VS Analysis: Daredevil (Elektra Natchios)

 



Background

Daredevil
Real name: Elektra Natchios
Aliases: The Woman Without Fear, Perfect Death, the Angel of Death, Epsilon, Ellen, Miss Kettleman, Miss Salvatore, Nicole, Giselle
Nicknames: ’Lektra, She-Devil, D.D
Height: 5’9
Weight: 130 lbs
Occupation: Assassin (formerly), mercenary (formerly), adventurer, vigilante, dancer (formerly)
First appearance: Daredevil #168 (October, 1980)
Likes: Daredevil, Wolverine, the Chaste, orchids, black coffee
Dislikes: Bullseye, the Hand, Kingpin, Black Widow, roses, single malt whiskey, repetition
Was once a skilled ballet dancer on broadway
Smells like jasmine and lavender 


Backstory

“I am not a dancer, or an artist, or a hero. I am no longer a daughter or a lover... Victim or student or slave. I am, and I will always be... someone's assassin.”


From the moment of her birth, Elektra Natchios’ life was marked by death. After her mom Christina was shot down by gunmen, Elektra was born from her dying body to her father Hugo. Hugo was initially somewhat distant from his daughter due to the fear that his wife had cheated on him, but when Elektra was held for ransom at age 9 and freed by her brother Orestesz, he decided to hire a martial arts instructor to teach self-defense.

Elektra spent two years under her sensei and quickly surpassed his expectations. With nothing left to teach her, he pointed her toward an ancient group of martial artists called the Chaste. Elektra tracked down this group and tried to convince their leader, the elderly blind man Stick, to train her, but Stick eventually sensed the anger and hate she had inside and expelled her.

During her father’s time serving as an ambassador in America, Elektra began attending Columbia University and befriended the blind lawyer-in-training Matt Murdock, but this friendship soon turned into love between two thrill-seekers. Soon Elektra was getting them into dangerous or legally dubious situations just to spend more time with him or because she thought it was fun.

Sadly for Matt, their relationship died when Elektra’s dad was killed in the crossfire of a hostage situation with terrorists. Elektra tried avenging his death by tracking down the man responsible, and she was saved by a beating from his bodyguard thanks to a sai that had supposedly come from Stick. Inspired by her rescue, she decided to redeem herself in the Chaste’s eyes by joining their rivals, a ninja clan known as the Hand, so she could bring them down from within. But it turned out this was all a ploy. It was actually the Hand who had orchestrated her rescue, and they knew just how to manipulate Elektra and what buttons to press. Soon she was a willing member of their cause, but she eventually broke off to use her skills as an assassin for hire.

Elektra would spend years making a name for herself, becoming a popular choice among crime lords and bosses everywhere. She’d even end up back in New York when she was placed under the payroll of Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime. A reporter named Ben Urich was investigating Fisk and close to uncovering evidence that would expose him as the Kingpin. Elektra was hired to assassinate Urich, but when Daredevil thwarted her, Kingpin decided to have a new target: Foggy Nelson, legal partner of Matt Murdock.

Though Elektra tried her hardest to carry out her contract, for once she found herself unable to and spared her would-be victim. But Kingpin’s former #1 assassin, Bullseye, had gotten tired of playing second fiddle and ambushed her, stabbing her in the chest with her own sai! Beaten and bleeding, Elektra crawled toward Matt’s apartment before dying in his arms.

Death may have claimed Elektra, but the Hand wasn’t willing to let one of its greatest assassins go to waste. They began a ritual to resurrect her and place her under their control, but thanks to Daredevil’s intervention, he was able to purify Elektra through sheer willpower, purging her of any darkness she once had.

Elektra became part of the Chaste, and the Hand was forced to find a new replacement by kidnapping John Garrett. Elektra had established a psychic link with Garrett years earlier during one of her missions that merged their minds, and her psychic essence still remained within him. A small sect of the Hand, the Snakeroot clan, extracted the remaining parts of her essence from him to create a physical manifestation of Elektra’s evil side: Erynys.

