• Elektra
• John Garrett
• Perry
• S.H.I.E.L.D.
• Col. Nick Fury
• Chastity McBryde
• The President
• Ken Wind
• Col. Nick Fury
• The Beast
• Chuck

DAREDEVIL/ELEKTRA: LOVE AND WAR is now out of print.

TALES OF WONDER: SOLD OUT • AMAZON USA: used
AMAZON UK: used • AMAZON CANADA: used

DAREDEVIL: LOVE AND WAR

Script: Frank Miller
Art: Bill Sienkiewicz
Letters: Chris Eliopoulos and Jim Novak

Daredevil #1: "And A Child Shall Lead Them All"
63 pages + cover • 1986

In an effort to restore Vanessa's sanity, Kingpin kidnaps a world-famous psychologist and his wife.He threatens the life of the Dr. Mondat's wife, Cheryl, if the doctor cannot help Vanessa. While CherylMondat, who is blind, is in the heroin-crazed grasp of Victor, one of the Kingpin's lackeys, Daredevilmust balance rescuing her as well as her husband.

ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN #1-8

Script: Frank Miller
Art: Bill Sienkiewicz
Letters: Jim Novak and Gaspar Saladino

Elektra: Assassin #1: "Hell and Back"
33 pages + cover • August 1986

A replay of Elektra's origin reveals certain facts: her mother was shot to death by assassins while she was still a baby in the womb. Her father survived the attack and raised her, though her adolescence is marked by dark and turbulent episodes. At 12, she is sent to train with a sensei, where she meets Stick and the Chaste. Her sensei is inevitably displeased with her makeup and kicks her out. She wanders through the snow, back to civilization.

She attends college where she meets Matt Murdock and has something approaching a normal life, but her father is assassinated in front of her and she exiles herself from that normality. The Hand kidnap her and trick her into killing her sensei, which brings her into a direct confrontation with the dark power behind the Hand, a being called the Beast. She survives this confrontation with him and his mind-influencing "milk", and her newly found dark spiritual powers help her become an elite assassin in her own right.

In the South American republic of San Concepcion, she performs what many consider an impossible assassination attempt, successfully killing dictator Carlos Huevos. While there, she detects the presence of the Beast once again, and the pungent odor of "the milk". She infiltrates the American Embassy, where she kills a couple guards and finds the source of the foul odor, the Ambassador Reich. While there, she is somehow knocked out and taken prisoner. While captive she is poked and prodded and experiments are performed on her, but she cannot be held for long, and she escapes into the thick jungle surrounding the building.

Elektra: Assassin #2: "The Ugly Man"
33 pages + cover • September 1986

Elektra escapes her jungle prison but is hunted down by SHIELD agents Perry and Garrett, investigating the assassination of Huevos. Perry chases her down to the docks, where Elektra murders him and then destroys a ship moored there that is laden with explosive contraband. Garrett has raced there to help his fellow agent, but he is grievously wounded in the explosion.

Later, she infiltrates a nearby SHIELD lab called Extechop, a program related to cyborg technology. She learns as much as she can about Ambassador Reich through a machine called a Brain Feed, before she makes a bloody escape attempt from the lab, mercilessly killing all who attempt to apprehend her.

Elektra: Assassin #3: "Rough Cut"
31 pages + cover • October 1986

Beaker's SHIELD-sponsored Extechop lab puts Garrett back together using cyborg pieces and parts. Later, Garrett updates Beaker on what he knows about Elektra, including the point at which she was eventually subdued by SHIELD lab guards and taken in custody. As Elektra is being studied by Extechop, Garrett can't shake the idea that she's making mental contact with him. He tries to focus on TV, which is playing advertisements for surging presidential candidate Ken Wind, but inevitably he is drawn to Elektra. He tries to kill her, but can't resist mental commands from her to kill her guards instead.

Later, Elektra penetrates a function hosted by Ambassador Reich in honor of the visiting Ken Wind. She assassinates Reich but also detects the heavy odor of the Beast coming from Wind- the Beast hasswitched host bodies to the presidential candidate. She realizes he must be her next target.

After her escape from the lab and successful assassination of Reich, Garrett is left explaining to his superiors how it all happened. Col. Nick Fury orders her capture, and a team of SHIELD agents head to cut off her escape from San Concepcion. There, Elektra sets up Garrett to be captured by customs agents and absconds with his gun and plane ticket. She boards the plane for America, leaving behind an astonished and angry Garrett.

Elektra: Assassin #4: "Young Love"
29 pages + cover • November 1986

Fury debriefs Garrett on the debacle in San Concepcion, and finds the story of the female ninja very hard to believe. Elektra, in an attempt to be able to place herself near Ken Wind to kill him, steals the physical appearance and essence of a paralyzed woman named Sandy so that the Beast inside Ken Wind won't recognize her. Garrett goes to meet Wind and tell him that he's being targeted for death, but Garrett's mental link with Elektra is so overwhelming that the milky stench of the Beast nauseates him.

Meanwhile, Elektra has been overwhelmed by Sandy's essence, and is spotted by Brad, one of the Beast's agent's. In spite of himslef, Garrett realizes that Elektra has lost all sense of her self and tries to snap her out of it. He tracks Brad down, knowing he intends to kill Elektra, but is stopped by a well-meaning SHIELD agent named Minelli. Brad uses Garrett's gun to kill Minelli, and he realizes he's now going to be marked by SHIELD as a double-agent. He tries to get away, with Brad chasing him down. Meanwhile, Elektra slowly but surely restores her persona from Sandy. After finally killing Brad, Garrett flies off a ramp into deep water, and as he sinks, he finds Elektra there to save him.

