owie

Geeking out about Melinda May using the alias Chastity McBryde (from Elektra Assassin) in SHIELD this week.

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Updated with numerous scans, mostly from the 2004 solo volume and The Things They Say About Her, but also from Web of Black Widow 4 and Secret Empire Uprising. These are shown below in the spoiler block, and are also incorporated into the original main post above.

• Has a friendly sparring match with Wolverine when she is a teen.

• Speed: Throws a knife so quickly it kills a guy before he hits a button. His hand is inches away before she even throws the knife.

Takes out two guys in the time it takes a coffee cup to fall to the ground.

Accurately shoots a small package of dynamite on a far-away ship. Despite its scope, this gun is not a style that is made for sniping.

• Her Widow’s Bite gauntlets weigh 4 kilos each, or about 9 pounds.

• A short range Bite to Hawkeye; that was part of a plan they made and may have been staged, but it still shows how point-blank attacks are a tactic).

Dodges Hawkeye’s net arrow at point blank range (however this was part of a plan with Hawkeye and may have been staged)

Nine special agents with automatic weapons attack. She dodges, then dodges again, then rushes them, taking them all out. She is only hit once.

Stealthily drops a bug on a guy.

Hides in the backseat of an open convertible for a while without the driver knowing.

• After asking Hawkeye to shoot her in the side with a 3-bladed broadhead arrow, she is still able to agilely jump off a roof.

One-shot punches Hawkeye for a knockout.

Holds a guy up in the air.

Carries a teenager.

Vassily, who is connected to the Red Room, is repeatedly referred to as being tough, and in his one feat catches a thrown knife and then two-shots a trained assassin. They fight. He has a pheromone scent that Black Widows can’t fight against. He hits her four times (two was enough to take out the other assassin). But, she calculates that by letting him break her nose and fill her throat with blood, she won’t smell the pheromone. Then she gets up and two-shots him.

Stats: Black Widow has kept her youth due to multiple treatments from the Soviet government, which also increased her physical stats, including strength, speed, and durability ("Government treatments slowed her aging, augmented her immune system and enhanced her durability”).

The Red Room physically and mentally conditioned the 28 Black Widows (of which Natasha was only one) in their youth in various ways:

• The Red Room conditioning gives her a “ramped up immune and cell repair system.” Her “wounds heal four, maybe five times as fast as a normal human’s would. [She doesn’t] hardly get sick, [she doesn’t] age as fast.” This immune system works so well that it sees a fetus as a disruption and miscarries it.

• They physically conditioned them to react to a pheromonal scent that locks into her biology. She is unable to fight or even disobey someone with it. This is how Nick Fury got her to defect. (However, see her fight with Vassily on how she can overcome it.)

• They also implanted false memories, such as of her training as a ballerina. These memories were unstable, and when asked directly by Red Guardian, she was unable to give a consistent answer. If a Black Widow tries to think directly about the memories, they get physically ill.

Soviet Super-Soldier Serum: The Winter Soldier, who worked for the Soviets at the time, also provided Natasha and her caregiver Ivan with a formula which expanded their life-spans and also healed him enough to recover from a mortal injury. This was in 1956. It is unclear if this serum is in addition to, or the same as, the treatment the other Widow trainees received.

As I mentioned while discussing her resurrection by the Hand many years ago, she could have arguably gotten some of her physical enhancement from that as well.

Age: How old is Natasha? Deadly Originshows her as an infant in 1928, and says she is 29 in 1957, which would also imply a 1928 birth year. The Avengers Roll Call handbook backs this up and says she was born around 1928. This is also supported by a plethora of stories, such as Uncanny X-men 268, a flashback where Captain America and Wolverine meet Natasha during World War II in 1941, when they were all alive (Natasha would have been, and looked approximately, 13).

However, in The Things They Say About Her (published before Deadly Origin), Yelena Belova says Nat is "nearly 40" (she would actually be 77 at the time TTTSAH was published) and that Yelena herself is "not yet 30." It is unlikely that Yelena would be so unaware of the history of the Black Widow program since she graduated from a later iteration. Perhaps we may take this to mean that Natasha looked like she was almost 40.

However, after the 2015 Secret War in which reality was rebooted, the Mark Waid/Chris Samnee Black Widow volume implies she is actually much younger. Natasha kills the uncle of a boy who later became the Weeping Lion when both she and the boy were children. Since the Weeping Lion seems to be a normal adult age, this is problematic. Further, only "several years ago," according to a caption, she captured Yinsen and brought him into captivity. Yinsen is the man who later helped Tony Stark build his first Iron Man armor when they were both captives. Natasha looks like a young woman in this story, which means that she is actually younger than Tony Stark at the time. The letters page in issue 8 takes on this confusion. It says she is 88 years old (at the time of the volume in 2016, thus a birth year of 1928), but then notes that there are some problems with how her age is portrayed in the story, and that they care more about the story than the math. It suggests a few possible solutions, such as that the Weeping Lion could have also had enhanced age, but basically leaves it open. The letters page to issue 10 follows up on this: a letter writer suggests that it was the reality-altering aspects of the Secret War that changed the timeline, and the editor gave him a No-Prize for the idea, seemingly endorsing the concept. The letters page in issue 11 continues the discussion, implying that it is not clear exactly when in her life she was in the Red Room.

Intentionally has Hawkeye shoot her in the side with a 3-bladed broadhead arrow, clearly causing significant damage, in order to fulfill a plan.

Callous enough to assassinate a guy who did her wrong in cold blood. He's not expecting this at all, or aware of what's going on. She just walks up and drops a grenade in his lap.

Has no compunctions about killing a defenseless, disarmed female agent (the last guy's partner) in cold blood.

• Ruthless: forces a guy to jump off a high tower at gunpoint, breaking many bones, then threatens to let wild dogs eat him (and does actually let them start to visciously chew on his leg).

• She promised two guys that they wouldn’t walk again, so after she beats them and the one guy is just lying on the ground unconscious, she breaks his back with a pressure point (which was completely unnecessary).

• Trains the Champions in “ethical adjustments” which are so hard core she makes them cry just by talking.

• Is interrogated by a man using hallucinogenic drugs. When she used these same drugs on him, he went nearly insane and gave up everything he knew, and kept having flashbacks much later. While it affects her strongly on the inside, she resists it unlike anyone else ("I've never seen resistance like this"), and is in fact able to act completely conscious soon after (and then get in a big fight).

• Once again Daredevil is unable to tell if she’s lying.

• Perception: Can tell Miles Morales is behind her. Then does it again. His “how do you keep—” comment shows that he was trying to be stealthy.

