Ultimate Elektra Hardcover Review

Verdict: Unless you're a 12-year-old boy who's just discovered the joy of jerking off, avoid Ultimate Elektra. On the other hand (pun so intended), if you are a 12-year-old boy, have at it. I'm sure the creators worked very hard to produce this material. Someone might as well enjoy it.

Collects Ultimate Elektra #1-5
Writer: Mike Carey
Artist: Salvadore Larocca

Elektra Natchios can only stand by as her father makes a deal with his cousins Paul and Leander to rebuild the family's laundromat business. But what her father doesn't know is that the Natchios brothers, members of an organized crime unit, hope to "launder" the money earned from their criminal life. All goes south when Kenneth Cullen, the Natchios brothers' book keeper, turns in state evidence.

Elektra makes a bargain: she will recover the evidence for her cousins in return for her father's financial freedom. She impersonates a call girl so that she can get close enough to get the job done (no pun intended), just in time to see Kenneth Cullen killed by Benjamin Poindexter (Ultimate Bullseye) who was sent by the Kingpin.

All I can say is, Who gives a shit?

For the entire five-issue arc I could do nothing but wish that things would just come to an abrupt end. It's not that the trade is poorly written or rendered (it's certainly not), it's that I don't care about Elektra's father's laundromat, or his two cousins. Why should I?

For the life of me I can't understand why a talented, creative guy like Mike Carey would relegate himself to something so pedestrian.

Ultimate Elektra felt disjointed from its Ultimate Daredevil & Elektra predecessor. UD&E had a lighter, slightly naive tone that worked really well, but Ultimate Elektra jumped its heroine too quickly into the world of Fisk and company.

Honestly, the entire premise seemed like a prolonged setup for dressing Elektra in a whore's uniform (not that she doesn't already).

The book features some fun cameos by familiar villains (Bullseye and Kingpin), but these are momentary thrills and any excitement they create is quickly buried under irrelevance and tedium.

Unless you're a 12-year-old boy who's just discovered the joy of jerking off, avoid Ultimate Elektra. On the other hand (pun so intended), if you are a 12-year-old boy, have at it. I'm sure the creators worked very hard to produce this material. Someone might as well enjoy it.