Erynys attempted to kill Elektra, but ended up mortally wounded thanks to Daredevil, allowing Elektra to absorb Erynys into herself. Now complete, Elektra began her own mission to take down the Snakeroot, and once they were destroyed, she went back to her old ways as an assassin for hire.

Between adventures with Daredevil and Wolverine, battles with the Hand, serving as an agent of SHIELD, and joining Red Hulk’s team of Thunderbolts, Elektra would struggle with her nature as an assassin and try to overcome it… but most of the time, the writers would just repeat some variant of the same story: Elektra either just finished her latest assassination job or rescued a civilian. Something during that job or the influence of whoever she met causes her to undergo self-reflection. She resolves to better herself by holding back her violent urges and not killing her enemies. The person she befriended dies or gets brainwashed, and if a civilian isn’t involved, something else happens that forces her back to her old habits and she ignores any epiphany she previously had. Even when she was at her lowest, actively trying to kill herself, and shown by her new mentor Drake that she didn’t have to solve her problems by killing, she immediately fell off the wagon after Drake’s death and became a more bloodthirsty murderer than before!

This cycle went on for years, but everything changed when Daredevil was sent to prison for an accidental murder. Elektra tried to get on his good side by using her fortune to buy Hell’s Kitchen, but she had ulterior motives, and he knew it. She and Stick had found a book with instructions on how to finally end the Hand by creating its long-hidden opposite, the light to its darkness: the Fist. But in order to form the Fist, there needed to be a king and a queen that would lead it.

Matt instantly shut her down and remained in his cell, but as she left, he dared her to prove that she was tired of the darkness and wanted to work for the light. Elektra needed him to trust her, and since he believed that Hell’s Kitchen needed Daredevil to protect it, she decided to take on his role. Now she was no longer an assassin. She was the new Daredevil!

As she cleaned up Hell’s Kitchen and helped prevent a crime wave by Mayor Fisk, Elektra finally convinced Daredevil to help her take down the Hand. The two were officially wed and instated as King and Queen of the Fist, which began recruiting members to join their cause, including reformed supervillains. However, their war with the Hand’s new leader, the Punisher, would go down in flames when they were betrayed from within by undead impostors of their closest allies, Foggy and Stick.

With many of its members infected by a rage-inducing chemical attack and an assault from the Avengers, the Fist was ruined. Matt resorted to desperate measures and challenged Elektra to a duel, tricking her into killing him so he could take the fight to the Hand’s leader, a demon known as the Beast. Matt was successful in his mission and resurrected, but when Elektra realized he no longer had his memories and had become a priest, she decided to fully embrace her role as Daredevil.

That was until Matt’s seven deadly sins showed up and began possessing his old allies and enemies. Elektra was the first of these victims, forcing Matt to reclaim his mantle in a quest to exorcise the sins. This would slowly build into the discovery of a military crime ring called the Heat, led by a Greed-possessed Kingpin, but he was eventually beaten and exorcized. Only this time something was different about Fisk. He seemed genuinely remorseful and sought repentance, disbanding Heat and spending his time doing penance before going off the map. Some months later, Kingpin reemerged with a new resolve: to become God! And this batshit insane plotline… went nowhere because the series ended that same issue.

Instead, the writers just had Punisher shoot Kingpin into a coma while Elektra continued her new role as a superhero and defender of Hell’s Kitchen. She stopped the undead serial killer Muse from claiming more victims while in Hell, helped the Avengers battle the ice demon Chernobog, and assisted in defending the mystical city of K’un L’un from the War Fists.

Personality

Being born from a dead mother and a tumultuous relationship with her father, Elektra’s an odd case. From a young age she had a disdain for her mom for cheating on her dad and purposefully burned her pictures. She rarely smiled as a kid, and her only way of coping with her mom’s death and her dad’s distant attitude was with constant training, but it never gave her happiness.

According to official psychological profiles, Elektra’s considered categorically psychotic with a fantasy life of Oedipal imagery, and her brain only seems functional on the primitive levels required to keep her alive.