Wolverine is cautious enough about her reactions to stay out of arm’s reach when she wakes up unexpectedly.

• Has a funny voicemail message.

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@professorrespect@destinyman75 It's done now! Destinyman, it is now vastly better organized than the edited version you saw last night. Plus, the links now work :)

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Edited By owie  Moderator

I'm going to switch gears here and give a description of Elektra's MOVIE feats. I'm sure you can find videos out there if you want, I don't know how to do DVD ripping, so this will be imageless. I will start with the Daredevil movie, then discuss the Elektra movie, and sum up.

DAREDEVIL MOVIE

Physical abilities

Daredevil, Bullseye, and Elektra, while all human, all show superhuman feats of leaping, agility, and durability. For instance, DD is shown jumping perhaps 20 stories down a building onto a window washing ledge, or fighting after being hit in the throat by a dish thrown by Bullseye, which would surely be lethal.

Given that Elektra is shown to be able to keep up with DD in two fights, she clearly possesses these same basic characteristics. In particular, she is shown being able to flip around on, and fight while balanced on two see-saws simultaneously. She is also shown to jump from one building's rooftop to another three times during the final battle, distances that are clearly beyond normal human jumping distances.

Fighting Prowess

She says that her father had her train with a different sensei every year since she was five years old.

She spars with Murdock in a playground. It is more or less even throughout. He probably gets the upper hand more often, but also notes that she's holding back and asks her not to. The match ends with her winning, with her foot at his throat.

She has a fancy training session where she slashes a bunch of randomly-falling sandbags, but while cool it probably doesn't show any specific noteworthy feats.

In probably her best fight scene, she fights Daredevil. Here, she's bloodlusted, believing that he killed her father. DD is only trying to protect himself and not fighting offensively. They fight reasonably evenly, until she clearly wins by stabbing him through the chest with her sai. Although DD is only fighting defensively, I would note that no matter how much he loves her, he would obviously have avoided letting himself get stabbed in the chest if he could have.

She then fights Bullseye. She throws her sai at him, but he catches it and throws it back. When she tries to catch it, it stabs her in the hand. He then defeats her in H2H in a reasonably short fight unfortunately, and kills her.

Summary of Daredevil movie feats

She shows superhuman jumping and agility, and wins her two fights with Daredevil, with the caveats that the first one was sparring, and DD was only defending himself in the second one.

I would note that she must be resurrected by Stick (as described in the Elektra movie) pretty quickly, since she leaves a braille necklace for Matt soon after her death.

ELEKTRA MOVIE

Elektra is resurrected by Stick and continues her training under him. She also learns some mystic/psychic powers.

Psychic powers:

Elektra learns a special mystic martial arts mental power called Kimagure. This can be used for various things, including telepathy/astral projection, precognition, clairvoyance, resurrection of the dead, and something along the lines of mind-clouding. Here are her specific feats with it:

Mind-clouding/super-speed: On at least three occasions, Elektra is talking with someone, then speeds around to the other side of them without them seeing her move. This is similar to various disappearing acts/speed feats she has had in the comics. It is unclear whether this ability is due to super-speed or temporarily making herself invisible to someone/putting their mind on pause/mind-clouding. I lean toward mind clouding, with some speed mixed in. Instances: (1) Elektra is talking with Abby, who turns to walk away and finds Elektra on the other side of her, maybe 5' from her original position.. (2) Mark is walking towards her. She is sitting on a high stump. She suddenly is standing on the other side of him, perhaps 10' from her original position. (3) She is talking with Mark on a porch. He turns away for a split second while she is talking, and she is gone when he looks back. (4) Some Hand ninjas use the same power: they are walking behind her on a path, then disappear when walking past her. She seems aware of what they have done. It is because of this instance that I tend to see it as a psychic feat, which she is capable of seeing through in others.

Clairvoyance: She sees others at a distance from her on several occasions, including: (1) "sees" the Hand outside McCabe's farmhouse (2) "sees" Tattoo's location during the final battle and finds her way towards him (3) "sees" Typhoid in the maze during the final battle, and uses the clairvoyance to accurately target her with a thrown sai, killing her (more on this below).

Telepathy/astral projection: she mentally communicates, using clear conversation, with Kirigi to set up their final battle.

Precognition?: when Kirigi, a speedster, rushes her in his final attack, she knows where to put her sai ahead of time so he runs into it. It's not totally clear that this is a use of precognition, as opposed to skill, but since Kirigi mentions to Abby just beforehand that kimagure helps you learn to predict your enemies' movements, it seems likely.

Resurrection: she resurrects Abby from the dead after she was killed by Typhoid.

She gains these last two powers only at the end of the movie; earlier she says only a master can resurrect the dead. This shows that she has become a kimagure master by the end, after learning self-acceptance.

Strength

In a training sequence, she does several one-armed pull-ups. Also see the hedge row sai sequence under Throwing.

Agility

She is regularly seen jumping around quite a bit, although in a more grounded-universe way than in Daredevil. A couple examples: she jumps up and stabs a ninja that she can't see through a roof. She dodges numerous point-blank shots from another ninja, who is using a gun that propels darts in a gatling-gun-like manner. She throws some throwing darts into a tree across a wide forest clearing, then runs up the vertical tree trunk by using the (very small) darts as steps. When the tree trunk is chopped down and is falling, she runs along the trunk with no balance problems.

Throwing Skill

She throws a sai across a very long room into the back of a guy's chair, killing him.

She throws a utility knife (box cutter) across another wide room (maybe 40'?) at Abby, who is running. She sticks Abby's shirt sleeve to the wall. This is impressive not only due to the weapon, which is hardly balanced for throwing, the distance, and the fact that Abby was running (and that Abby is a Treasure, meaning a prodigy martial artist), but that Abby's shirt was pretty tight, meaning that you'd have to hit the sleeve perfectly to only stab through the material and not her arm.

Using her clairvoyance, she sees Typhoid in the maze. She then throws her sai at her through numerous hedge rows--maybe 20 rows?--killing Tyhpoid. This is impressive for several reasons: hitting a moving target using only her clairvoyance as a guide; throwing the sai at such a distance; and throwing it through all the hedge rows, which it had to break through as it went, showing significant strength as well.

Durability

Typhoid kisses her for a lengthy amount of time to drain her life energy. She does get very sick, but doesn't die, whereas the same amount of time or less killed Abby, and apparently others. Typhoid was able to kill plant material pretty quickly. Overall it seems like Elektra was able to resist Typhoid a little better than average.

