 |
| Front cover of Elektra: Bloodlines TPB |
Score (out of 5 Capes)
2 out of 5 Capes for a beautiful book with an unpleasant and half-incoherent story.
My Review
My two-volume set collecting the complete run of the Marvel Comics 2014 Elektra series has been sitting on my must-read list for too long. Elektra is a complicated character in the Marvel universe, with lots of tragic back-story and twists, and I have been looking forward to reading this series since I scored the books on a discount rack.
It was not worth the wait, a disappointment in so many ways from cover to cover.
What was not a disappointment was the art. Michael Del Mundo's painted pages are breathtakingly beautiful. The reds, whether from Elektra's costume or the frequent sprays of blood, pop from the page; the ballet-esque movements of Elektra in particular but other combattants; the fluidity and swirl give the action sequences a life too often absent from more standard fare.
Under his brush, each battle becomes a dance. And there are many, many battles.
The set pieces of the covers are poster-ready images unto themselves. It is also a brilliant touch to have artist Bill Sienkiewicz offer a variant cover for issue #1, a nod to his breakthrough work on the classic Elektra: Assassin series from 1986.
Where this collection falls flat is in the story itself. Author Haden Blackman throws so many ideas, elements and twists into the mix, but they fail to click into a complete and coherent whole.
A 5-page introductory narrative anchors this Elektra series in her complex, varied and not always canonical history. The rest of the first chapter sets up the central conflict of this collection: Elektra accepts a contract and sets out to find Cape Crow, while the new villain Bloody Lips comes to the same pursuit from another, darker direction.
I will say more about Bloody Lips in the "What I didn't love" section below. Suffice to say he is a ruthless killer who feeds off his victims and, in eating part of them, absorbs their talents, abilities, even memories. He draws on this internalized library of skills to make short work of secret S.H.I.E.L.D. installations to finally arrive at his objective: the comatose Bullseye.
The hunt for Cape Crow takes both assassins to Monster Island, where Elektra encounters other bounty hunters from the Assassins Guild and, eventually, Cape Crow's son who, it turns out, put out the contract in the first place. So naturally they partner up.
From Monster Island to the underwater city of Shicheng and her first direct confrontation with Bloody Lips; to a telepathic encounter with her dead mother who is not all that she appears; to the far north of the Arctic Circle and some more confrontations with the Guild and Bloody Lips. Our heroine travels far, amid constant battles which she at times barely survives.
The final confrontation with Bloody Lips gives him exactly what he craves: a good taste of Elektra. Can he handle what comes with it?
It is an ambitious, far-reaching story that ultimately cannot support its own weight. There are too many moving pieces, too many nods to some aspect of Elektra's history or wider collection of characters. The result is a story that feels both too small and too big, ultimately falling apart amidst a loose collection of ideas, characters and past confrontations.
Die-hard and long-time Elektra fans, who have lived and breathed all aspects of her evolution and appearances, might find this an enthralling tale. But ultimately the story falls apart and we are left just with the pretty pictures. And whether in the Arctic snows or the underwater hues of blue, they are beautiful.
2 out of 5 Capes.
What I loved
 |
| Del Mundo's gorgeous painted art |
Michael Del Mundo's visuals are absolutely breath-taking.
Panel after panel, page after page, he gives us images of stunning beauty, a painter's master touch tying together the action and the dramatic revelations.
When the story switches to narrative mode, a too-frequent occurrence to cover some annoying gaps, Del Mundo seizes the opportunity to riff on the subject of the beautiful, deadly martial artist assassin. The results are one and two-page spreads like those excerpted here. So evocative of key moments in the character's history, all with a smooth, fluid visual appeal.
 |
| Beautiful, flowing, violent images |
As an assassin par excellence, Elektra's adventures are filled with violent, blade-filled battles. Lots of blood, stabbings, severings. Del Mundo incorporates even the most violent battles into his fluid style. Violence has seldom been so appealing to look at.
What I didn't love
 |
| Bloody Lips and his Eat-You Power |
The most prominent and powerful of Elektra's opponents in these pages is the awkwardly-named Bloody Lips. Other villains - Lady Bullseye, Scalphunter, the wider Assassins' Guild - come in and out of the story, but the psychotic killing machine Bloody Lips is the most troublesome.
If only there was something, anything, enjoyable about this new character.
His abilities span the range of powers, memories and knowledge of anyone he has bitten. Someone he has killed and from whose corpse he has eaten a larger portion, passes on more of their skills and abilities. But it seems even a little nibble of someone still living, or even licking their blood off a blade, is still able to impart at least some memories and skills.
It is a disgustingly unpleasant power. But what really irks is that it is not done particularly well.
It calls to mind the Images Comics series from a few years earlier (circa 2009), Chew, about a detective who could get psychic insights into murder victims by taking a bite of them. But while Chew at times had an almost sacramental feel, Bloody Lips embodies all the unpleasant aspects of this unusual power source without any balance or nuance. It leaves too much room for writer Blackman to fudge things and cut corners narratively, a temptation he embraces too often.
Related Reviews
Elektra book 2: Révérence (coming soon)
Quick Reference Details
Writers: Haden Blackman
Artists: Michael Del Mundo
Published By: Marvel Comics
Published When: Nov 18, 2014
Parental Rating: Teen
 |
| Back cover of Elektra: Bloodlines TPB |
No comments:
Post a Comment