra and Nina here. Why can�t Elektra accept the fact that the Hand can raise the dead? Because of stupidity. Peter Milligan would never have written something this lame. Elektra would never be in such denial. And there�s a scene of mass killing, carnage, and other destruction going on in this place. Where are the police? You�d think someone would have called them by the time Kuroyama entered (then again, it is New York...) Stick�s callousness is just plain dumb and out of character for him. He tempts her into doing something wrong, which is not the way of the sage. In a way it�s a good thing that this series only lasted two more issues, as who knows what kind of horridness would have happened after that...
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Issue #18: �Going Home�
Story: Elektra and Nina continue their ascent up the Wall. Nina slips and falls onto a ledge. She wants to stop, but Elektra tells her that she shouldn�t. They get to the top, and Stick helps Nina up, then tells Elektra she is unworthy of being at the temple. He casts her down the slope and she falls on a ledge.
Waking up in Greece, she is at her childhood home. They then flashback to the time when Elektra was 9, and she killed a plant by accident. Starvos tells her that it was in their care, and it was a living thing. She counters with �we kill the weeds, don�t we?� He tells her that they should take no pleasure in such an act. He plants another tree in its place, along with a dead fish to remind them �of the fisher of men.� They go into Starvos� past, showing how he was known as the �Exterminating angel� in World War II. One evening, Christina shows up at the hideout of Starvos, and tries to kill him. Later we see Elektra being accosted by two terrorists, one intent on killing her. Starvos kills that man, then turns to Theo, the other one. Elektra stops Starvos from killing him, and instead Starvos raises Theo as his own son.
Starvos then tells Elektra the third story of how her mother died. It seems she was in a doctor�s office in town during the partition. Being a Cypriot, a northern Turk, the doctor wasn�t accepted to freely in Crete. Terrorists attacked, killing the doctor and taking others hostage. Christina tries to disarm them with words, but one of the terrorists shoots her in the heart. Dying, Christina gets a gun and holds the men at bay until the police arrive. Elektra was born on the clinic floor while Starvos held her dying mother.
My take on this: They accept Nina, who has evil put into her, and reject Elektra, who is the good one!?!?!?!? Come on!!!! Stick and the Chaste would NEVER be this stupid. One of the most divine commands is that nobody is beyond redemption. Stick as a sage would know this. Put the nose and makeup on him, and you could have passed him off as a clown.
One bright point in this dismal story is the story of the tree. It was first mentioned in Wolverine #102, back when Elektra shined. �The fisher of men� is a biblical metaphor for the apostles, as Jesus said that they were fishermen, but would become fishers of men. This means he had chosen them to save the souls of others around them. The story is to tell her that death is never a good thing, and that killing is never something that should be enjoyable. All the while they show Starvos killing, you can tell he�s not enjoying it. It�s not his true nature. Sadly, things turn bad again when they tell of the death of Christina Natchios. Blatantly disregarding continuity (her death was first shown in Elektra: Assassin #1 then again in Root of Evil #3) they try to portray Christina as a savior and not a sleaze. Assassin #1 and Root of Evil #3 are similar to each other. They have Orestez, Elektra�s brother, hiring people to kill his mother. She is on a beach relaxing with Hugo in Assassin #1 and on a boat relaxing in Root of Evil #3. In both places, she�s wearing a bikini. Here She is wearing a long, green dress, and nowhere near the beach. Root of Evil #3 implied that Christina was something of a loose woman, so it�s possible that Starvos and she were lovers.
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Issue #19: �A Promise to Keep�
Story: Recapping the last few issues, Elektra finds herself in her gutted apartment again. After a considerable amount of angst, Elektra sees an apparition of Stick. He doesn�t talk to her, but merely points at the door. Climbing the stairs is an acolyte of the Chaste. He�s got 5 arrows in his back and a scar on his face, courtesy of the Hand. He tries to kill Elektra, and fails. He then tells her about how the Chaste has fallen. It seems that Nina let members of the Hand into the Chaste�s citadel, and there Kuroyama slaughtered every chaste member like cattle. He tells Elektra with his dying words that she must reestablish the Chaste without giving into revenge. Just as the acolyte dies, some hired thugs enter and try to attack Elektra. Killing one and disarming the other, she forces him to tell her that the Kingpin has put out a contract on her. She leaves him and goes out. Next she�s on the street, and we see via a television in an electronics store that Elektra is also wanted by the police. Also Mac was seriously injured in an attack by the Hand, and the police believe that Elektra is responsible. Elektra asks Stick for answers, but there are none. Just then Nina and Kuroyama come riding in on motorcycles, and Nina tells her that they have called the police who are on their way. Elektra narrowly escapes getting shot by the police. In the end she is left broken, alone, and without anyone to help her...
My take on this: While the series is put out of its misery, Elektra isn�t. Recapping what has been previously told is an old pro trick for getting out of having to write something. Last issues have been traditionally set aside to wrap up all loose plot ends, and put everything together again. That, alas, didn�t happen here, although it should have. Are we to believe that the member of the Chaste somehow journeyed from Japan to New York with 5 arrows in his back, bleeding profusely and is still able to climb those stairs? Come on!!! If he could teleport, why didn�t he teleport straight to Elektra? I also cannot accept that Nina would be able to hide her evil intentions so easily from the Chaste. Even magical spells are detectable. And never you mind that the Chaste was supposed to have several places around the world....This is just plain stupid, and not what the readers (what few were left) wanted at all. (Then again, this is the same comic book company that cancelled Excalibur despite massive protests, Fired Peter David as writer of the Hulk after people said they shouldn�t, then also cancelled Alpha Flight. And people wonder why the comic part is dangerously close to being in the red...) Pathetic is an inadequate word to describe it all; it�s way beyond that.
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