These psychological issues and troubled upbringing manifested in different ways throughout the years. As a teenager she was desperate for attention and tried to show off more of her cleavage to get men to notice her, at 19 her studies in figure painting always ended with half-naked canvases marred with twisted limbs and black faces, and during her college days she was a thrill seeker that lived life on the edge, even diving off a cliff into a frozen lake for fun. Upon reaching adulthood, her narration has mentioned that she considers killing a pastime she does out of boredom, and watching executions is a good time!

When her father died, she abandoned everything in her life, including her former loves, to find meaning and purpose. She tried to lose herself in martial arts and train under Stick and his acolytes, but when the Hand got to her, they exploited and stoked her anger until she abandoned them to become a ronin and an assassin. 

Though Elektra has admitted that being an assassin makes her the equivalent of a whore selling her talents to whoever would buy, she has no problem with killing other people for money. She works under a contract, will ensure her contract still stands even if it makes more enemies, and makes sure to book her assassinations months in advance. Her only guidelines are that she charges extra for political jobs, will abandon a job if she realizes she’s been played, and she refuses to kill children, even if it leaves her open to attacks.

This business-like attitude towards killing has naturally affected her psyche. She sees killing as all she knows how to do and believes all she’s good for is enacting vengeance. She won’t hesitate to kill anyone she wronged, which brings her no joy, but she makes sure to do it quickly. She does enjoy getting revenge, though. She has no fear of death, in part because of how many times she’s already died, and is fine with the prospect of dying again. The only thing she does fear is failure.

She has occasionally felt melancholic that she doesn’t have a normal life to go back to and questioned if she’s ever shown mercy to her victims, but never felt so bad about killing others that she tried to kill herself over it. Quite the opposite, actually. She adamantly believes she never kills innocents, only murderers, terrorists, sadists, and despots, and any of their children were better off as orphans. She’s also weirdly adamant on terminology and insists that she’s isn’t a murderer, just an assassin. 

When it comes to relationships with other people, she understands how it feels to be alone, but she doesn’t understand how it feels to be weak or take care of the weak. After killing so many people personally, she doesn’t have time for anyone who blames themselves for others’ deaths.

She’s often very serious and cold. Excluding the occasional banter or really bad joke, she only indulges in idle communication if it’s tactically beneficial and doesn’t respond to it otherwise. It’s even rarer for her to be shown laughing, mostly confined to when she stole Punisher’s kills because she was bored. 

That doesn’t mean she’s completely devoid of any relationships. She’s been romantically interested in Daredevil and the Punisher, having gone on a date with the latter, had off panel sex with him repeatedly, and even once had a fling with Doctor Strange!

She’s a bit of a perfectionist and doesn’t repeat a failed tactic, defense, offense, or make the same mistake twice. And she’s willing to do whatever it takes to achieve victory, even poisoning herself with treefrog venom, letting herself get stabbed in the stomach, or hit by a car.

One of Elektra’s more prominent traits is her sadistic side. She loves violence and killing, whether she’s casually threatening castration, deliberately luring a group of rapists toward her so she could enjoy murdering them, or stealing Punisher’s kills to taunt him. To her, killing is what she does best, what she needs to do, and what keeps her sane. That last part is not an exaggeration, either. At one point, after months of no work or jobs, Elektra went on a self-destructive path trying to sate her lust for violence, leading to her breaking a man’s arm and being ready to stab herself in the throat before a relative of one of her victims interrupted her. Said victim also identified her addiction to violence and killing and believed that without it, she’d either kill herself or force someone to do it for her, eventually trying the latter after surviving a trek through the desert!

This side was later tempered, albeit very briefly by the martial artist Drake, who (after lots of prodding) eventually Elektra under her wing. Then Drake died and she became even more violent and bloodthirsty! But on the bright side, she isn’t suicidal anymore!

It should be noted that despite what I described in the last two paragraphs, she’s not a complete sadist or psychopath. She has occasionally spared people during her time as an assassin if she considered them innocent, and she sympathizes enough with rape victims to postpone their payments for her jobs. However, she doesn’t condone torturing their abusers and refused to let one of her clients torture a remorseful man who did nothing after witnessing her rape.

