Jennifer Garner’s Elektra recently made her return to the big screen to much fanfare and acclaim, but her version of Daredevil’s longtime lover wasn’t always so well-received. Acclaimed comic book artist Amanda Conner was so disappointed in the 2005 Elektra movie that she actually cried while watching it. Conner knows a thing or two about the character, as she was actually the model for Elektra’s greatest story.

Amanda Conner’s husband, Jimmy Palmiotti, detailed how she became the model for Elektra at the “Daredevil: 60-Year Anniversary” during Dragon Con 2024. “My wife (Amanda Conner) is actually Elektra in Elektra Assassin,” Palmiotti said, talking about the seminal 1986 series from writer Frank Miller and artist Bill Sienkiewicz.

Conner was working as Sienkiewicz’s assistant at the time, and her favorite character was Elektra. “She dressed up as the character for Halloween,” Palmiotti continued, “and Bill said, ‘I have to take a million pictures of you for reference!’”

Artist Amanda Conner Was the Model for Elektra in Elektra: Assassin

As Elektra’s first series, the eight-part Elektra: Assassin sees the title character being held in a mental institution in South America, her previous memories wiped. The fractured storyline that follows features political assassinations, psychic powers and cybernetic S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, the ultimate in '80s excess filtered through the lens of Miller and Sienkiewicz’s heightened sensibilities. The fact that Sienkiewicz’s model for Elektra would go on to be one of the top artists working in comics in the ensuing decades adds to the project’s storied legacy.

Released in 1986, Elektra: Assassin hit the industry like a bomb, and the ripple effects of it are still being felt to this day. Much like the contemporaneous series The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, Elektra: Assassin helped to broaden the scope of what comics could be, turning what many considered to be a disposable medium exclusively for children into an art-form to be taken seriously by the mainstream media. A lot of that lay in Sienkiewicz’s ground-breaking artwork, with his exaggerated painted style perfectly capturing the psychodrama and violent action of Miller’s scripts.

Elektra: Assassin Is One of the Greatest Marvel Comics of All Time

Being that Amanda Conner loved Elektra enough to dress up for her at Halloween, it’s understandable that she would be excited for the antihero’s big screen debut. Palmiotti humorously recalled the two of them going to see the Elektra movie when it hit theaters in 2005. At one point, Palmiotti said he looked over at Conner to see her crying. “Elektra’s her favorite,” Palmiotti noted, highlighting how disappointing the movie ultimately was for them.

With rich source material like Elektra: Assassin to pull from, it’s disappointing that the only Elektra solo film strayed so far from the character in the comics as to be virtually unrecognizable. Yet now that Jennifer Garner has returned to the role in Deadpool & Wolverine, perhaps the actor could be persuaded to return once more to bring something like Elektra: Assassin to the big screen.

Source: Jimmy Palmiotti, “Daredevil: 60-Year Anniversary,” Dragon Con 2024