Not quite. But she will be in eight issues.
It’s really hard to write about grief in “regular” books, but in a comic about a guy who runs around in red spandex, it’s even harder. Frank Miller does a good job here showing Matt’s grief over Elektra’s death.
He’s convinced she can’t be dead, so he actually digs up her body to be sure.
Yep, that’s a dead Elektra all right. He also goes and beats up some of Kingpin’s guards because Elektra worked for Kingpin and, hey, why not? Violence and anger are a good way to work out your shit, you know?
After this issue, Miller’s run begins to wind down—but he has Daredevil becoming increasingly crazy. I like that—I mean, you’d think that beating people up all night and then trying to solve legal problems with your mind all day would create some fragility, then to have Elektra die, it makes sense he’d snap.
Meanwhile, Punisher is not making friends in prison.
That’s Bullseye he’s talking to.
On the action side of the book, Punisher has a great naked towel prison fight before being released from prison by a black op part of the government that really likes how he kills bad guys.
During the escape, we see that Turk and his buddy Grotto are in the same prison. Turk grabs the ladder after Punisher and has a typical Turk result…
Miller’s use of Turk–a nonpowered street dweller who really, really, really, wants to be a part of the super-charged crime scene in New York gives readers–who are also nonpowered–another way “in” to these stories. Yes, he’s a criminal. Yes, he’s funny. He’s also relatable.
He tracks down some drug sellers. Kills them. Then decides to trace where their drugs went. The Punisher story gets deeper next time. Much deeper. And it’s awesome.
This issue also develops what turns out to be a pretty brutal subplot involving Heather Glenn, who inherited a multi-million dollar company from her father and is now dating Matt Murdock. Over time, the corrupt Board of Directors will try to push her out of the company, and Murdock will do some pretty dirty deeds to manipulate her into marrying him. It shows his bloodthirsty sexual side, which is something that started here with Miller but was brought out vividly later—especially during Brian Michael Bendis’ run.
Murdock’s “Bloodthirsty sexual side”?? Manipulating Heather Glenn into MARRYING him?? Holy lowering of standards! If Murdock was hot to get married around this time, why Heather Glenn, of all women??? Murdock has bagged chicks in his time that made Heather Glenn look SICK!! Karen Page, Elektra Natchios, certainly the Black Widow, and, my personal favorite DD cutie, Candace Nelson, all come immediately to mind, with no effort! These revelations make me wish I were paying more attention to ‘Daredevil’ comics at the time! I’m sure trying to round up these forty year old Frank Miller back issues would be cost-prohibitive, to say the very least. That’s too bad. I did purchase and read this particular issue at the time, however, and I must concede that the sequence where Murdock digs up Elektra out of her grave was positively chilling. It’s some small miracle that Murdock escaped legal prosecution over this deed. There WAS a witness, after all. The cover to this issue is one of the greatest comic-book covers of all time. You can actually feel the grief radiating from Murdock. This iconic scene foreshadows the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s nerve-wracking tendency to portray their superheroes without their masks on. As with most Marvel movie characters, there is absolutely no logical reason why DD shouldn’t be wearing his cowl in this scene, for reasons of warmth if nothing else! That graveyard looks COLD as HELL. I agree with the rating given on this issue- “A+”, indeed! Excelsior!