She’s a woman of her word and will refuse to kill if her current job calls for it, especially during her tenure as Daredevil. Despite the occasional urge to break his no-kill rule (especially when Bullseye’s involved), the acknowledgment that it would be easier to kill her enemies, and previously admitting it feels foolish to spare someone trying to kill her, she still refuses to kill while bearing his mantle. However, it doesn’t stop her from brutalizing people to the point they wish they were dead, and she’ll still ensure a mutual kill if she’s seconds from death. 

When she bought Hell’s Kitchen to get into Matt’s good graces while he was in jail, she decided to take Matt up on his challenge to prove that she could do something good. At first she only did it to show Matt he could trust her and that she was serious about helping others, and she decided to help its people out both in her civilian and hero lives. As Daredevil she keeps the streets free of crime and as Elektra Natchios she’s a landlord that gives everyone cheap rent.

As time went on and she grew into her role, she lost what made her a cold and clinical fighter, replacing it with the same passion that Matt has. His influence has even made her refuse to torture people for information. She’s even come to view it as a way of making up for her past, even though she believes no amount of penance will clean it.

Despite her newfound heroism, she is still a bit of an outsider. She feels like she doesn’t fit in with superhero teams and prefers working alone unless it’s with Daredevil, and she has trouble keeping track of how many superheroes there are. She’s so at odds with how other heroes operate that she’s open about her real name and identity. According to her, neither Elektra Natchios or Daredevil have anything to fear and already strike fear into others. She’s so confident in this belief that she consistently aura farms regardless of the situation.

Experience

Growing up she won first place in swimming, track, aikido, kendo, and karate, and was a skilled pianist. At age 9 she received her first lessons in martial arts and began training with Stick at 12, spending months under the Chaste’s tutelage. By 16, she’d trained with the finest, purest warriors, could start fire in the snow with just her hands, and knew techniques armies would kill for. In adulthood, she has more than earned her title of “Deadliest Woman in the World”, able to kill the Hand’s mightiest warrior, Kirigi, kill four heavily-armed mercenaries in 37 seconds while battling seven at once, and fight Black Widow to a stalemate, twice. Her skills are shown to improve rapidly enough to surpass and defeat both her evil half, Erynys, Taskmaster despite him previously copying her fighting style, and a Skrull doppelganger of herself. Even when Bullseye once dominated her in a rematch thanks to months of obsessively stalking her, analyzing footage of her fights, and fighting holograms of her, she eventually won by forgetting her training and fighting dirty. She has even defeated Blizzard, Crossbones, Whiplash, Shocker, Boomerang, Jack O’Lantern, and Blackout in consecutive fights across the globe, killed all of a Russian mob boss’s guards while he slept while suffering a powerful flu that left her with blurred vision, weakness, and dizziness, and killed more of his men while hallucinating.

She also has extensive experience against supernatural opponents, defeating the likes of undead corpses, a wolfman, faeries, ninja monkeys, and tentacled monsters.

Arsenal

Classic Costume

A form-fitting red leotard with a headband and sash that can be used for strangling. She even sunbathes in it.

Samurai Armor

While battling Tekagi of the Snakeroot assassins, Elektra donned a set of samurai armor that seemed easily destroyed at first, but as Tekagi soon realized, the armor is actually coated in a layer of tree-frog venom. Though harmless to human skin, should the venom seep into open wounds, it will slow reflexes and cause a loss of motor control.

Daredevil Costume

To prove herself to Matt, Elektra donned a new costume as Daredevil, giving herself a long-sleeved red and black top, parachute pants, red gloves and boots, and a helmet.

Thanks to Tony Stark upgrading her tech, the helmet and sais incorporate echolocation systems that use sonar and thermal vision to scan her surroundings for enemies and heartbeats.

Twin Sai

Originally given to her by her then-mentor Aka, Elektra’s twin sai went on to become her signature weapons as an assassin, always by her side even when she’s in a bathhouse. She can use them to cut, stab, or throw, and their tips are strong enough to pierce bricks and even the skins of Hulks.

