Reviews
Elektra: Black, WhiteBlood Treasury Edition by Charles Soule, Leonardo Romero, Declan Shalvey
rebus's review
0.25
It's always unsettling to see these deluxe oversized editions, since they seem typically to be mediocre works being amped up by marketing. In this case, the work would have to rise up quite a bit to be merely average. There's a lot of really ugly 70s style comic book art, which alternates with some very sophisticated and design oriented illustration, but the stories are all completely hollow and have nothing to say (except the overly verbose Elektra, who was originally a rather silent assassin).
It's full of simplistic good v. evil tropes and the white boy fetish for martial arts, but even that is vague and impressionistic and rarely comprehensible visually. There's a bit of virtue signaling about suicide prevention, given as a trigger warning because suicide is about to be depicted!
The truth is that it's almost utterly worthless outside of the covers and variants.
It's full of simplistic good v. evil tropes and the white boy fetish for martial arts, but even that is vague and impressionistic and rarely comprehensible visually. There's a bit of virtue signaling about suicide prevention, given as a trigger warning because suicide is about to be depicted!
The truth is that it's almost utterly worthless outside of the covers and variants.
lydiaaa's review
adventurous
inspiring
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Interesting little anthology. I really enjoyed some of these especially stylistically.
graemedish's review
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.0
feathersmcgraw's review
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
3.5
The fourth entry in the Black, White and Blood series is dedicated to Elektra, the crimson clad assassin. Across the 12 stories, there isn't much in the way of consistency in tone, style or characterisation. I don't think this is a bad thing either. Not only is there something for everyone, but Elektra is painted as a complicated, conflicted figure as a result. The previous anthology based around Carnage was much more one-note, so I appreciated the variety here.
Behind the scenes it's something of a who's who of either current or notable, with creatives like Greg Smallwood, Peach Momoko, Al Ewing and Ann Nocenti contributing. Perhaps unsurprisingly there were more hits than misses with none of them becoming outright bad. The weakest stories tended to either devlolve into standard superhero fare or were drawn by artists I don't personally like (namely, Greg Land). I particularly enjoyed 'Rendezvous', 'Verité' and 'Yokai'
Behind the scenes it's something of a who's who of either current or notable, with creatives like Greg Smallwood, Peach Momoko, Al Ewing and Ann Nocenti contributing. Perhaps unsurprisingly there were more hits than misses with none of them becoming outright bad. The weakest stories tended to either devlolve into standard superhero fare or were drawn by artists I don't personally like (namely, Greg Land). I particularly enjoyed 'Rendezvous', 'Verité' and 'Yokai'
(As an aside, it's a bit disappointing almost all of the stories have her in that ridiculous red underwear. It makes sense for either narrative or stylistic reasons in a few of the stories, sure. In the rest, she it would make more sense to be in her more practical modern outfits. The Daredevil costume is right there!)
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide attempt
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