Deadpool 3 shocked comic book and film fans with the news that Jennifer Garner would be reprising her role as Elektra Natchios, which she previously played in Daredevil and Elektra, in the upcoming film. While the film had previously made headlines for bringing back Hugh Jackman in his iconic Marvel role of Logan/Wolverine the news about Garner was more surprising given the negative receptions her previous films received and her character’s involvement in their most famously mocked scenes. Given the self-aware humor employed by the Deadpool franchise it’s likely that Garner’s casting will be used as a way to poke fun at these receptions but while this may be amusing the character of Elektra also deserves to be taken seriously again in a future Marvel Cinematic Universe project. To achieve that, the franchise would be wise to bring back the superior live-action version of the character, the one played by Élodie Yung in the Daredevil Netflix series.
Who Is Elektra?
Created by Frank Miller, the comic book version of Elektra first appeared in Daredevil #168 in 1981. While tracking a criminal named Alarich Wallenquist Matt Murdock/Daredevil is shocked to encounter Elektra, who was using her ninja skills to work as a bounty hunter. Flashbacks revealed that the pair had been lovers while studying at Columbia University. When Elektra and her father, a Greek diplomat, were taken hostage by terrorists Matt attempted to rescue them, with Elektra using her own martial arts skills to assist in the fight. However, police snipers opened fire, accidentally killing Elektra’s father. His death caused her to lose faith in the world and she left Matt.
She briefly found peace with the ninja order known as the Chaste but their leader, Stick, feared that the combination of her anger and power made her a threat, and he exiled her. In an attempt to prove herself, Elektra planned to infiltrate and defeat the Chaste’s enemies, the Hand, but the death cult managed to manipulate and corrupt her, although she eventually managed to leave them. Further, disillusioned with the world, she took up work as a mercenary. Her criminal activities frequently brought her into conflict with Matt, but it was clear the two also still had strong feelings for one another, as demonstrated by Elektra risking her life to save Matt when he was targeted for assassination by the Hand.
Jennifer Garner Played Elektra in the ‘Daredevil’ Movie
Throughout Daredevil and into the beginning of Elektra the story of Garner’s version of the character follows that of the comics relatively closely, although the timing of certain events is changed. Elektra doesn’t meet Matt (Ben Affleck) until he is already a practicing lawyer and secretly operating as Daredevil, for example. The pair quickly fall in love, although Matt’s crime-fighting makes it hard for him to commit to their relationship. After Elektra’s father, Nikolas (Erick Avari), attempts to cut business ties with Wilson Fisk/the Kingpin (Michael Clarke Duncan) the latter has the assassin Bullseye (Colin Farrell) kill him. When Elektra attempts to take revenge Bullseye mortally wounds her with her own sai, just as in the comic book. However, after Matt defeats Bullseye and Fisk he finds a braille necklace left on his apartment roof, recalling a conversation he had with Elektra, implying that she is still alive.
Flashbacks in Elektra reveal that she was resurrected by Stick (Terence Stamp), who later began instructing her in the mystical martial art Kimagure. Like in the comic he eventually casts Elektra out. The film’s present-day storyline is where it began to veer wildly away from the source material. Now a mercenary assassin, Elektra is hired to kill a father, Mark Miller (Goran Višnjić), and his daughter Abby (Kirsten Prout) but instead befriends them and breaks her contract, going on the run with the pair to protect them from their would-be killers, who are revealed to be the Hand. The Hand want to capture Abby, who is a prophesied martial arts prodigy called “the Treasure”, to use her power for their own. After being rescued by Stick Elektra learns that he hired her, hoping she would break the contract, as part of an elaborate test of her character. She later kills the Hand agents who are pursuing Abby, including Kirigi (Will Yun Lee), the man who killed Elektra’s mother.
Who Was Elektra in the Netflix Marvel TV Show?