While originally just ordinary blades, after Bullseye killed her, she had a synaptic snare and biometric lock installed into them. Keyed only to her nervous system, should anyone else try to wield her sai, they’ll suffer an electric shock that paralyzes them for sixty seconds.

Upon becoming Daredevil, they were further modified to become blunted and include an extendable cable, which can be used as a grapple line, disarm others, or restrain them. The grapple line is extremely long and just as durable, requiring an adamantium blade to cut through it.

She can eject the blunt end of the sai for a surprise attack, and crossing both sais together will charge them with electricity to enhance their strength, use echolocation to scan her surroundings, or unleash concussive shock waves that knock back anyone around her and force symbiotes off their hosts. And despite being blunt to prevent her from killing, she can manually scrape them into sharpness if the situation calls for it.

Erynys’ Sai

After absorbing her darker half Erynys back into her, Elektra used her massive, serrated sai for a brief time before switching back to the usual ones.

Swords

When she isn’t using her sais, Elektra will rely on swords as her second choice, usually in the form of a katana, though she has occasionally used a chokuto and ninjato.

She’s used them to cut through ninjas and brick walls, dual-wielded them while killing SHIELD agents and sparring with Agony, and their hilts can be extended from the blade to detect the presence of ninjas

Knives

Aside from a concealed knife used to shank a soldier guarding her, Elektra’s dual-wielded some to slit throats and stomachs.

Shuriken

The classic ninja throwing stars. Elektra has used them on occasion to kill, maim, disarm, or disable her targets, including ninjas, agents, officers, and gunmen. They can also be dipped in poison and are strong enough to slice through chains.

Tetsubishi


Razor-sharp, poison-tipped caltrops made to slow down attackers.

Smoke Bombs

While fighting Bullseye and his clones, Elektra used some smoke bombs in her pouch to give herself cover and ambush them. She’s also used nonlethal smoke grenades to take out some HEAT agents.

Claw

Used to kill a member of the Chaste while possessed by the Beast.

Staff

Used while helping Daredevil relearn what he was taught by Stick and while training Alice.

Crossbow

Used to assassinate Carlos Huevos while at a fair, kill six agents in six seconds, and attach a grappling hook to Ken Wind’s helicopter.

Bow


On occasion Elektra has used bows and arrows to hit a distant target. Aside from regular arrows, she once used a grapple arrow to trip an ancient marrow god.

M1911 Pistol

While trying to get revenge on her father’s killer when she was younger, Elektra stashed a pistol in her jacket, though she never got the chance to actually use it. She has gotten to use ones stolen from her enemies and owns dual pistols that provide distractions with paint balls.

AR-15 Rifle

Used on Col Liam Fischer after killing his men. In Thunderbolts she used a similar model to kill some terrorists and headshot Deadpool.

M-21 Rifle

Used to headshot a ninja.

Flamethrower

After the Venom symbiote started going batshit insane, Elektra and the Punisher blasted it with flamethrowers to try and forcibly calm it.

Bazooka

Used to blow up a SHIELD helicopter.

Rocket Launcher

During a mission in Chechnya, she and the Punisher used rocket launchers to take out some terrorists.

Syringe

On occasion Elektra has employed the use of a syringe to take out her targets, either by injecting them with sedatives or poisons. She can conceal them on furniture so the lightest prick will do the trick, or break and throw them for a surprise attack.

Grappling Hook


Used to scale up walls and buildings.

Thrusters

During her deep cover attack on the Helicarrier, Elektra strapped some thrusters to her legs, letting her take flight in this ridiculous looking page.

Wing Pack


For when you want to exit a plane in style without using a parachute.

Cape Crow Armor and Weapons


While being hunted by a guild of assassins, Elektra struck a deal with the technological assassin Cape Crow to discover who had put a target on his back. In return for her help, she was given a set of fireproof armor with metal gloves that unleash a bioelectric shock she can channel through her sais, a bandolier of grenades, and a machine gun.

Archangel’s Wings


During an adventure in 2099 with the Savage Avengers, Elektra donned the mutant Archangel’s metal wings to battle an army of Deathloks. When she isn’t ramming into Deathloks with her wide wingspan, she can rain death upon them with razor-sharp feathers.