Elektra walks through Tattoo's mass of snakes with no difficulty, whereas they were able to drag down Abby.

She is kicked by Kirigi, a speedster, on two occasions, and survives at a better-than-human level: the first time, he kicks so fast/strong that it creates a pulse/ripple effect throughout the room, knocking everything down. She is hurt, but survives. The second time, he kicks her a distance against a well wall, clearly using a super-human striking power, and she manages to get back up again.

Fighting Skill

In the beginning sequence, she is described as killing numerous mercenaries, who are supposed to be the best money can buy, with no problem.

She is also described as being one of Stick's best students, and wipes the floor with the rest of the students with a bo staff.

She beats Abby, a "Treasure" who is supposed to be a once-in-a-generation martial artist and is described as a prodigy from the age of 5, in a sparring match. Granted that Abby is only 13, but she displays a fair amount of skill, doing most of the work in defeating a superhuman guy named Kinkou, doing OK against Kirigi, killing a spirit wolf, and beating up a bunch of Stick's students.

She fights Kirigi twice. The first time, he beats her with the superhuman "pulse" kick described above. Kirigi is a speedster, capable of running at what may be similar to classic Quicksilver levels: he can effectively disappear from one spot and reappear in another, and uses this tactically in his fights. He may also have some low-level telekinetic powers, as he was able to make a bunch of sheets float distractingly in the first fight. The second time, they fight much more evenly, with Elektra generally keeping up with his speedster attacks, although he still has the advantage. He kicks her the second time, but she realizes she needs to save Abby and pulls herself up and attacks again. This time she anticipates his moves and stabs him when he rushes her, killing him in a straight-up encounter.

Summary of Elektra movie

The stuff I was most impressed with was her throwing skill. The utility knife feat and the sai in the hedge rows feat were very impressive. Her agility was good. I wish there was a bit more direct featuring of her fighting skill against other top combatants, but the last fight with Kirigi was pretty legit, given his powers, as was her sparring match with Abby, even if she is a kid. She also clearly learned a lot in terms of kimagure, and with the precognition now in her pocket, it makes her an even more dangerous adversary.

Overall Summary

Between the two movies, Elektra has superhuman feats for leaping, agility, and strength (as seen in throwing the sai). She was able to beat Daredevil twice albeit in somewhat asterisk circumstances, as well as Kirigi and Abby. She had amazing throwing skills and impressive durability. Her powers of precognition and super-speed/mind-clouding are formidable.

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MCU Elektra (Netflix Daredevil/Defenders) Respect Post

Updated to include Defenders feats.

First I will list all her main feats, per episode, and then analyze a bit.

DAREDEVIL SEASON 2 EPISODE DESCRIPTIONS

Since much of this involves comparing Elektra to Daredevil, and Daredevil to others, I’ve included feats from most of the characters throughout the show, since this will give context on what is possible for people to do in this show. Summing up the first 4 episodes before Elektra shows up: Daredevil fights Punisher multiple times, resulting what I could call a 2-to-1 win ratio in favor of the Punisher (Punisher wins their first meeting by shooting Matt in the head, and their second meeting by being able to chain Matt to the chimney; Matt then beats him on the rooftop). Daredevil also beats up a very large number of motorcycle gang members in a stairway, and some Irish thugs when rescuing Punisher.

***A word on the number of ninjas Elektra and Daredevil beat: the ninjas are generally all wearing the same clothes, fighting in low-lit shots, and with sometimes highly-edited shots, where a ninja going down in one shot is potentially getting back up again a second later in the next shot—or maybe it’s a different ninja. So it’s usually hard to count exactly ninjas how many a particular character really dropped. I give my best estimates below.****

Episode 4

Elektra breaks into Matt’s apartment. He comes in, drunk and his mind focused on Karen, and doesn’t notice her sitting there in front of him. Regardless of his mental state, this is a pretty good evasion of his senses. She throws a spike at him with no warning, which he just manages to catch.

Episode 5

10 years ago, while they’re in college, Elektra and Matt Murdock friendly-spar evenly in a boxing ring. She does better at first, when Matt isn’t trying; when she gets him to actually try, it’s even. She mentions training in various martial arts disciplines when she was younger.

Episode 6

Elektra and Daredevil each defeat 2 of 4 motorcycle-yakuza in her apartment. Later Elektra and Daredevil fight a few security thugs behind some frosted class in the high-rise, beating them more or less equally (the frosted glass makes it hard to count but I’d guess they both beat 2).

Episode 7

Elektra and Daredevil fight 4 yakuza in the train. Both Elektra and Daredevil avoid being shot at close range. Together they eventually knock them out (2 each? Hard to say, but Matt seems to do slightly better than Elektra). Afterward, Elektra sinks to the ground and says something unintelligible (I played this a million times and can’t figure out what she said; if you know, please tell me). But it seems something like an admission of it being hard. Then several more yakuza show up. This time Elektra and Daredevil seem to fight more equally, but still at the end Elektra is winded and Daredevil is not. She also has two shallow cuts, in the arm and neck. Overall she did well but Matt did better—on the other hand Matt is wearing armor and Elektra is not, which is particularly relevant in the matter of the cuts. Later Daredevil viciously beats up a few guards outside the pit building.

Episode 8

Elektra and Daredevil fight maybe 10 Hand at the giant pit, with Matt and Elektra fighting at even levels until Elektra is about to kill a Hand, and Matt distracts her by yelling “NO,” at which point she is severely injured. At one point Matt dodges several shuriken at once. Stick shows up and helps save the day. As they escape, Matt catches an arrow. Stick shoots several Hand while barely looking from the car. Elektra was poisoned by the stabbing and almost dies, but Stick heals her, and says she has been through worse in the past. Elektra is said to be too sick to stand. Later one Hand shows up, and shoots Matt with an arrow in the upper right chest from behind. Matt beats him after a long fight, dodging multiple shuriken again. At one point Elektra comes out to help but is knocked away due to being so sick. Daredevil beats the Hand but can’t believe he’s so young, so he stops. Elektra has no qualms about this and kills him, and Daredevil passes out from his injury.

Episode 9

Matt wakes up after being unconscious all night. Elektra, despite being so sick, was awake and took care of the Hand’s body with a cleaning crew. Elektra admits to killing someone for the first time when she was 12 years old. Daredevil invades The Farm and off-screen, takes down several guards. He fights Nobu in the blood farm basement, and Nobu beats him decisively. [Now in prison, Punisher attacks the prisoner who runs the prison and his guard, and kills them easily with a shiv. Then when he’s about to leave, he is trapped with 8-10 other prisoners. Several of them are armed, and Punisher is now unarmed. He viciously kills them all, taking one major injury to his arm. Later Fisk fights Punisher and beats him down fairly decisively.]

