ELEKTRA #14

Cover shows sharp corners, glossy unbroken surface, and no visible spine stress or ticks in this photo. Colors appear vivid with no fading or staining evident. The book is in a protective sleeve which limits full assessment of edges; interior and back cover were not examined. Based on the visible front cover alone this appears to be a high-grade copy, but sight-unseen grading is conservative.

Elektra's first solo ongoing series ran nineteen issues between 1996 and 1998, launched by Peter Milligan and Mike Deodato Jr. as part of Marvel's post-Miller expansion of the character beyond the Daredevil orbit. By this issue, "A Hand Raised Against Her!", Larry Hama had taken over scripting duties while Deodato remained on pencils and covers, with Scott Koblish inking. The story turns on the assassin Kuroyama pursuing Elektra into her burning New York apartment and killing her friend Nina, whose funeral leaves Elektra blamed by the family she failed to protect hat drives the run's closing arc. It is a mid-to-late chapter of a serialized story rather than a first appearance or origin, and it carries no key status.

The market profile is that of a late-1990s Marvel title that shipped into a collapsing direct market. Print runs on the back half of the run were low, so raw copies are not abundant on the shelf, but demand is thinner still: tracking services record essentially no sustained sales history for this number, and no certified population has formed. That combination scarce but unwanted keeps prices flat regardless of grade in the raw brackets, where the issue moves as a run-filler alongside its neighbors rather than as a stand-alone purchase. Deodato's growing profile and periodic Daredevil screen activity lift interest in the series' first issue and its Frank Miller-associated antecedents far more than they lift the interior numbers.

Buyers here are run collectors completing the 1996 series, Deodato followers, and Elektra specialists assembling a character shelf. Because the book almost never appears certified, a slab is priced by the market as a novelty rather than a comparable, and sellers should expect wide dispersion on any single high-grade transaction. Across the raw brackets the spread between a beaten copy and a solid mid-grade is negligible, so the practical strategy is to sell the issue within a lot or a full run, where it contributes to a set price rather than competing on its own.