Have you ever done a post regarding Elektra and all her love interests in the comics? I know it's done often with DD (and how he is quite the ladies man) but was wondering who she has been romantically involved with in the Marvel Universe.
I haven’t, and I really should, so thank you for asking! This is one of those questions where the longer I thought about it, the more difficult it became to actually answer, and the reason is this: Elektra tends to be a sexualized character. She is frequently written as something of a femme fatale, and people are constantly lusting after her. This means that in some cases-- especially cases in which Elektra is not the narrator of the story-- it’s difficult to distinguish between Elektra partnering with someone who is attracted to her and Elektra actually being engaged in a romantic relationship. There is a ton of subtext involved in some of her interactions with people, and I will be the first to admit that I’m not the best at decoding romantic subtext. A great example is Agent Garrett from Elektra: Assassin (who I have not included on this list). We are in his head for most of the story, and he is going gaga over Elektra the entire time. On the page, it doesn’t look like she’s reciprocating, but Garrett imagines that she might be, and so you get into this situation where you start to think... maybe they’re being romantic off-panel. Maybe Elektra is actually into him. But since we’re not in her head, and because Garrett is an unreliable narrator, it’s very difficult to parse what is actually going on between them.
In any case, here is a list of people with whom I’m pretty confident Elektra has been romantically involved (in roughly chronological order).
Matt Murdock
[ID: Elektra and Matt seen from the shoulders up, kissing. Elektra has her arms around Matt’s neck.]
Obviously, number one on the list is this guy, the college boyfriend, Elektra’s first love, the one that accidentally got her father killed which caused her to become so disillusioned with life that she dropped out of school and became a ninja assassin got away. Elektra is very much her own character and has been for a long time, but she will always-- to some degree-- be defined by her relationship with Matt. This is partly because Matt was a significant player in her origin story, but it’s also because their relationship embodied a happier time, and is something that Elektra has continued to cherish through all of the chaos that she has been through in the years since. Matt serves as a bit of an ideal for her; she will occasionally compare other men she meets to him-- particularly men who she is considering involving herself with. If you want to play Elektra bingo, “Thinks About Matt” should be the free space because it happens at least once per run.
I tend to think of Matt and Elektra’s relationship as one of a connection that transcends their actual interactions. Their lives are so intensely paralleled, and their college-era time together was so important to both of them, that they are always present in each other’s lives even when they aren’t physically together. Elektra will frequently show up when Matt needs help-- sometimes in person, sometimes psychically, sometimes just in his imagination. They have shared a lot of closeness and are very important to each other. But they haven’t actually spent that much time together. Elektra was interested in resuming a romantic relationship with Matt immediately after her resurrection, during Chichester’s Daredevil run, but Matt wasn’t in the right emotional place for it. They tried, briefly, to date during Elektra volume 1, but that fell apart right away. Now, in the current DD run, they have started up a relationship-- which is hugely significant after years and years of pining and angst and near-misses. I’m curious to see where this will take them moving forward.
Tekagi
[ID: Two panels showing Elektra and a burly man embracing in a stream in the moonlight.]
Tekagi (caption): “My past with Elektra? Is that what really troubles you, Genkotsu? It was exotic and intense, yes... but it is also long over!”
In Elektra: Root of Evil, we learn that during her time training with/infiltrating the Hand, a lonely Elektra had a passionate but brief relationship with one of her teachers, an ambitious (and ultimately bad news) Hand warrior named Tekagi. While they both end up with fond memories of their time together, they also both treat it as being very much in the past. When they meet again as enemies, years later, Elektra doesn’t suffer too much angst about killing him.
Wolverine
[ID: Elektra and Wolverine, both in costume, are sitting together on a low wall with a Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters sign on the front. Wolverine looks sad; Elektra is embracing him from behind. They are surrounded by green trees.]
When Logan has the Adamantium ripped out of him and the trauma causes him to revert to a feral, animalistic state, Stick sends Elektra to help him find his way back. This comes at a time when Elektra is also struggling to re-find herself after returning from the dead. Together, the two go on an emotional journey of self-discovery that turns them into very close friends. Since then, they have frequently stepped into each other’s lives for team-ups and to provide emotional support. I have to admit a little ignorance on this one. While Logan’s appearances in Elektra-focused comics appear platonic, I haven’t read many Wolverine comics, and I've gotten the sense through my general Marvel reading that there is a romantic element to Elektra and Logan’s relationship that I just haven’t come across yet, which is why he’s on this list. If any of my followers can clarify this one, please do!
McKinley “Mac” Stewart
[ID: Elektra (in a jacket) is leaning down toward Mac, a beefy guy with a mustache and a ponytail. Her hand is on the side of his face. The scene is tinted dark blue.]
Elektra: “Stop talking. The answer is yes, Matt.”
Mac: “You mean... Mac.”
Elektra: “That’s what I said.”
Elektra’s first solo series takes place soon after her resurrection, and is centered around her attempts to put her life as an assassin behind her and start anew (spoiler: she fails spectacularly). One of her projects in this new life is a dojo that she founds and funds to give local kids a place to go to receive training and support. Elektra brings in two guys to help run the dojo: a martial artist named King Lau and a heavyweight boxer named Mac Stewart. Mac quickly develops an attraction toward Elektra, and while she at first hesitates to accept his advances for personal baggage-related reasons, she eventually ends up engaging in what seems to be a mostly physical relationship with him. However, this relationship doesn’t receive much development. Most of their interactions happen off-panel or in the background of the main plot, Elektra almost ditches him for Matt at one point, and when the series ends, Mac is in a coma thanks to an attack by the Hand and (to my knowledge) never appears again.
Frank Castle
[ID: Elektra and Frank are sitting across from each other at a diner-style table, drinking out of the same cup with straws. They are pointing weapons (sai and gun) at each other under the table.]
Elektra and Frank have tended to run in the same circles, kill the same types of people, etc. and through encountering each other and learning each other’s reputations, they end up developing a healthy admiration for each other. Frank asks Elektra to train him, in recognition of her superior skills. This blossoms into a romance that lasts throughout their time working together on the Thunderbolts team (she gives him the heart of a mobster she killed and he gets it bronzed... it's very sweet). They end up having a (verbal and physical) fight and breaking up at the end of the run, though they still seem to be on fairly good terms.
Stephen Strange
[ID: Elektra and Doctor Strange, both in costume, are kissing in front of the big window in the Sanctum Sanctorum. A full moon is rising over the buildings behind them.]
This is new! Elektra and Stephen are currently working together on Conan-related shenanigans in Savage Avengers, and a few issues ago they slept together. For the moment, they both seem to be treating it as a casual one-time thing, but time will tell if that remains true.
