ELEKTRA: GLIMPSE AND ECHO #1

By: Tony Whitt
Review Date: Tuesday, July 30, 2002

I've probably mentioned before how I never understood the appeal of Elektra. No? OK: I've never understood the appeal of Elektra. Is it the T&A quotient? We've certainly seen characters who have more of that. Is it the idea of a woman who can kick some serious ass? There are several of those in the Marvel Universe. Is it her whole "Dead Again" chic? It's hardly chic if Death in the Marvel Universe is nothing more than one big revolving door, is it? But Scott Morse may have pinned it down in the visually exciting ELEKTRA: GLIMPSE & ECHO.

While visiting the grave of her father, Elektra is attacked by a member of the Hand, the cult which made her into the assassin she is today, and is told to go see Rick at Moonshine's. There, before she even gets to see Rick, the bartender tells her the story of Black Cat Buddy Crawford, a horn player who died after trying to keep his son from being recruited by the Hand. The job that Rick has hired her for seems straightforward enough, but when the member of the Hand returns to advise her not to mess it up, she realizes there's something more to it.

It would be hard to talk about this book without immediately addressing the first thing even the most casual reader will notice: the visuals. You might expect the artwork of the former air director of such animated series as COW AND CHICKEN from the CARTOON NETWORK to be more...well, cartoony. But it's not - Morse's artwork is visually lush, calling to mind a mixture of the work of some of the best children's book illustrators like Leo and Diane Dillon and the works of Cubist Realists like Preston Dickinson and Charles Sheeler. (If I'm getting the style wrong, sorry - it's been a long time since that art appreciation class in undergrad. And for those who still aren't visualizing what I'm describing, think of that cool animated Gevalia Kaffe commercial, and you'll have a closer idea.) To put it bluntly, you've never seen anything like this in a comic book - unless, of course, you've read something by Morse before. It's more truthful to say that you'll never have seen Elektra like this before, and the high-art style depiction does wonders for the character.


And if Morse's taking a unique approach to the character artistically doesn't excite you, the approach he takes to Elektra as a person will. It's hard to imagine Elektra as created by Frank Miller talking to a kitty who's made a bed on her father's grave, or having a conversation with a bartender about a jazz musician her father used to love, but Morse makes both happen here. It's possibly the most human depiction of the character we've ever seen, and if this is the Elektra that Matt Murdock fell in love with back in college, it finally makes some sense. Don't think this means Morse's version is a kinder, gentler Elektra, though - the scene in which she dispatches the agent of the Hand quite...er, handily, is enough to remind us she's a dangerous woman, no matter how beautifully she's painted.

So, has Morse made me into an instant Elektra fan? Not quite. Has he gotten me interested enough to go buy issue number two? Oh yes.

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