As shown in the Netflix series Daredevil Yung’s version of Elektra from the MCU was raised and trained by Stick (Scott Glenn) from an early age. Her ferociously violent tendencies led Stick to believe she was the Black Sky, a human weapon prophesied to lead the Hand. When another member of the Chaste discovered this, he wanted to kill her but Stick killed him and put Elektra in the care of a wealthy Greek couple. When she was a young adult he sent her to seduce Matt (Charlie Cox) in the hopes that her influence would lead him to join Stick’s fight against the Hand. Although she developed real feelings for Matt she left him after he refused to kill Roscoe Sweeney (Kevin Nagle), the man who ordered the assassination of his father. Ten years later, amidst renewed Hand activity she reunited with Matt, who was now protecting New York City as Daredevil and the pair teamed up to fight the cult. Although Matt was initially outraged upon learning of Elektra’s ties to Stick the pair were still going to rekindle their relationship before Elektra was killed by Hand leader Nobu Yoshioka (Peter Shinkoda), who Matt then threw off a building.
In the miniseries The Defenders, Elektra is resurrected by another Hand leader, Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver) who is a fanatic believer in the legends of the Black Sky. She comes back with no memory and superhuman abilities and is manipulated into serving as the Hand’s chief assassin. But encountering Matt seems to jog her memory and Elektra eventually kills Alexandra, taking control of the Hand for herself. Having experienced death Elektra is now frightened of it and seeks to achieve eternal life using “the substance” extracted from the dead dragon buried below the city but is opposed by the Defenders, including Matt, when her plans threaten to devastate New York.
Garner’s version of Elektra is portrayed similarly to how the comic version was originally characterized. Until the death of her father, she was a relatively happy, normal person but that tragedy caused her to become hardened and stop caring about others, except for Matt, for a long time. Later comics, including some written by Miller, such as Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, have retconned this, however, depicting Elektra as someone who has always struggled against her darker, violent urges. They also show her as influencing Matt to embrace his own wild, warrior side which he usually struggles to suppress out of obedience to his father’s memory. The Netflix series adapted this dynamic perfectly, with Elektra’s return to his life causing Matt to embrace his Daredevil persona, which he refers to as “the devil inside me” and neglect his professional obligations as a lawyer and his relationships with Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll).
Yung’s Elektra had a sadistic streak and was happy to use lethal force against her enemies, much to Matt’s dismay and this recreated the ideological tension between the characters that made their original comic interactions so famously compelling and tragic. By not having Elektra’s time as a mercenary start until after her death the film version excluded this crucial part of the characters’ dynamic. Yung’s performance also better matched her material, capturing the character’s ruthlessness and the perverse enjoyment she gets out of violence exquisitely. While Garner made for a commanding heroine she came across as too noble to make the scenes focusing on the character’s darker qualities believable. The viewer never believes that Elektra would actually go through with assassinating Mark and Abby, for example.
Given that Daredevil and Elektra were produced by 20th Century Fox and predate the MCU, it is likely that Garner’s involvement in Deadpool 3 will be facilitated through story points involving the multiverse. Bringing back Yung’s Elektra would be a lot simpler. Although there is some question regarding their canon status the Marvel Netflix series are generally considered part of the MCU. Cox has already reprised his role in Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law and is set to do so again alongside fellow Daredevil cast members Vincent D’Onofrio and Jon Bernthal in a new series, Daredevil: Born Again, in the near future. That series could simply pick up where its predecessors left off and continue exploring the relationship between Matt and Elektra. The character was presumed dead in a building collapse at the end of The Defenders, but Matt survived the same incident and Elektra had superhuman strength at the time, so it could easily be explained that she did as well.
While Born Again would be the upcoming project where an appearance from Elektra would be the most intuitive there are others she could be involved in as well. The MCU is currently exploring anti-heroes much more often than it has in the past in projects like the upcoming Thunderbolts film and Elektra would fit into one of these stories easily. Wherever she could appear, it would be a shame if Marvel Studios let a casting as strong as Yung’s go to waste, especially when it’s already in the process of mounting a resurgence for the character.
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