Episode 10

Fisk grabs Murdock at the jail and bashes his face into the table multiple times. Matt breaks his grip once but then they hold on to each other. Fisk is clearly in control: Matt’s breath is ragged, and when they’re done, Matt slips on the ground while leaving, his legs not fully under his control.At the airport, Chaste member Jacques Duchamp says he knows Elektra has assassinated many people. Elektra fights him fairly evenly, then he pulls out two sai. She gets control of the sai and quickly kills him with them.

Episode 11

Daredevil fights several Hand at the hospital but leaves before beating them all when he jumps out a window to save Claire Temple. The remaining Hand take the patients away. Later Daredevil beats up a few Chinese thugs at Madame Gao’s laundry place. Punisher, now out of jail, brutally kills two mobsters, including pistol whipping a guy’s face into pulp. He is injured. Frank invades a drug ship and kills a few guys. Punisher and Daredevil fight, Daredevil wins pretty decisively, although Punisher is hurt. Elektra stabs Stick’s two main Chaste guys in the back in the car.

Episode 12

Elektra fights Stick; she has the sai; he has a katana, and was waiting for her. At one point it she holds back his sword with her hands, using her gloves directly against the edge of the blade; perhaps her gloves are protective? She then chokes Sticks with a lamp cord and has him at her mercy when Daredevil pulls them apart. Daredevil says she could have killed him. A few Hand attack. Stick, Daredevil, and Elektra all do well against the Hand until the lights are turned out and they take Stick. Flashback: a young Elektra beats 3 Chaste in a no-holding-back sparring. She would have killed one of them if Stick hadn’t stopped her. Then later that Chaste guy attacks her with a knife and she kills him. Back in the present: Daredevil fights 3 Hand in the train tunnels. They leave unbeaten; he had trouble due to their silence. Later he fights a few more when saving Stick. He still has trouble with their silence, but then Stick teaches him to listen for their breath and he beats them. After a confrontation with Nobu, in which all three heroes fight some Hand, Elektra runs off with Stick, sometimes holding him up while beating up Hand at the same time. Alone, Daredevil plows through 3 more Hand in perhaps his easiest stomp of the ninjas in the series, then stomps Nobu, who falls from a great height. However Nobu gets up soon after.

Episode 13

Gladiator gets Elektra an armored costume too, and gives Daredevil an improved club. Daredevil breaks into the Hand’s warehouse HQ and fights maybe 5 Hand, including dodging close quarter machine gun fire, although he gets hit in the shoulder. Then he fights some more Hand. Elektra comes in and helps beat them, then they fight together equally against maybe 6 more and win. Elektra and Daredevil go up the stairs. Camera shots show at least 40 Hand, as I count them, on the roof. When Elektra and Daredevil go out, there’s now really only about 20 lined up on one side based on my count. Elektra and Daredevil run towards them and they both dodge some arrows from 4 Hand archers. But then Nobu shows up with 4 more Hand on the other side of the roof, so Elektra and DD end up not attacking the line of 20 Hand yet. They finally engage after talking with Nobu. In the very first clash, Nobu attacks Elektra and Daredevil. He kicks off Elektra and engages with Daredevil. From this point, Elektra takes on all the Hand and tends to be surrounded by around 6-8 Hand at any one time. (The 4 Hand that were originally standing by Nobu just keep standing there and don’t do anything, so she’s basically fighting the original 20.) Daredevil just focuses on Nobu. Daredevil and Nobu fight more or less evenly with each other, although they spend most of the time missing each other; Daredevil gets in maybe the only 2 hits. Nobu and Daredevil both disarm each other. After finishing off all of the Hand (except Nobu’s 4 guards), Elektra jumps in with Nobu and gets hit twice. She still has one sai. Then Daredevil jumps back in and from then on they both fight Nobu together, pretty evenly. Nobu finally gets a hit in on Daredevil, and both Daredevil and Elektra hit Nobu. Nobu gets knocked down by Daredevil. They threaten each other for a second, then Nobu, Daredevil, and Elektra fight together, with all getting in hits. Elektra drops her sai. Then Nobu changes the tide—he knocks Daredevil down briefly, then gets Elektra on the ground with a hold and injures her arm. Then Nobu kicks Daredevil in the head, stunning him, and then punches Daredevil in the head, hitting him so hard Daredevil flips in the air before dropping to the ground. Both heroes are on the ground. Nobu picks up Elektra’s sai and prepares to stab Daredevil, who is still stunned. Elektra gets in the way and she sacrifices herself for Matt: Nobu stabs her. But before she drops, she backhands Nobu and knocks him down and out. Nobu is knocked out for as long as the time he fell off the railing in Episode 12. Elektra dies. Daredevil goes nuts and starts beating up the remaining 4 Hand and Nobu, who is now back up. Punisher shoots 3 of the 4 Hand from an adjoining rooftop, taking care of them so Daredevil can focus on Nobu. Daredevil beats on Nobu pretty badly. Matt picks up his club, gets its grappling wire around Nobu’s neck, and throws Nobu off the roof. Nobu doesn’t die (he gets up after about the same amount of time as before), but Stick stabs Nobu in the heart and decapitates him, presumably actually killing him.

Below: a pic of the 20 Hand she fights. There's no shot of all 20 totally unobscured by her body, but this is close.

No Caption Provided

DAREDEVIL SEASON 2 ANALYSIS

Random Fights

• When she is stabbed by the pit, I don’t think that is a sign of lower skill than Daredevil, since it was Daredevil who distracted her. Without Daredevil’s distraction, she would have killed the guy and been fine.

• Her fights as a child against the Chaste are pretty impressive. The first scene against 3 of them may be sparring, but since she’s said to be killing one of them, and the other two are unable to stop her, she clearly has truly defeated all three of them, not just in a “friendly sparring” kind of way.

• Her fight against the Chaste Duchamp isn’t bad either; he is one of Stick’s top men, chosen by Stick to assassinate her, so presumably Stick thought he was good enough to do the job. The hand to hand part of the fight took a while, but once he pulled out the sai, it was all over quickly.

• Her fight against Stick is very good. Daredevil only beat him in the first season with difficulty, and I would say that Elektra does equally well here, if not better, since the stakes are higher, with both intent on killing the other. Stick believes that if he doesn’t beat her that it could be the end of the world, so he’s got a lot of motivation. She doesn’t fully beat him since Matt stops it, but Matt says she could have killed Stick. This shows she’s at least as good as Season One Daredevil.