Elektra: Assassin #5: "Chastity"
29 pages + cover • December 1986

Chastity McBryde is put on the case by Nick Fury to protect Ken Wind from an assassination plot being enacted by Elektra and Garrett. Her choppersquad tracks down the pair underwater, but as they hover overhead, a cadreof the Beast's nijas attack them. Garrett and Elektra are able to fight off theninjas, but then they are beset by SHIELD agents attacking in scuba gear. Garrett tries to talk her out of killing them, but Elektra viciously beheads hisfellow agents.

Above, Chastity waits as her agents are being slaughtered, and then Elektra managesto gain her way onto one of Chastity's choppers, setting up a showdown betweenthe two women. Garrett, still in Elektra's thrall, begs Chastity to get out beforeshe gets killed, and before Elektra is able to kill Chastity, he somehow managesto get the willpower to shoot her in the back.

As SHIELD works on Elektra's bloodied and near-dead body, the trap is sprung. Elektrahad switched bodies with Chastity right before Garrett shot her down. Now, she switchesminds bodies back, and once more as Elektra escapes with Garrett once again helpinglead the way, and realizing now there's no turning back as he is her slave. They leavebehind Chastity, who's broken body is now in the place of Elektra's.

Elektra: Assassin #6: "What We're Fighting For"
31 pages + cover • January 1987

Garrett curries Elektra away to a hideout where nobody will be able to trackthem down as she rests up and recovers her energy. Beaker has recoveredthe body of agent Perry and is using Extechop technology to restore him to a new cyborg form. One of his genetically engineered dwarf assistants named Chuck is surreptitiously consolidating Perry's power for sinister purposes.

The Beast, as Ken Wind, is busy spreading his evil influence through the politicalsystem, while the current President is going into an insane rage realizing he isabout to lose power to Wind by losing a landslide election.

Chastity, in updating Garrett's history for Col. Fury, reveals that he was hired bySHIELD branch Extechop with full knowledge of a sordid criminal past. Beaker reportsback to Fury that both Garrett and Perry have gone through extensive cyborg reconstruction, with Perry's near-complete transformation being the piece de resistance of the whole program. Suspicious of Perry's background, Fury orders a check on him as well. They findthat Perry is as bad as a bad person can get, and order Beaker to immediately stophis operations on him, but it's too late. With the operation over, and Perry given nearsuper-human strength and invulnerability with his cyborg programming, he and the dwarf Chuck make a bloody escape from the Extechop lab, killing Beaker.

Meanwhile, Elektra and Garrett realize the Beast's ultimate goal is to start a nuclearholocaust. The Beast overtook one of the top Pentagon generals with access to the nuclear arsenal and prompted him to bring the Cold War nuclear stalemate with the Sovietsto the brink before shooting himself dead.

Elektra: Assassin #7: "Vox Populi"
31 pages + cover • February 1987

In the waning moments of Beaker's life, as he's kept alive by Extechop technology, he explains that Perryhas been created as a Superman. SHIELD immediately steps up efforts to capture Perry before heand the dwarf Chuck can start a total rampage. Chastity's copters bear down on him, but Perry exactsrevenge on all the agents he used to work with that he hated, ripping through the copters until Fury orders a bomb to be dropped on him.

Elektra breaks into Wind's campaign HQ and realizes that the Beast is in total control of the presidentialrace. Chuck leads Perry to the chamber to meet his master, the Beast. There, Perry drinks from the cupof the Beast's mind-altering milk, where Perry sees the visions of nuclear holocaust that the Beast, as KenWind, will enact upon the world. It will be Perry's drop to protect him from Elektra.

Elektra and Garrett prepare for the assassination plot on Ken Wind, while the election returns are comingin and it appears to be a landslide for the challenger. The incumbent president belligerently holds onto the"red button" that controls the nuclear arsenal, slipping into a crazed psychosis as he realizes he is close tolosing power. While Garrett, disguised as an ice cream man, waits outside the giant arena where Wind is poised to accept the presidency, Elektra climbs up into the rafters with her crossbow and waits.

Elektra: Assassin #8: "Hail to the Chief"
33 pages + cover • March 1987

Chastity updates President Wind on her findings surrounding the assassination attempt on his life: her forces attempted to stop Elektra at the arena where Wind was to accept the election results naming him president. Garrett attacked from outside with a bazooka. The resultant clamor caused the Secret Service to evacuate Wind to a helicopter. Elektra is carried up to the helicopter by a concussive grenade, carrying Garrett along with her, and then attaching herself to the copter with a line fired into the copter's hull by crossbow. Chuck flies towards them with a spear, Elektra kills him with her crossbow. Garrett tries to shoot Perry out of the air, as he is flying around by aid of a jet pack, but he seems impervious to any bullets that hit him.

On the ground, Chastity leads a tactical team with a particle cannon that is supposed to be the only thing that can destroy Perry. When the copter lands, Garrett is subdued by Perry, and mercilessly disintegrated by Perry as Wind looks on, leaving only Garrett's head as operational. Elektra comes on the scene with her Japanese longsword in tow, and she faces off against Perry, the Beast's protector. She beheads him, but Perry is still in command of his body, and he is about to crush spine underfoot when she grabs at his head and reaches inside, shredding the delicate wires that keep him alive.

Wind is left standing alone, and Elektra grabs him and transfers Garrett's essence into his body, and the essence of the Beast into Garrett's rapidly declining skull. Four months later, and inside the body of Ken Wind, Garrett assumes control of the country and greets the Soviet premiere with his finger on the button while brandishing a sub-machine gun.

-- synopsis by Gormuu