Spinning out of Chip Zdarksy’s epic, frantic run on the main Daredevil series, Elektra’s turn as Daredevil has been an inspired, compelling take on the character. Forced to subscribe to Matt Murdock’s beliefs, Elektra has chaffed against the moral constraints of her role, giving the character a good degree of natural interior friction. It is this dissonance between her central character and her faith in change that makes the take on the character so interesting.
Marvel
Daredevil: Woman Without Fear—Bloody Reunion seems uninterested in all that. Filled with nonstop Daredevil-style action and Elektra-level intrigue, the book bleeds brutality and conflicts with minor villains, but it doesn’t exactly ooze crisis of character.
Setting out to save a young girl she has all but adopted – a girl “abducted” in the first issue – Elektra finds herself in Madripoor, Marvel’s hive of scum and villainy. The characters she’s got to bounce off of are prodigious, classic: Crossbones attacks her on the train, and Silvermane and Count Nefaria play a minor role in the proceedings.
Marvel
The weakness of the story is that there barely is one: the ‘abducted’ girl has not been abducted by supervillains, but by a legal guardian Elektra took no effort to find. This undermines not only the proceeding action of the story but Elektra’s motivations and skill – if she goes off to Madripoor half-cocked on of some (very) bad information, what sort of world-class, skilled assassin might she be?
The series also takes a chance to play with the new Punisher but, as with much of the story, his motivations are not explored beyond the most basic level: Punishers hate crimes, criminals, and the underworld. That’s all we need to know, and that’s all we’ll get.
Marvel
It’s the non-stop action of the book that saves it, along with artists Michael Dowling and Ivan Fiorelli’s gritty commitment to it. Elektra’s martial skills are never in doubt as she flips, dodges, and flings her grappling sai; colorist Dee Cunniffe layers in a haze and color to Madripoor that makes the city unique from Elektra’s New York.
Ultimately, Bloody Reunion is a book made up of mismatched parts – a couple-page inclusion of the Power Broker here, a corrupt casino there. It’s a stew of action without the spice of character at a junction when Elektra’s role as Daredevil might just need it.
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