The Final Scene

When Elektra takes on the Hand, and Daredevil takes on Nobu, I see this as a signal of the writers’ intent to create an largely equal challenge for both characters. Narratively, they have only one Big Bad, so Daredevil takes on him, and Elektra takes on an overwhelming number of his soldiers to make her fight equally as impressive. Elektra beats about 20 Hand. This is way more Hand than any of the characters beat up to this point: Matt never faced off against more than about 6 or 8 Hand at once. And each time anyone has fought Hand, the Hand have taken a decent amount of time, effort, and work to defeat them. Fights against the Hand range from one of Matt’s high points in the season (at the end of the train tunnels episode), when he ran right through 3 Hand without hardly slowing down, to the fight against the young Hand in his apartment, who fought pretty evenly with him for a lengthy amount of time, and gave him a real challenge, before Matt won.

So taking out 20 on her own is an extremely impressive achievement. She never fights all 20 at the exact same time, there’s usually a smaller group that comes and goes, but it’s still a lot to defeat as a whole. (Matt is focusing on Nobu the whole time, he never gets into fighting the Hand at all.)

This is also a show where fighting “fodder” is often a real accomplishment; for instance, Matt’s fight against the biker gang in the hallway and stairs, and Punisher’s fight against the criminals in jail are big moments showing how good they are. This scene of Elektra shows her quality in the same way, even if it’s not photographed and choreographed with the same level of gruesome detail as the Daredevil/biker and Punisher/criminal fights.

Nobu/Daredevil/Elektra

Earlier in the season, Nobu first beat Daredevil pretty badly, and then Daredevil beat Nobu pretty badly. There wasn’t a lot of difference in context in these fights other than that Daredevil was really angry in the second fight. In the final scene, Nobu gets unanswered hits on Elektra a few times towards the beginning, but once she gets warmed up with him, she does as well as Matt. Matt gets in more total hits to Nobu than Elektra does, but he’s been fighting him for longer. When Nobu finally gets the advantage over them both, he actually hurts Matt more than he does Elektra, injuring her arm but literally knocking Daredevil for a loop. So up to this point in the fight, I’d describe it as Nobu having the advantage over both of them, considering that he is able to ultimately ground both Matt and Elektra.

Basically I’d say all their skill is about the same level, but Nobu’s durability and striking power are better, enabling him to trade blows evenly with either one or both of them, and to absorb their hits, and thus win over time. After being stabbed Elektra has perhaps her best feat, knocking Nobu out in one strike. Even when Matt stomped Nobu in the tunnels, he only won by knocking him off the railing, never (in either season) by actually knocking him out directly. But Elektra KOs him with a backhand. Granted, this comes after Nobu has been hit many times in the fight; but he clearly heals very quickly, and he had rallied to ground both the heroes right before this, so it’s not like he was almost knocked out before she hit him. Matt then reverts to the mental state that he was in in the tunnels, and stomps Nobu—but still only by knocking him off the building again, and not KOing him directly like Elektra.

DAREDEVIL SEASON 2 SUMMARY

Overall, I’d say Elektra is pretty close to Matt’s level (with the exception of his enraged fights, discussed below). She doesn’t have some of his reaction and agility feats (catching arrows, dodging multiple shuriken) or durability feats, but this is perhaps to be expected when he’s the star of the show and has way more screen time, and thus more opportunities to prove himself. She does have decent agility, as seen when she parkours up between the train cars, dodges arrows, and dodges machine gun fire, and decent durability as well, as seen in the many hits she takes from yakuza, Hand, and Nobu—perhaps most especially the hits she took from the Chaste as a kid—usually without much adverse reaction. Holding back Stick’s sword with her hands was also good. Next season will hopefully bring more opportunities for feats in these areas.

Matt also beats up a lot more total Hand, just because he is in more scenes with them. However, when they are shown fighting side-by-side, they tend to do about equally with each other, usually beating around the same number of thugs/yakuza/Hand.

The exception is when Elektra is specifically shown as being somewhat below Matt in the fight in the train, where she has to take a breather at two separate points. It’s odd because they seem to be trying to show her as being somewhat inexperienced in this scene, but on the other hand they soon show her as having a lot of experience training with the Chaste as a child, talk about her history of assassinations, and Stick says she’s been through worse than the deadly poison wound she gets. So I feel like the train scene is a bit contradictory to the overall picture of her past.

The difficulty is in how to square this scene with her other feats which suggest that she is much closer to Daredevil’s level.

I think the difference here comes down to Matt’s gear:his batons and his armor. In the train, Matt has his armor, and Elektra has nothing. Perhaps not surprisingly, Matt does better. Daredevil clearly made a step up in his ability to take punishment when he got the armor at the end of the first season, so the fact that she is mostly able to hang with him for most of the second season when she has no armor is actually a testament to her abilities. On the roof, Elektra now has her sai and armor, bringing her up to Matt’s level of performance. Matt even has his new improved baton in the final scene, helping him get an extra edge—in fact the edge he needs to finally toss Nobu off the roof again. The armor theory even explains why she did equally with Matt before the train as well—when she fought evenly with him in her apartment against the motorcycle ninjas and in the high-rise against the yakuza. In both of those cases Matt was wearing normal clothes, thus taking away the armored edge he had at the train. So when they are both armored, and when they are both unarmored, they have pretty similar performance levels; it’s largely only when Matt is armored and she is not that there’s a noticeable difference, which is perfectly reasonable.

The other major difference is when Matt goes into his full-on rages, as seen twice: in the tunnels and after Elektra is killed. Those times, he’s able to beat Nobu; other times he is not. Otherwise, Elektra seems to be able to stand up to Nobu about as well as Matt can when he’s not in a rage.

When Matt is in the throes of his full-on rage, he goes beyond anything Elektra has been able to do so far. But when she has similar gear, I’d say they’re about the same in fighting ability, with her perhaps just a slight bit below. (Matt is by no means on some perfect unachievable level above her, as seen by his losses to Punisher, and his physical subjugation to Fisk.) Her best feats, in my opinion, are:

• beating 3 Chaste at the age of 12

• getting into a position where she could have killed Stick

• her ability to take down 20 Hand

• her ability to fight more or less at Matt’s level when they simultaneously fought Nobu

• and her ability to knock Nobu out.

DEFENDERS EPISODE DESCRIPTIONS

Again, I am listing everyone's feats from Defenders, for context.

