When Elektra Natchios took over the role of Daredevil, the question on my mind was: “How long will this last?” Mainstream comics, whenever they introduce a big status quo shift, tend to keep it going for a few years at most before reverting back. But much to my surprise, Elektra has now spent a total of four years as Daredevil – and if Daredevil: Unleash Hell #1 is anything to go by, it opens up a lot of avenues that you couldn’t tackle with Matt Murdock.
Unleash Hell features Elektra doing what she does best: patrolling the streets of Hell’s Kitchen and doling out her brutal brand of justice to those who do wrong. But unbeknownst to her, Muse – the Inhuman artist who left a series of grisly “masterpieces” in his battles with Murdock – has risen from Hell itself. Even worse, he’s using his influence to possess others to carry out his work.
The big draw of Unleash Hell is probably the fact that it falls under Marvel’s new “Red Band” label, where darker characters like Blade and Werewolf by Night are free to spill all the blood and guts they want. The same can be said of Elektra: even though she’s folllowing Murdock’s dedication to never kill enemies, she deals out bloody retribution to them. Bones are shattered, jaws broken, and blood goes flying.
Marvel
This more brutal take on Daredevil comes courtesy of the creative team of Erica Schultz and Valentina Pinti. Neither are strangers to the violent side of Marvel: Pinti illustrated Bryan Hill’s run on Blade, which was chock-full of vampires and other creatures meeting their end at the Daywalker’s hands, while Schultz recently launched another female-led action thriller with Laura Kinney: Wolverine. They work together like a well oiled machine: Schultz’s script outlines Elektra’s inner thoughts while Pinti brings it to life in glorious fashion, accompanied by Dee Cunniffe’s piercing color art.
The bloodier parts aren’t just limited to Elektra’s fights. Anyone who remembers Charles Soule’s run on Daredevil won’t be surprised that Muse’s art looks like something out of a crime scene, and Pinti delivers on that front. But she also takes the time to showcase Elektra stitching herself together, lingering on bloodied wounds and thread. It’s a small, but significant moment that shows how Elektra, for all her skill, is only so human.
Toward the end of the book, the artwork shifts courtesy of Jose Luis, who draws Muse trapped in Hell. It’s not a pretty place: fire sprouts up everywhere, the ground is a cracked, bubbling pit of lava, and the canvas he paints on is a blood-soaked collection of blood and human skin. Normally, art shifts in comics tend to be jarring, but in Luis’ case it works to sell the horrors of hell.
Daredevil: Unleash Hell #1 delivers a blood-soaked, gripping read that makes the most of Marvel’s Red Band Format. It also is a great argument for keeping Elektra as Daredevil as the next ten years – or letting Schultz write her future adventures. Or both.
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