Elektra in the MC2

 

After my recent post covering Wolverine in the MC2 thanks to the new Deadpool & Wolverine movie ushering the pair into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it feels like the right time to detail Logan’s romantic life partner in the MC2 Universe so today’s post will be all about Elektra in the MC2.

 

Elektra Natchios first appeared in Daredevil #168, and reportedly she was intended to be a one-off character, former love interest and foil for Matt Murdock aka Daredevil, according to creator Frank Miller. Elektra proved popular enough to make regular appearances in the series until her death at the hands of Kingpin’s assassin  Bullseye in Daredevil #181. Elektra returned from the dead by ninja cult The Hand soon after in Daredevil #190 and eventually went on to be a consistent fan favourite character.

 

A part of Elektra’s published history which proves very relevant to the MC2 begins in Wolverine #100 (written by long-time Wolverine scribe and MC2 alumni Larry Hama) where Natchios begins a mission to help restore Logan after the loss of his Adamantium left him in a feral and bestial state. With the backdrop of the Onslaught event raging, Elektra helps re-train and guide Wolverine back to himself and the two grow close as they begin to understand each other resulting in a friendship that continued into Elektra’s own series (Wolverine #100-#106).

 

Now, on to the MC2 proper! With the introduction of Rina Logan aka Wild Thing we also saw the arrival of her mother, Elektra Natchios in J2 #5. Here we learn that the relationship between Elektra and Logan has developed into a long-term romantic one resulting in the couple raising their teenage mutant ninja daughter together. Elektra informs Logan their daughter is pursuing J2, leading him to head to New York to find her.

 

We get our first glimpse of the relationship between Rina and her mother in a two page story from J2 #7 where we learn she and Elektra sometimes fight crime together, discuss weaponry, attend international mercenary conventions and build bombs together and have apparently even clashed with notable villains such as the ninja cult The Hand and Bullseye.

 

In J2 #11, alongside Cyclops, Logan and Elektra watch on as Rina runs the gauntlet against Jubilee’s team, the X-People. After Wild Thing proves herself, Jubilee declares she has passed the initiation and may join the X-People as a probationary member. Rina declines, stating she only did it because her father asked her to which Cyclops remarks she reminds him of Logan, who asks Elektra if she thinks he’s mellowed with age.

 

While at the Mall with her daughter Rina, Elektra visits a local martial arts dojo for some training. Targeted by her old enemy Kuroyama, the villainous assassin of the Hand, now rebuilt as a cyborg with a built-in attack computer that uses a virtual reality matrix. Elektra battles her old foe until Kuroyama is inadvertently defeated with one hit after appearing within Rina’s hacked video game (Wild Thing #2).

Elektra Natchios is seen alongside various other major Marvel female heroes in Spider-Girl #60 on both the issue’s cover and within the thoughts of May ‘Mayday’ Parker as the latter reflects on her place amongst the other superheroines who came before her. The real-world reasons for these cameos was to acknowledge prior female heroes as the Spider-Girl title reaching its 60th continuous issue, something only one other solo female superheroine title at Marvel had achieved, that being none other than Sensational She-Hulk. The Spider-Girl title would go on to surpass this, reaching issue 100, a feat still unbeaten to this date.

 

While temporarily working with the crime lord The Black Tarantula, Spider-Girl receives martial arts training from Elektra. While rocking a black variant of her classic costume, Elektra educates Spider-Girl by noting she is telegraphing her moves and repeating patterns. After correctly deducing she is the daughter of Spider-Man based on her mannerisms and body language, Elektra advices Spider-Girl she must not hold back if she hopes to defeat Lady Octopus (Spider-Girl #75).

 

Spider-Girl demonstrates she has quickly improved under Elektra’s tutelage by running a gauntlet without a single nick. Despite Spider-Girl’s confidence in her ability to defeat Lady Octopus, Elektra warns the heroine that there will be more challenges ahead, seemingly alluding to the threat of her employer the Black Tarantula (Spider-Girl #77).

 

With Spider-Girl parting ways with the Black Tarantula shortly afterwards, Elektra was not seen again in the MC2. Thus, we come to the end of today’s post with a bit of an anticlimax. As such, I would love to see the Greek assassin make her return to the MC2 someday, perhaps in a tightly plotted Wild Thing revival series?

