10 Things Only Comic Book Fans Know About Daredevil’s Romance With Elektra

Similar to the Batman and Catwoman dynamic in DC Comics, Marvel’s Daredevil and Elektra have an infamously complicated relationship. As fans would expect, it’s been adversarial at times as well, with Elektra having fluctuated along the moral spectrum.

Netflix’s TV series helped thrust these characters more into the mainstream and showed fans the best live-action rendition of this relationship with Charlie Cox and Élodie Yung in their respective roles. Though, given their long history in Daredevil’s mythos, there’s much of the two’s romance that fans of the comic books have been following.

Elektra Started As A Supervillain

Frank Miller is responsible for several of Daredevil’s best comics ever, and he’s also the writer/artist responsible for creating Elektra back in 1981. At the time of Miller’s run on Daredevil, Elektra served as mostly a supervillain character as well as a complicated girlfriend of Matt Murdock’s past.

In her brief role in that corresponding story arc, she fought one of Daredevil’s arch-enemies Bullseye over who would be the Kingpin’s top assassin. This led to her death by the psychopathic assassin’s hand, but as is often the case in comics, hardly anyone ever stays dead.

Creator Frank Miller Didn’t Intend For Her To Resurrect

Shortly after Elektra was killed by Bullseye in Daredevil #181, titled Last Hand, she was brought back from the dead due to The Hand’s cultish rituals. Miller didn’t intend for this to be the case, but Marvel Comics quickly took the opportunity to bring the character back.

Despite her villainous role in her introduction arc, Elektra and Matt’s romance deeply impacted both of them. When the former was dying from her wounds inflicted by Bullseye, she dragged herself to Matt’s apartment and died in his arms. It’s one of the worst things that’s ever happened to Daredevil in the comics, and it was nearly the last time the two would ever be together.

Their Complex Romance Is What Stopped Elektra From Killing Foggy

Prior to Elektra’s brutal death, she was New York’s top assassin before Bullseye’s intervention. Initially, she was tasked by Wilson Fisk/Kingpin to intimidate journalist Ben Urich before being stopped by Daredevil himself. Afterward, she was given a much darker task.

Fisk assigned Elektra to assassinate Matt Murdock’s best friend and business partner, Foggy Nelson. She nearly went through with it, as Foggy was completely at her mercy. But once he recognized Elektra as Matt’s ex-girlfriend, she couldn’t go through with it. The thought of ruining Matt’s life like this forced a change of heart, making Elektra’s romance with him the only thing that saved Foggy’s life.

Matt’s Romance With Elektra In College Ended Differently

The MCU’s Daredevil in the series has differences from the comics but largely pays tasteful homage to the source material. Season 1 of Daredevil hints at their relationship in a college flashback with Foggy, while season 2 gave fans their live-action origins together. In the comics, Matt and Elektra do date, but the initial rift in their romance happened differently.

Elektra’s father Hugo Natchios was a Greek ambassador to the U.S., and around a year into Elektra and Matt’s relationship, she and her father were kidnapped by terrorists. Matt attempts to rescue them, but the hostage situation takes a turn for the worse, resulting in Hugo Natchios being killed. This tragedy causes Elektra to become cynical and jaded, leading her to leave school and train in martial arts in China.

After Her Death, Daredevil Purifies Her Soul By Willpower

Though Elektra’s story arc upon the character’s creation was surely tragic, Miller writes a spiritually resonant end to it that gives her some closure. Daredevil, Black Widow, and Stone (a member of Stick’s organization The Chaste) battle The Hand to prevent them from reviving Elektra as a sinister weapon.

The team of heroes is successful in doing so, with Daredevil purifying Elektra’s soul by his sheer force of will. For an arc characterized by tragedy, this ending was a sincere demonstration of Matt’s love for Elektra, while simultaneously allowing her to grow as an individual character past all the hardships. Of course, Matt wouldn’t find out until later that Stone finished what The Hand started by reviving her once the hero cleansed Elektra’s soul.

Elektra Became Matt’s New “Stick” By Retraining His Lost Skills

Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto’s current run on the series is both excellent and a great jumping-on point for new Daredevil fans. While there are some connections to prior story arcs, it presents a great new premise with genuine stakes that also involve Matt and Elektra’s dynamic.

The Man Without Fear retires the Daredevil mantle to his dismay, as his dulled skills and senses cost someone their life. However, feeling compelled to find a way to bring good to Hell’s Kitchen beyond his legal profession, he accepts Elektra’s invitation to mentor him. She effectively becomes his Stick, and the two start to rekindle their dormant romance in the process.

Daredevil First Revealed His Heightened Abilities To Elektra

As some fans would expect, the first person that Matt ever revealed his abilities to was Elektra. It’s certainly not because of the hero lacking any other trusted loved ones in his life, as Foggy Nelson has been Matt’s best friend and emotional anchor since they met. What Foggy does for Matt is comparable to what Alfred does for Bruce Wayne, but Elektra brought Daredevil someone he both loved and could relate to on a level very few could.

Both characters have been torn down and hardened from their dark pasts, even if their backgrounds and the ways they dealt with them differed. It’s logical how he came to open up with Elektra, as revealing his radar sense and martial arts prowess to the likes of Foggy would endanger the latter more than anything else.

The Death Of Hugo Natchios Was Matt’s First Attempt At Heroics

While Elektra’s loss of her father was a failed endeavor, trying to save both of them was Matt’s first attempt at heroics. Hugo’s abduction along with Elektra was messy and came at a loss due to a disastrous misunderstanding. The proto-Daredevil saves Elektra, but after he kicked one of the terrorists through a window, a policeman outside mistakenly fires out of panic, resulting in her father dying in the crossfire.

Though her grief was understandable, her suddenly leaving him left Murdock confused and heartbroken. This would be a rude awakening of what the life of a well-intentioned superhero would entail. Not every rescue would be successful, and not all of the pieces to Matt’s life would fall exactly into place.

Stick Originally Warned Matt To Stay Away From Elektra

It’s another difference that comic book fans will recognize from the Netflix series, but both versions executed well-written takes on Daredevil and Elektra’s early relationship concerning their distinct universes. In the MCU, Elektra did genuinely fall in love with Matt, but it was initially under ulterior motives.

Stick trained a young Elektra similar to Matt, sending her on a mission to win him back over to The Chaste. In the comics, Elektra didn’t train under Stick until adulthood. As chronicled in The Man Without Fear, Stick spontaneously appeared to warn Matt to stay away from her. Stick saw her as too dangerous, but, like any troubled young man deeply in love, he rebelled against his surrogate father.

Elektra Takes Over As Daredevil In Matt’s Absence

In one of the most shocking turns of events, Matt Murdock willfully goes to prison (legally as Daredevil) for him accidentally killing a thief at the beginning of Zdarsky’s run. After Elektra trained Matt to return to his top form, it was revealed — to his frustration — that she had been somewhat using him to fund her and Stick’s efforts against The Hand, as well as to convince Matt to return.

But when she sees Matt’s genuine intent on atoning for his mistakes and diverting the Stromwyn crime family’s stolen funds in supporting Hell’s Kitchen, Elektra becomes inspired by what the Daredevil mantle does for the city. In return, she becomes Daredevil while Matt serves time. It also shows that deep down, Elektra does believe in Matt’s fundamental mission.

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