Elektra: Assassin #1

History

Editor Jo Duffy first approached Frank Miller about an Elektra project for Epic Comics as early as the summer of 1982; Miller revisited the idea with Duffy and Epic editor-in-chief Archie Goodwin in 1985, pitching the story that would become Elektra: Assassin. The Epic imprint gave Miller freedom to bypass the Comics Code Authority and distribute the book solely through specialty direct-market retailers, allowing for adult content and visual experimentation that would have been impossible in standard newsstand Marvel comics. Miller wrote the series using his preferred full-script method — the same approach he had used on Ronin and Daredevil: Born Again — and had already settled on Bill Sienkiewicz as his collaborator before presenting the project, a choice Duffy and Goodwin endorsed after witnessing the two creators' teamwork on the Marvel graphic novel Daredevil: Love and War (1986); editor Jo Duffy later noted that Miller would often rewrite his scripts after seeing Sienkiewicz's finished artwork, making the collaboration unusually fluid and reciprocal.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published by Epic Comics (Marvel's mature-readers imprint) as an eight-issue limited series, with issue #1 carrying a cover date of August 1986 and a release date of July 8, 1986; the series ran through March 1987.
• Written by Frank Miller and fully illustrated — pencils, inks, and covers — by Bill Sienkiewicz, with lettering by Jim Novak (issues #1–7) and Gaspar Saladino (issue #8); editorial credits span Jo Duffy, Archie Goodwin, and Daniel Chichester.
• Issue #1 (titled 'Hell and Back') opens with Elektra confined to a mental institution in South America, recovering from exposure to the demonic entity called the Beast, and reconstructing her fractured memories — including her birth, her training under Stick, her relationship with Matt Murdock, and her assassination of South American political figure Carlos Huevos.
• The first issue marks the series debut of S.H.I.E.L.D. antagonist/protagonist John Garrett, a flawed, alcoholic agent who is introduced pursuing Elektra; he formally debuted in issue #2 after being alluded to in #1, subsequently rebuilt as an 80%-cybernetic agent by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ExTechOp division.
• Sienkiewicz employed an unusually wide range of media — watercolor, acrylic, colored pencil, photocopy, and zip-a-tone screens — in place of traditional pencil-and-ink comics production, a visual approach that drew comparisons to Heavy Metal magazine and European comics art traditions.
• The series was deliberately published outside the Comics Code Authority, distributed exclusively through direct-market comic shops rather than newsstands, making it one of the higher-profile early demonstrations of the direct market's capacity to support genuinely adult material from a major publisher.
• The series earned a 1988 Eisner Award nomination for Best Finite Series, and Bill Sienkiewicz received a Jack Kirby Award (the predecessor to the Eisner) in 1987 for his artwork on the series.
• Collected editions include a 1987 Marvel/Epic trade paperback with an introduction by Jo Duffy, a 1987–1988 Graphitti Designs limited signed hardcover (2,000 copies, signed by Miller and Sienkiewicz), a 2008 Frank Miller omnibus hardcover incorporating additional Elektra stories, and a March 2012 Marvel Premiere Classic hardcover edition.

Full credits

Key issues in Elektra: Assassin

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#2 1st appearance — John Garrett