 

Until I commit to watching the Director’s Cut of the Elektra movie, I remain

 

frogoat

Video Games in the MC2

 

For today’s post, I wanted to try something a little different, by taking a look at video games and how they are referenced in the pages of MC2 comics. Video games, like comics are another often overlooked part of the pop culture landscape which gets little respect so this cross-pollination of media is an interesting lens to look through and get a glimpse of the world as it was at various points in the MC2’s publication history. This is Video Games in the MC2.

 

First up, we have an unidentified (and possibly fictional) video game that J2 aka Zane Yama is seen playing in A-Next #9. J2 tells Mainframe he is playing ‘one of those first person shooters’. Playing the game helped him decide how he would vote when the team were debating whether to make the perilous journey to another universe. Notably, the console’s controller has a retro design with only two face buttons which are contrasted by other elements; it is wireless and has a small screen and works in conjunction with what appears to be either Virtual Reality glasses or 3D glasses.

 

Next up, we have another video game device which Rina Logan aka Wild Thing enjoys playing. This one is a hand-held console that uses a VR headset. If Elektra is to be trusted on matters of up-to-date gaming technology, this unidentified console uses cartridges rather than disks. Rina has hacked and modified the fighting action game, allowing her to customise the main character’s appearance to resemble her costumed alter-ego, Wild Thing. This was apparently for a computer class project for which Rina received an ‘A’ grade. Kuroyama, the villainous assassin of the Hand, now rebuilt as a cyborg with a built-in attack computer that uses a virtual reality matrix is inadvertently defeated with one hit after appearing within Rina’s video game (Wild Thing #2).

Apparently in keeping with the MC2’s tradition of ‘themed months,’ we get another video game reference in another second issue. This time in Fantastic Five (vol. 1) #2 we are introduced to Doctor Lenny Gilcrest, a genius who designed a best-selling video game while still in high school who now works for S.H.I.E.L.D.  Gilcrest’s first project for S.H.I.E.L.D. is a Super Android dubbed Superoid which the Fantastic Five help field test. When Lenny is captured, the Superoid is quickly hijacked by the Wizard’s Warriors thanks to Gilcrest’s habit of using the same programming command structure for all his video games. I am curious if one of Lenny’s video games was among those played by J2 or Wild Thing?

 

Just two months later in the pages of Wild Thing #4 we see J2 playing what is almost certainly a Sega Dreamcast console, judging by the distinct controller. The Dreamcast would have been a very relevant console to reference, given its North American release in September 1999, mere months before this issue was released. Not a lot of lead time for artist Ron Lim, but the Dreamcast had already debuted in Japan the year before making it more plausible. I initially thought Juggie Junior was playing Doom, but having checked online, it appears the title never officially came to the Dreamcast. Suffice it say, the game appears to be another first-person shooter in the same vein as the Doom series.

 

The Wild Thing series is apparently the unlikely focus for this post, because in the very next issue we get a throw away reference to Rina’s school crush Colin Brewster’s father. According to Colin, his dad created a computer game with a giant robot that resembled their crash-site discovery: The Iron Despot. After his initial excitement, Colin soon realizes this is no game and eventually the day is saved when Wild Thing tricks the Iron Despot into a sinkhole (Wild Thing #5).

 

In Avengers Next #1 we glimpse yet another first-person shooter that J2 and Bluestreak are playing together in Avengers Compound. The controllers appear to be Xbox 360 controllers given their shape, design, and wireless status. This suggests they are playing on an Xbox 360 console, which was first released in late 2005 which fits with the Avengers Next mini-series which came out a year later in late 2006 Notably, the game display on the television has three player screens, so presumably Bluestreak is multitasking. We can also see three gamertags listed: 896-T, 569-BStreak and 998-J2.

 

That is it for today’s post but if I scrounge up enough material, I may produce a sequel to this post. I think it is interesting to look at the MC2 through the lens of the video game industry and see what was in the zeitgeist during the imprint’s run. It is fun to think the MC2 saw VR games as the future for the video game industry way back in the late 90’s and I had a blast trying to figure out what consoles were real and which were fictional. Special thanks to arias-98105 and the Video Game Console Library, I could not have produced this post without their help.

 

Until I learn how to mod old video games to add custom Spider-Girl player models, I remain

 

frogoat