Episode 1

Elektra fights a random Chaste-affiliated guy who knows about the Hand and almost kills him when Danny shows up and knocks her down from behind. She throws a sword and he dodges. She fights Danny equally for a while and fatally stabs the original guy and knocks Danny down, then disappears. Danny gives chase. She attacks from shadows and slashes him in the chest, then he hits her with the Iron Fist. She disappears again.

Colleen later says she moved faster than anyone she’s ever seen, and Danny says “yeah, and she hit like it too.”

Luke breaks some handcuffs.

Episode 2

Daredevil throws something to knock out a street light, then beats up 3(?) street hoods. Then a guy with a shotgun shows up, he throws something else to disarm him then beats him up.

Luke lifts a giant chunk of concrete and dents a beer keg

Elektra cuts through a door’s deadbolt lock, dodges multiple shots from the architect and deflects one with her sword, then blocks a punch from Jessica and hits Jessica through some debris. Jessica gives chase but she disappears.

Colleen beats up two street kids dressed as “cleaners” including one with the pommel of her sword. Danny beats up one.

Danny fights Luke, and does no damage at all. Luke grabs and hits him several times, and dents an electrical box, and finally hits him pretty hard in the face. Danny is stunned somewhat but OK. He does the Iron Fist and hits Luke in the face and knocks him back a decent distance, and he is stunned—but OK.

Episode 3

Flashback:

Elektra is resurrected. She comes out very weak; Alexandra easily defeats her.

She trains, and first has trouble with a guy with a staff when she has two short sticks. Then she beats him.

She fights against 3 guys who have katana-length sticks, and she has two wakizashi-length sticks, and beats them quickly.

She spars against 6 guys in the same way and wins. Then immediately after she fights 10 Hand in the dark. They have swords, she is unarmed, and she beats them fairly quickly and takes two of their swords in the process.

Modern time:

Luke describes Danny’s punch as being like he was hit with a sledgehammer.

Alexandra tells Danny she has known many Iron Fists, the difference between him and them is she won’t kill Danny.

Stick is handcuffed to a post with Elektra holding a sword at his throat and Alexandra at his heart. He headbutts Elektra, takes Alexandra’s sword, fights off one or two other Hand, cuts off his hand to get out of the cuffs. Cuts Elektra, punches back Alexandra and other guys, and escapes.

Danny disarms a woman who had a gun at the back of his head. He beats up about 10 Hand with extendable rods in the board room, then more guards come with dart guns, he dodges some darts. He mostly beats them too, including shooting and using darts by hand, then they mass-grab him and hold him down. He seems unable to summon the Fist. Luke comes in, they fight those guys and more, including Luke smacking guys into the wall hard enough to dent the wall, and blocking bullets to protect Danny. Even more guys come, and now Danny summons the Fist. Jessica and Matt joint them, and Elektra comes out, and more guys.

Matt and Elektra have a very even, lengthy fight. She has a sword and her new suit (which, since it’s a different design from her previous armored suit in Daredevil season 2, I assume means it is not armored), he is unarmed and in clothes. She kicks him through a glass wall. They fight evenly again, he gets in more punches, but she’s using a sword so they really can’t have her hit. She splits her sword in two. She kicks him to put him down. He hesitates, partly because he seems actually exhausted, and partly because he now realizes who she is. She is about to kill him.

Danny stops Elektra by breaking her sword with the Fist, and knocking her through a wall.

The others fight a bunch of dudes for a while. Jessica is doing fine, knocking guys out and not getting hit.

Episode 4

Matt says that Elektra didn’t kill him in the fight in Episode 3 and she had a chance.

Matt says he can’t hear her heart.

Jessica tilts a heavy bureau in front of a door.

Jessica smashes a car window and beats up a Hand with a knife. She does some dodging from the knife strikes.

Alexandra shows up in the restaurant without any of the Defenders, including Stick and Matt, noticing.

Elektra kicks down the door to the restaurant.

Jessica seemingly pushes a car hard through the restaurant wall and knocks Elektra down. She gets up again.

Episode 5

They all fight. Murakami joins in. Alexandra does not fight. Pairings include Murakami vs Matt and Danny, and Jess and Luke vs Elektra. Murakami and Alexandra step aside, and new guys come in with Gao and Sowande and shoot up the place. Defenders hide, Luke takes it. Then most of the Defenders fight random Hand. Matt and Elektra pair off outside, and fight evenly, no weapons. He has her at a disadvantage at one point although she gets out. He’s definitely holding back because of who she is. Murakami knocks down Jess. Murakami comes out and Elektra hits him hard, he goes flying against wall. Luke and Sowande fight. He does much better than Danny did against Luke and seems to give him pain. Luke is hit by a truck and transported away. Gao hits Danny with a chi-enhanced open palm and he’s knocked down.

Jessica tips over a dumpster and pushes it in front of the door, and Gao knocks it away with a chi blast, it goes flying.

Bakuto and Colleen fight, Bakuto stomps her and cuts her. He leaves when Luke and Danny shows up (Luke grabs the sword).

Jessica fights Murakami; he’s winning and about to fatally stab her when Matt shows up. They double team him then Jessica throws him off a balcony and he disappears.

Matt says that Elektra could have killed him both times (Episode 3 and 4).

Sowande gets out of his chair and grabs Iron Fist; Stick decapitates him.

Episode 6

Danny and armored Matt fight evenly. Jessica grabs and flips Danny onto the ground. Danny makes the Fist and punches Luke and the impact knocks back everyone and the furniture—a big blast. Then Jessica knocks Danny out.

Stick knocks out Luke with smoke. Elektra, with two swords, fights Stick who has a sword in his one remaining hand (his left hand; he was shown to be left-handed before) and stabs his leg. Stick gets his sword under her neck at his mercy. She gets up and twice kicks him back to the ground, hard. Danny passes out due to Stick’s smoke. Matt and Jessica show up. Elektra kills Stick.

Elektra knocks out Matt with one kick before he even closes. Jessica and Elektra wrestle over her swords, seemingly showing Elektra being able to equal her muscle power. Jessica punches Elektra multiple times around the head and Elektra ignores it. Elektra punches her a couple times and then kicks Jess into the wall hard, and knocks her out. Luke wakes up and they fight briefly, then Elektra knocks out Luke by a kick to the head.

Murakami plans to kill Alexandra, and thinks he can. Interrupted by Elektra bringing in Danny.

Elektra stabs Alexandra in the back, then cuts her head off, killing her.

Episode 7

Elektra fights Danny, both unarmed. She beats him, face down in a pool of water. He gets up with the Fist, and hits her directly. She flies back and is stunned, but gets back up fairly quickly. They fight again, with her now pulling her sai, and she basically toys with him until she uses the sai to redirect his Fist to hit the wall. He is KOd (by the expenditure, presumably.) Thus she wins tactically and strategically.

