What the hell? The three most important appearances of Elektra are the original Frank Miller run, The Man Without Fear, and Elektra: Assassin. If you're not counting Frank Miller, what exactly are you even counting? You're talking about her origin, which, to my knowledge, was only shown during Miller's time writing the character. On top of that, you're ignoring character development of the character if you're only pointing to post-Miller Elektra.
The Man Without Fear version has two elements the show drew from: One is that Elektra was watched by the Chaste from the beginning and considered for recruitment around the same time as Matt was. It developed in a different way, but it's directly drawn from that (while, iirc, the original version had her rejected from the Chaste and she ended up trying to infiltrate the Hand to subvert it and failing). Second, there's the fact that she is a thrill seeker and violent killer. She explicitly referred to the demons in her head and reveled in the chaos she caused.
As far as I'm concerned, post-Miller is the mainstream Elektra. The vast majority of her character development has happened in the decades (and hundreds if not thousands of appearances) she's been around since Miller. She doesn't love killing. Honestly her motivations for killing were never great, but being a violent psychopath was never her thing. She isn't crazy, and doesn't get off on murder.
She's obviously somewhat casual about it since she did make it her profession (although she's leaned a bit more Anti-Hero then assassin for a long time), but I've never seen the character to randomly kill because it "gives her a rush". For payment? yes. For revenge? Yes. To accomplish some task? Yeah. because it makes her blood rush or thinks its fun? No, not in any version of her I've read in the main universe. That's what a Batman villain would have as motivation (like Victor Zsaz, for example).
Wow, talk about a lack of empathy. Frank's entire family was murdered, I think that gives him to right to cry. I'd take a character lick that, who shows a realistic reaction to what happened, over an emtionless killing machine, even if it isn't true to the comics.
I still say Jon Bernthal deserved an Emmy for the cemetery scene alone.
Oh, Frank can have emotions. The "cold, emotionless, no personality Punisher" was tried with that mediocre Punisher: Warzone film. I think they got the character right in the Thomas Jane film, which I really like but know has a mixed reputation. Basically, Punisher can be a compelling character and have emotional moments without 90% of his non-killing scenes being him whining and crying. The Daredevil Punisher was a whiny idiot. The character needs a bit of an edge and a backbone, not just go around shooting people between bouts of sobbing.
The Thomas Jane film got the character perfectly, with the character being somewhere between the overly emotional Netflix idiot and the boring Warzone robot. That said, I'd take Warzone Punisher, or even Dolph Lundgren's Punisher, over Daredevil's version. He was just pathetic. He was impossible to take seriously because he was always about five seconds from bursting into tears. It didn't help that the writing for every character in DD Season 2 was terrible, but having Punisher crying while monologuing to some tied up hero on a roof was not something Punisher would do. Jon Bernthal doesn't deserve an emmy for anything regardless, the writing was irredeemable but he certainly wasn't doing anything to make it better. I don't even remember a cemetary scene (it might have been after I stopped watching, although I've tried to forget the horrible Netflix Punisher), but i can already say that the Thomas Jane movie did emotion better then it, or anything else in that garbage show.
I always find it odd when someone totally dismisses the work of the artist/writer who created the character.
Even when the writer is Frank Miller, a guy who is one of the biggest racist, misogynistic, etc a-holes in mainstream comics nowadays? The guy who wrote stuff like All Star Batman & Robin, The Dark Knight Strikes Again, and
Holy Terror? That's the guy whose work is supposed to be taken into account? Even in the period before the guy completely lost his mind his mind I don't think too highly of his work, but as he's devolved some of his tropes he uses nowadays are more obvious in his older work. The guy has never written female characters well, and I don't count Elektra as an exception. He may have had some interesting ideas, but he's about the last person whose opinion I care about on Daredevil and Elektra. The only thing less valid is his current opinion on Batman.
Characters grow over time, even superheroes. The mainstream Elektra has been shaped by dozens of writers, at least, since Miller wrote the character. I take that development into account more then just her early stuff with Miller. Using just the early stuff is like judging Batman by the standards of the first few stories where he liked to shoot people. That said, even in her first stories I don't think Miller wrote her as a violent psycopath who killed because she really liked it, although its not like I go back and read Frank Miller stories.