Asgardian Healing Poultice

A small bottle containing an extremely rare mass designed to soothe pain and injuries. Even the smallest sample costs a fortune, and Elektra used hers on Daredevil after he was beaten by Kingpin and thrown down an elevator shaft.

Misc Equipment


Skills

Peak Human Conditioning

Elektra’s spent years training her body to its prime. She was an Olympic level athlete at 15, and she's retained this status into adulthood, with guidebooks and encyclopedias calling her an Olympic level gymnast and athlete. She’s been able to have 20 minutes of room destroying sex with Daredevil, spent an hour nonstop running away from the Four Winds, and fought for six hours without tiring.

Pain Tolerance/Endurance



She’s had her fingerprints burned off, been slammed into concrete, survived an attempt at drowning her, shrugged off being set on fire, stabbed from behind by Bullseye and shot in the shoulder, and could get back up after being knocked through a stone wall and out of a building, landing on a car back-first hard enough to crush it! Most impressively, she had her SKULL CRUSHED by Bullseye to the point most of it needed reconstruction and metal plates, but she still got back up seconds later and defeated him!

Arguably more impressive than that was her showings against the possessed artist Muse. Muse was strong enough that pulling someone’s arm would normally tear it off, but all it did to Elektra was pop her shoulder out of place and she popped it back in. Then she withstood Muse ripping out some of her bangs, slamming her against a wall, and multiple bloodlusted punches that left her inhaling blood. This did push her to her limits, but it’s still impressive when you consider Muse’s casual punches could obliterate a man’s skull. Even when Muse stabbed her through the heart with her own sai, Elektra survived long enough to ensure a mutual kill!

Martial Arts


Ever since becoming a black belt at 12, Elektra’s been trained under the Chaste in martial arts, having mastered the arts of combat and become a mighty warrior of the Chaste within a year. Among the martial arts she’s stated to know, they include Boshi-Ken, Daken-taijutsu, savate, kenpo, jiu jitsu, and Kung Fu.
She’s used these skills to slaughtered a group of SHIELD agents with her bare hands and an antique sword, defeated six Hand ninjas while underwater, baited others into attacking by using feints and deceptive movements, and can deliver strikes precise enough to disassemble armor.

Pressure Points


Can shut down a person’s larynx with a strike to the throat or instantly knock them out by pressing both sides of the neck, the left side of it, or the back of the hand.

Weapons Mastery

During her training with the Chaste and the Hand, Elektra’s shown proficiency in the use of many weapons. She claims she’s best at knives and “only spectacular” with everything else. In terms of specific weapons, she’s wielded sais, swords, knives, staves, bows, crossbows, and guns.

Swordsmanship


Thanks to her training in the Chaste and Hand, Elektra’s incredibly skilled with swords. Her swordplay is precise enough to decapitate a fly, cut clean through a headband without scratching its wearer, decapitate armored SHIELD agents even when underwater, and she can slice her victims so thoroughly that they’ll still be alive afterward, aware of where they’ve been cut yet unable to move, and will only fall apart when touched.

Marksmanship


Aside from throwing her sais into people, she’s consistently plugged guns with her sais and arrows, knocked people out by throwing her sai’s hilt, ricocheted it across an area to hit a target, shot down helicopters with rifles and bazookas, accurately thrown shuriken into the minuscule weak spots of armor, pulled off kills while she and her target were in separate amusement park rides, headshot a sniper from far away using a pistol, and even spat out one of her teeth into a man’s throat!

Stealth

Being trained by ninjas, Elektra is naturally skilled in the art of Ninjutsu. She’s able to disappear even in broad daylight, killed two thugs from behind, killed a man in the middle of a theater without raising any alarm, disappeared in the second it took a man to turn away or move his head, vanished into a crowd without being seen by a SHIELD agent that was looking for her, disappeared in front of people mid-sentence, disappeared behind smoke clouds while hounded by mercenaries, broken into a SHIELD base like it was a local Wendy’s, taken out entire teams while concealing herself in sand or shadows, consistently disappeared from Daredevil without him sensing it, done the same to their mentor Stick, and has snuck up on Wolverine (Laura Kinney) without being seen or heard. She’s even snuck into a safe room unseen despite there being no windows, sealed off air vents, doors wired to give off an electrical charge, and a team of twelve men!