Armored Matt, Jessica, and Luke fight Murakami, Bakuto, and Gao. Gao knocks a big palette of cinderblocks towards Jess and Luke with her chi. Luke kicks it back and Gao knocks it apart. Jess and Luke fight Gao. Gao blocks some hits from Luke and also gives him some solid hits. Jess and Luke grab her arms together but she shakes Luke off across a car. She chi-blasts the SUV against Luke hard enough to dent the concrete wall. Jessica hits her at least once with a metal canister. Armored Matt fights Bakuto and Murakami for a long time, evenly. They switch, so Luke fights Murakami (Luke breaks a concrete block with a punch) and Matt fights Bakuto (who at one point cuts a concrete block to pieces with his sword), and Jess continues against Gao, who chi-blasts her against a car too. Gao tries to chi-blast Jessica in the face on the ground, but Jess kicks her off a distance. Colleen shows up and helps Matt against Bakuto. The Hand strikes a fire from a pipe and escape. Luke puts the gas fire out with his hands.

Episode 8

Gao and Danny face off, Gao blasts him back, Murakami grabs his neck from behind.

Colleen fights Bakuto. She does well but they are interrupted several times by guards, Misty, and Claire. Claire takes out a couple guards with a wrench and some difficulty. Bakuto cuts Colleen in the back. Colleen throws a knife into a guard’s chest. Misty shoots him in the chest and he shrugs it off (surprisingly given how Alexandra was killed). He knocks out Misty temporarily. Claire attacks Bakuto with some wrenches and Bakuto gets Claire in submission between swords. Misty stops him and gets her arm cut off. Colleen charges him and cuts his head off, but not really in a “fair fight,” he wasn’t really ready for it I’d say.

Armored Matt, Luke, Danny, Jessica fight a lot of Hand and Murakami and Gao. At one point Danny sweeps Gao. Elektra does not engage. They mix it up in all combinations. Jessica does well vs Hand. Danny temporarily knocks out Murakami. Murakami comes back. Eventually Gao and Danny face off, and this time his Fist knocks her back against her chi blast, and many Hand are also knocked down. Luke fights Murakami who does less well now, and Luke knocks him through a thick pillar. Danny loses his Fist. Eventually it’s only Elektra left. She fights them all, evenly. She does no real damage to Luke (although she uses a garrote against him). Gao hides. Jessica eventually grabs Elektra and throws her hard against a wall and she is KOd.

Danny, Luke, and Jess go up the elevator. Armored Matt and Elektra fight unarmed and argue. Matt doesn’t want to hurt her. She says she does, but doesn’t really. They fight pretty evenly, with both getting the other in situations to their advantage, but Matt having the overall advantage if anything. She gets out her sai and cuts him in stomach. They fight more. He breaks out the clubs and smacks her around the head multiple times quite hard. They fight till they’re on their knees, again though if anything Matt has the advantage. At this point it’s clear that she does not want to kill him either. Eventually they kiss and get caught in the explosion.

Gao finds Murakami who at some point was impaled and incapacitated by a metal rod. The bomb goes off.

DEFENDERS FEATS SUMMARY (each feat followed by episode number)

Speed/agility/blocking:

Colleen says she moved faster than anyone she’s ever seen (1). Dodges shots from the architect, blocks one with sword (2). Blocks punch from Jess (2).

Striking Power:

Danny says she hits harder than anyone he’s ever seen (1). Cuts through deadbolt (2). Hits Jess through some debris (2). Kicks Matt through glass wall (3). Kicks down door to restaurant (4). Hits Murakami so hard he flies against wall (5). Kicks Stick hard twice (6). Knocks out Matt with one kick (6). Wrestles with Jessica over sword (6). Kicks Jess into wall and KOs her (6). Kicks drugged Luke in head and KOs him (6).

Durability:

Hit by the Fist, is OK enough to disappear immediately after (1). Hit by the Fist through a wall and presumably disappears again although they don’t look for her (3). Hit by a car pushed by Jess and is fine after a second (4). Hit by Jessica multiple times and ignores it (6). Hit by the Fist and gets up in a second (7). Jess throws her against a rock wall and she is KOd (8). Her last fight with Matt includes some serious head shots with his clubs that leaves them both very beat up (8).

Fights:

Kills a random Chaste-affiliated guy (1). Fights Danny to a draw until he uses the Fist; she is armed (1). Beats up Jess (2). In flashback, quickly kills 10 armed Hand in the dark, while unarmed herself. Fights Matt fairly evenly when she is armed and he isn’t and eventually gets the advantage; as Matt says in 4 and 5, she could have killed him (3). Quick loss/retreat when Danny unexpectedly interrupts with Fist (3). Briefly fights Jess and Luke (5). Fights Matt fairly evenly but he’s holding back, he later says she could have killed him (5). One-shots a surprised Murakami (5). Stabs Stick, Stick gets the advantage on her, then she beats and kills him (6). Beats Matt, Jess, and Luke one after the other (6). Beats Danny without the Fist while she is unarmed (7). Beats Danny with the Fist while she is armed (7). Fights Luke, Jess, Danny, and armored Matt at once, evenly, until beaten by Jess (8). Fights evenly with armored Matt while they both are both unarmed and then armed (8).

Stealth:

Disappears into shadows twice in tunnel with Danny (1). Disappears in Jessica’s stairway (2). Matt can’’t hear her heart (4).

DEFENDERS COMMENTARY

The Black Sky version of Elektra, and the Defenders in general, seem inconsistent to me in their performance.

For instance, in the garage in episode 7, we go from Matt, on his own, fighting evenly against both Bakuto and Murakami, to then both Matt and Colleen together fighting evenly against just Bakuto on his own.

With Elektra, she goes from being able to defeat all the Defenders one-on-one (episode 6 for Matt, Luke, and Jessica, and episode 7 for Danny), and then fighting equally against all the Defenders at once (episode 8), to then fighting equally with just Matt by himself, and if anything being on the losing side against him. Possible explanations—she was hit pretty hard by Jessica, and had tired herself out fighting them all—but on the other hand Matt had also fought a lot, and got cut in stomach. However, this (and the fight against all of them immediately previous) is her only fight with Matt when he was armored, so perhaps that made a difference as it seemed to in Daredevil season 2. Or, perhaps the Black Sky's power was lessening once she was turning to good? Also, while Matt made a point of saying she could have killed him in their two previous fights, they seemed to be pretty close to me, and he was definitely holding back in the second, so this third equal fight in episode 8 is basically par for the course with him. So how to explain her one-shotting him in episode 6, and also being able to fight them all at once in 8? It seems just inconsistent.

