January 28, 2005 - When Jennifer Garner canceled her promotion tour for the new Elektra movie, in which she plays the title role, claiming to be ill, there was much debate as to what the real explanation may be. Well, I've seen the Elektra movie, and I didn't feel all that well by the end either. It's this year's Catwoman movie.

I hadn't expected much from the Elektra movie. There were warning signs. It was being released in January, a notorious dumping ground for mediocre movies, presumably because it is assumed that the audience either is staying warm at home or is still working its way through the deluge of Christmas releases. This is also a Marvel movie that Sam Raimi had nothing to do with. When I bought my ticket to the multiplex I saw Elektra in, I even discovered it was playing in theater 13!

Then there's the line in the ads: "Get into Elektra-Fying Shape Sweepstakes. Visit a participating Lady Foot Locker for details." So I take it that none of the corporate executives who hammered out this little merchandising tie-in quite realized that the Elektra that Frank Miller created in the comics was an emotionally disturbed serial murderess. Were I an advertising executive, this is hardly the sort of person I would want endorsing my product. Why do I have the feeling that Frank didn't really have women's running shoes in mind when he created Elektra?

Of course, there was also the disappointing precedent set by Marvel and Twentieth Century Fox's previous Daredevil movie, which combined a revisionist version of Daredevil's origin (inexplicably leaving out young Matt Murdock's heroic rescue of the endangered blind man) with a condensed retelling of Frank Miller's "Elektra Saga" storyline from his classic run on the series. I've heard the Daredevil movie's writer/director Mark Steven Johnson speak at a panel at New York City's Tribeca Film Festival, at which he made his respect for Miller's original Daredevil stories clear. So I am persuaded that Johnson tried his best to be faithful to Miller's work, but his movie simply did not prove up to the challenge. That's a particular letdown because Miller's "Elektra Saga" is the most intensely dramatic, even operatic, material that has so far been adapted from comic books to the movie screen. It could potentially have been the basis of the greatest comics-based movie ever made.

The passage of time was essential to Miller's portrayal of Elektra. She met Matt Murdock and became his girlfriend when they were both students at my own alma mater, Columbia University. Both accomplished athletes, Elektra and Matt tried and failed to save the life of her father when he was held captive by terrorists. Emotionally shattered, Elektra left Matt and eventually became a student of his own martial arts master, Stick. But Stick finally rejected her because she proved unable to master her emotions. Hoping to prove herself to Stick, this new father figure, Elektra infiltrated the Hand, the malevolent Japanese band of assassins, intending to betray them from within. But instead Elektra was corrupted by them, and over time became the cold-blooded killer-for-hire whom Miller introduced to readers in Daredevil #168 (January 1981 – nearly a quarter century ago!). Her transformation from a relative innocent to a hardened murderess did not take place overnight.