Thanks to her years of training with Daredevil, she can maneuver and fight even in total darkness.
She’s used multiple disguises throughout the years to gather information or go through areas undetected, including an old lady, a nurse, a blonde partygoer, a barista, a hooker, a stripper, a clown-themed bank robber, a regular civilian, a German woman not fluent in English, a Hand ninja, and a foreign princess by using fake skin.

She’s studied security procedures to protect her targets in order to track them and find the exact spot to kill them and tracked Domino across New York without being noticed.

Assassinating


As you’d expect from someone called the world’s greatest assassin, Elektra is a master of her field, being considered an urban legend and having killed hundreds by her own admission.

She’s pulled off 11 kills at once, killed 14 men in 6 days and chopped two of those kills into 6 pieces, killed an ambassador’s aid by drowning him in a toilet, killed a director by placing a poisoned needle on his chair. Even illnesses and injuries aren’t able to affect her performance too majorly. She killed four trained military operatives after waking up from heatstroke, accurately stabbed an attacker in the femoral artery after being weakened from a stab through the heart, and killed all of a Russian mob boss’s guards while he slept while suffering a powerful flu that left her with blurred vision, weakness, and dizziness, then killed more of them while hallucinating.

Agility

Ever since she underwent gymnast training as a child, Elektra’s used her athleticism and agility in a wide variety of ways. She can remain on her tip toes for 10 minutes straight, do a handstand for two pages, perfectly balanced herself beneath a helicopter, jumped from the Empire State’s spire onto the observation deck with less than a whisper, dodged Bullseye’s shuriken and thrown blades, pulled herself onto a rooftop after leaping from a dumpster, flipped through lasers, and snuck into a warehouse by leaping off storage crates.

Powers

Assassin’s Instinct

While fighting the precognitive telepath Cape Crow, Elektra countered his powers by emptying her mind and entering a state called Assassin’s Instinct. In this state, Elektra acts on instinct rather than thought, allowing her to counter Crow’s thought-based precognitive abilities.

Nervous System Control

As part of her training, Elektra was taught to have total mastery over her anatomical being. She can control her bleeding, fight infections, increase her adrenaline flow for strength, manipulate her endorphins to withstand pain, control her heartbeat so well that even Daredevil can't tell when she's lying, and stop both her heart and breathing long enough to convince others she’s dead.

Extrasensory Perception

While Elektra officially doesn’t have the enhanced senses of Daredevil, her training not only gives her a heightened sense of her surroundings, it also lets her sense the presence of dark, esoteric magic and ghosts.

Telepathy

During her training with the Chaste, Elektra taught herself how to communicate telepathically, and she eventually learned to apply this power in other ways.

She can read a person’s minds and past memories, wipe memories from a person’s mind (including her own), create a psychic link that lets anyone she's talking to see and hear her and sense the presence of the supernatural, link other people’s minds to have them share knowledge, or plant ideas in a person’s head and force their body to perform actions. And by “slashing with her mind, kidnapping the other ninjas’ ki, and commanding their life force to her will,” Elektra was able to sic Tekagi’s own ninjas on him.

On occasion she’s entered the minds of other people via direct eye contact, having gone into Daredevil’s to clear his self-doubt and cleanse himself of the Beast’s darkness, and Wasp’s to free her from Diabol.

Mind Swapping

As an extension of her telepathy, Elektra can “throw” her and/or another person’s minds into different bodies, hijacking the mind and body and telepathically taking control of it. This swap can last as long as she wants, even going four months with herself and other people in different bodies. Whenever she abandons the body and swaps their consciousnesses back, it will leave the victim in whatever state their body is in.

The swapping can be interfered with and leave Elektra trapped in the body of her victim, but this is only possible through powerful psychics like the Beast.