HOWEVER, we do have some consistencies. Her durability is very solid. While she was knocked out by Jessica once when thrown at a rock wall, she also completely tanked multiple shots from the superhuman Jessica earlier, and she was hit by the Iron Fist three times. The first two times we don't see her immediately after but she basically left after finishing the job. The third time her reaction to it wasn't any worse than that of Luke Cage when he was hit in episode 2, so presumably that was her reaction earlier as well. As we saw, the Iron Fist was capable of massive kinetic bursts knocking back furniture and numerous people besides the target, so this is darn good durability for her.

She is also pretty fast, as noted by Colleen in episode 1, and her ability to deflect a bullet with her sword.

She has very good striking power, as noted by Danny in episode 1, and her hits (especially kicks) that regularly sent people flying back against a wall, including Murakami, Matt, Stick, and Jessica. She also seemed to be able briefly grapple equally with the superhuman Jessica over her swords.

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owie

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@supermanthor: Seems like a pretty good list. The order of this kind of thing gets pretty hard to fine tune, their feats are not always consistent and are hard to scale with one another. So within limits I personally find it hard to say one order is definitively better than another. For example, something I was reading recently in my Molecule Man research mentioned how sentient Cubes were not "true omnipotents" such as (among a list of very powerful abstracts) Watchers--which is kind of a ridiculously high view of a Watcher.

In so far as Griever goes, it was notable to me that Reed said she was able to beat Molecule Man so easily because he's like a fundamental force of the universe, while she was immediately after blasting street level heroes and not taking them out. So her power is kind of hard to gauge. She may be a big threat to any of the beings listed here under the assumption that many of them are also like a fundamental force of the universe, but she may not be as much of a threat to normal "real" beings.

Regarding Scathan, I'd have to re-read the issue, it's been a while. But there are people who feel very strongly on both sides. My vague memory is that there was some context to the story that made it hard to definitively say who was more powerful than whom.

The Beyonders: it's hard to say how powerful one individual Beyonder is; we have a better sense what they can do in groups. As a group, they're more powerful than almost anyone here.

Others that could be added: technically, at the end of Secret Wars I, Dr. Doom had both the power of pre-Retcon Beyonder PLUS Galactus, putting him above both.

Then there's the Marquis of Death, the future version of Galactus who was absorbing the entire universe, arguably Hunger, the White Phoenix of the Crown, arguably Franklin Richards...the list is hard to nail down.

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I like the Inhumans and the Eternals, but I've soured a bit on the Inhumans in recent years, partly because they used them as such a transparent replacement for the X men in a proxy battle over the movie rights, and also because the tv show was not great. But also, I think the Eternals mythology is more interesting, in terms of its connection to the Celestials and the Deviants. There's more mystery there.

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owie  Moderator

I am very glad to see articles return. Hope your time off with the baby went well.

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I have never followed Mister Miracle before, but his Vision was one of my favorite series ever, and he's also done a great job on Batman, so I'm looking forward to checking this out.

Also, it's nice to see the front page be a little more active recently. Nice article.

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I had no idea. I haven't ever listened to one of these before, but it was very touching to hear it. I am worried about the site. Not only because Tony was the heart of the site, but because it needs someone to be full time staff members and deal the front page. inferior ego is a perfectly fine dude but he can't do this on his own if he's splitting his time. The site obviously needs more care and attention.

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Edited By owie  Moderator

I mentioned that I would be adding occasional "Takeaways" to the blog, to help analyze the main article or pull out specific information from it.

The theme of this Takeaway is the pre-Secret Wars I Molecule Man's powers. Reece is often described as only being able to affect inorganic molecules before Doom released his self-imposed mental inhibitions at the end of Secret Wars I. This assertion, which is backed up in numerous comments by Reece, by the narration in the comics, and by the handbooks, is completely contradicted by his actual feats in the comics. In fact, he affects either energy and/or organic molecules in every single appearance he has up until Secret Wars I.

This post will list all those examples. It is my hope that this helps radically change people's understanding of Reece's powers during this period.

Fantastic Four 20: He manipulates electricity (this is explained by saying that he is affecting electrons, which are part of atoms).

No Caption Provided

Marvel Two-in-One 1: He is trapped in another dimension by the Watcher, and there creates (perhaps unknowingly) a "Son" for himself; this Son is obviously organic. The comic explicitly says the Son is without the original Reece's mental inhibitions on his power, and affects organics multiple times, by changing the Thing and Man-Thing back to their human forms, by changing a random passerby into a Reed Richards-lookalike, who he then stretches to the breaking point.

Iron Man Annual 3: This is now complicated: the Son died at the end of the previous appearance. Is the spirit that survived in his wand the Father or the Son? Arguments can be made either way (see main article). However, if it's the Son who survives from then on, he has no mental inhibitions. If it's the Father, he supposedly does. Regardless, the Molecule Man in this issue affects organics many times, including: he makes a mirror out of wood; he resurrects the girl, who had died; he gives her an adult body when he possesses her; he turns her mom into a doll; he turns a log into a bicycle; he animates skeletons to attack people; he turns a snake into a humanoid snake-man. (Not all of these are shown, I can make scans if you want.) He is unable to possess the mindless Man-Thing (arguably, every other example of him possessing a body from now through Micronauts 23 is an example of his affecting organic molecules).

Fantastic Four 187-188: He turns the Thing into glass. Interestingly there are 4 limits shown on his powers: he is unable to affect the Invisible Woman's forcefield because it is not matter; he is unalke to affect Klaw's sound-based body; he is unable to affect the Impossible Man because the Impossible Man controls his own molecules, and he is unable to control the unstable molecules that the Fantastic Four's suits are made of.

Micronauts 23: He turns a hubcap into flowers (not shown), and he controls electricity.

No Caption Provided

Avengers 215-216: He creates a new body for himself (the excuse here is that he knows it so well that he can do so). He shows the ability to affect energy when he disintegrates and then recreates Mjolnir (magical energy) and the Surfer's board (cosmic energy). Notably, he is unable to make working plumbing or recreate Iron Man's armor because they are too complicated (even though he could make a super-complex mansion with view screens, etc.).

These are all his appearances pre-Secret Wars I, showing that he was able to manipulate organic molecules and/or energy in every appearance.

I have posted scans of some of these feats; if you would like a scan of the others, please let me know.