Elektra Natchios began studying martial arts under Master Stone when she was six, soon after her mother died from breast cancer. After finishing school, she attended Columbia University where she dated blind classmate Matt Murdock. When Elektra's friend Mel was raped by a boy called Trey, the charges were dropped thanks to Trey's influential father. After Elektra threatened Trey, his hired thugs firebombed her father's dry cleaning business. Matt forced the thugs to confess, but again Trey was freed, and Elektra began to fear Matt was lying to her since she suspected he was not truly blind.
After Trey attacked Mel again, Elektra ambushed him, planning to kill him. Trying to stop her, Matt showed he trusted her by sharing his secret: though he was blind, his other senses were superhumanly enhanced. Unmoved, Elektra cut Trey's femoral artery and gave Matt a choice: save Trey from bleeding to death or be with her. Matt chose the former.
Elektra quit school and moved back in with her father, whose cousins Paul and Leander paid to rebuild his business but then used the store for money laundering. Elektra agreed to settle her father's debts by stealing the ledger of their bookkeeper Cullen, who was about to testify against the cousins. She found the ledger, but Cullen was slain by the professional assassin Poindexter, who then tried to kill her. Elektra escaped, but Poindexter framed Elektra's father for Cullen's murder.
Seeking to clear him, Elektra teamed with Matt and learned that Poindexter was hired by the Kingpin, who also sought the ledger. The duo failed to prevent Poindexter from killing Cullen's lawyer, William Savage, who had another copy of the book, but Poindexter failed to retrieve the ledger. Sucker-punching Matt, Elektra traded the ledger to the Kingpin for Poindexter and clearing her father. She fought Poindexter and won, impressing the Kingpin, who offered to employ her. Later, Matt revealed there had been evidence that would have cleared her father without Kingpin's aid.
Elektra became a freelance assassin, though Spider-Man stopped her from killing a Latverian General. The Kingpin hired her to retrieve a stolen stone tablet, bringing her into conflict with the Black Cat and Spider-Man; when the Cat threw the tablet into the river, Elektra impaled her on a throw sai, seemingly killing her. Recently, Elektra has started working for the Kingpin again, after Hammerhead began a gang war challenging his rule of the underworld.
Hammerhead's attempt to extort money from a Kingpin-owned restaurant in Chinatown brought Shang-Chi and Danny Rand into the mob struggle. As if that weren't enough, the Black Cat arrived on the scene, tracking down Hammerhead to look for help in her war against the Kingpin. Along with Elektra, all of the players have assembled in Hammerhead's penthouse. Just as Spider-Man thought he had the upper hand, Elektra made her move and smashed him through the window, taking him out of the fight. However, Moon Knight injured the assassin at the last minute with a nasty cut behind her head. Ironically, she was then thrown out the same window Spider-Man came out of.