Illusions

She’s cast an illusion of herself over the SHIELD agent Chastity to fake her death, which are so potent they can fool cameras and last extremely long. She later “mind scrambled” a SHIELD agent into thinking he shot her, even though he was trained to resist this. And while stalking Psylocke, she placed her in an illusion… until Psylocke outplayed Elektra by putting her in an illusion.

Telekinesis

During her training with the Hand, one of the first things she was taught was telekinesis. She can dismantle a gun by touching it, and by forming her fingers into the pattern of a kuji-in and focusing her energy, she forced a stalagmite to fall on Doka.

Silent Scream

By pursing her lips and focusing her chi, Elektra can unleash a high-pitched scream that knocks back anyone that hears it and causes them to suffer massive blood loss.

Resistances

Extreme Cold:

Electricity:
Positive showings
Negative showings

Illnesses:
Negative showings

Poison:
Positive showings
Neutral showings
Negative showings

Drugs:
Positive showings
Negative showings

Gases:
Negative showings

Hypnosis:

Telepathy, Mind Control, and Memory Manipulation:
Positive showings
Neutral showings
Negative showings

Empathic Manipulation:
Positive showings
Negative showings
Illusions:
Negative showings

Strength


Sais

Speed

Scaling

Durability


Intelligence

Scaling

Daredevil

Elektra and Daredevil have fought alongside each other, engaged in spars, undergone the same training, beaten similar opponents, and she even killed him at one point, so she should compare to his feats.

Bullseye


Despite famously dying to him, Elektra has repeatedly avenged her loss through multiple rematches, and strangely enough, Bullseye himself has said that if they were both in their prime, she’d beat him any day of the week. You could chalk this up to inconsistent writing, but there is some precedent for it with their various rematches. These include:She’s also held her own against Cape Crow, who had defeated Bullseye, Sabretooth, and Taskmaster off panel, so with all this in mind it would make sense for her to scale to Lester’s feats.


Black Widow
 

Elektra and Natasha have fought each other to a stalemate twice, and Elektra was able to defeat her while Natasha was still training in the Red Room.

Wolverine


The two have fought several times throughout the years, with Elektra "killing" him in the past and Logan being confident she could do it again.

Misc Characters


Various street tiers Elektra would scale to that have little in the way of physical feats or haven’t been properly researched in a while.

Typhoid Mary
They’ve only fought once, but Elektra has matched Danny blow for blow… in base. As soon as he pulled out his namesake, he one-shot her. However, we can still scale her to feats Danny has performed without the Iron Fist.
Psylocke
Her most recent scaling as of this blog’s publishing, Elektra and Psylocke have fought three times, and Betsy outright states Elektra is better than her. She calls Elektra “everything I thought I would one day become,” admits she can’t match Elektra physically, that Elektra is physically her superior, and she retreats during a rematch.

Feats

Weaknesses


Elektra might be one of the deadliest assassins in the world, but despite her best efforts, she isn’t perfect. She’s been defeated before by other martial artists like Drake and Iron Fist, and at the end of the day she’s still human. This means she can still be infected by fungi and viruses like the flu, worn down and knocked out by enough punishment, caught off guard and KOd by surprise attacks, risks dying if shot by too many arrows, and will eventually succumb to wounds or blood loss given enough time and lack of treatment.

While her pain tolerance does mitigate some of those last points, it doesn’t let her survive being stabbed in the heart or continue fighting after getting slashed across the stomach.

Her resistance to mental attacks is inconsistent with a skew toward the negative, she’s been tricked
by illusions before, and has repeatedly been possessed by outside forces.

Her sais aren’t indestructible and have been damaged or destroyed numerous times. To date, these include:

There are also certain materials they can’t break through like Spider-Man 2099's unstable molecules or adamantium.

Credits

Amalgam Blogs’ Deadshot vs Bullseye, the VS Battle Arena’s Sabretooth vs Zodd, G1’s Joker vs Green Goblin, Owie’s Black Widow Respect Thread 2.0, and mikhailnikolaievitch’s Psylocke Respect Thread for some calcs and links used in the Scaling section
CreatureMaster97 for helping with research and writing some of these sections
M3diocreproductions for the Typhoid Mary research

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