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Elektra: Assassin was an eight-issue miniseries published by Epic Comics in 1986-87. It was written by Frank Miller and illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz. Though it features the Marvel Comics character of Elektra, it is outside of mainstream Marvel continuity.

The story starts out with Elektra in a mental institution in South America, attempting to recover her memory. She manages to remember that the Hand, followers of a Beast taking human form, gave her the Beast's milk. She sets out to stop the Beast, running afoul of several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the process--Garrett, who becomes her reluctant partner, Perry, a psychopathic cyborg, and Chastity, a strictly by-the-book agent. The Beast manages to get his agent elected president, under the name Ken Wind (with a face resembling a grainy Dan Quayle photograph, whose resemblance is a coincidence, according to Sienkiewicz [1], but is thwarted by Elektra and Garrett.

This is the first time famed artist Bill Sienkiewicz illustrated using water colors as opposed to the traditional pencilling then inking method. His exaggerated art is unique amongst recognized comic book artists of his time. Over the course of the Elektra Assasin series, he cleary makes significant improvements in the method of illustration.

Frank Miller's plot was most likely too considered too adult in content to be approved under the "comic book code" rating system. Instead, it was released under Marvel's affiliate Epic comics, known for producing Dread-Star, Epic Illustrated and other material that would not be appropriate for children. (Dread-Star actually destroys the Milky Way galaxy and Earth to spare it a less clean life as slaves to space aliens. Dread-Star also deals with a disturbing story of child incest and rape.)

The plot plays with the Christian story of the end of the world and the coming of the devil's son a.k.a. the "beast". This plot allows Miller to pit the beast against Daredevil, Elektra and Nick Fury (agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.). Another recurring favorite plot device from Miller is the use of a killer cyborg named "Perry", who is similar to Robocop yet completely evil. Perry's threatening nature is similar to the "Terminator" cyborg. It is no accident that Miller wrote another comic book named "RoboCop vs. Terminator". Perry is the machine-like tool of the "beast". His extremely evil nature makes him a very willing servant of the "beast". The "beast" character is marginally scary due to less personality development. In contrast, we see Perry's biography as he moves from one evil "sin" to another until he is volunteering for abominable projects such as "snuf films" where people (not actors) are killed for entertainment.

Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz were probably at their most popular level with comic book fans when this series was released. The Elektra series was received well by fans around the same years that the Dark Knight Returns was released.

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