Marvel Comics: Bullseye Explained

what's going on guys this is Rob if you guys enjoy my content make sure you hit the subscribe button and make sure you hit that little bell so you never miss out on my sexy voice okay so it's been god it's been a while since we've done a character explanation it's been a long time really it's because I just kind of got burned out on it we did those non-stop for like two years and I was like yeah I'm ready to do something else besides just new character explanations all the time he was job me crazy but daredevil season 3 is coming out and the main enemy of that season of this coming season is bull's eye so I figured why not do a character explanation on the character of bullseye now here's the thing and this is one of those this is one of those misconceptions that drives me up the wall people always say that bull's eye made his appearance or really made his debut in Marvel Comics back in 1976 with daredevil 131 that's not true he actually made his appearance back in 1969 with Nick Fury agent of shield and that was a story by gary friedrich herd for a herb shrimp and dick airs those you guys don't know who they are not a great big huge deal but there's a couple differences there so the original version of bullseye back in the old assassination of Nick Fury story he was called bullseye so it wasn't like all one word you had a hyphen in there so his bu LLS - I and then he looked a little bit different but aside from those things he was still basically the same he was a prodigious assassin he was highly skilled in killing people and so for the most part everything was the same but seven years later in 1976 you ended up having Marv Wolfman who rolled him over into the daredevil comics now the reason why was because back in 1964 when daredevil first showed up he was hugely popular because he was basically a street-level character who was blind and who had like you know enhanced see enhanced senses through echolocation things like that and it struck a chord with readers for a momentary point in time the issue was that Marvel in the 1960s was literally like a frantic madhouse of just introducing characters and teams as it was like if you have an idea put it on paper we'll send it out if we're not gonna trust it with a solo series we'll throw it in an anthology series and call it a day and that was like all over the place and so by the time you got to the late nineteen really the early 1970s even to the mid-1970s characters who were street-level basically almost anyone except for like spider-man weren't really interesting anymore people had already picked their favorites you had x-men which was regaining popularity because of Chris Claremont you had Fantastic Four which is already popular The Avengers you had Captain America because it's Captain America and so they really kind of had their there solid base of what Marvel knew would sell and so the result was that momma wasn't really willing to cancel daredevil so much is just like shift the writers around all the time so Marv Wolfman to come on board and he actually wrote between issues like 125 and 139 I think it was then he wrote a couple issues in the 140s and that was about it but his idea was just tell different stories about daredevil and see if there's a way to make it work and so for the most part it didn't it didn't work it didn't work all that well the bullseye was there and he his debut came in issues 131 and 132 or at least from our wolf win anyway caiman issues 131 and 132 and all that you really find out about him is that he's just a really skilled assassin any challenges daredevil to see whether or not he can defeat the guy and make a name for himself now ultimately ends up getting defeated but as a guy who managed to stand a pretty significant chance against daredevil himself he does pretty well now this goes into this goes into his origin stories which are are pretty iffy the most notable one comes with uh with bull's eye greatest hits number one back from 2004 and it's pretty straight forward uh he's just basically a guy who's Alesi claims that his brothers had fire to their home and he made it out alive but his dad died and that kind of a thing but it's one of those things where they kind of pull of Killing Joke sort a situation where it's like actually none of its true and but in both sides the one who says it it's not true at all so there is no definitive origin for his character it's just kind of a hodgepodge of different things and you can take like the three or four origins that he has and take them for what they're worth but after losing a daredevil but successfully holding his own this eventually goes into his involvement with regards to really becoming more of like a daredevil character now this was not something that happened overnight right it wasn't as oh he was introduced in 131 and then just went on to become a daredevil mainstay instead what you had is you had issues 160 and 161 which were written by Roger McKenzie and then you had issue 169 which was done by Dennis O'Neil and those began to sort of segue bullseye into more of like a mainstay for daredevil character he wasn't by any means like a great big huge guy but one of the notable things that he did actually two great big huge things he did the first one was in the Roger McKenzie run when he kidnapped Black Widow and the second was in the Dennis O'Neil run when Dennis O'Neil came back and said actually the reason why bullseye loves killing people is because he has a tumor and he's basically psychotic because of his tumor now the move with Black Widow was actually pretty well-received and it was a pretty cool thing because at the time Black Widow was still being fleshed out in Marvel Comics I mean you know she originally appeared as a villain a hawk I had been tricked into becoming her aide and then eventually he turned Kody became a good guy and eventually Black Widow became a good guy but uh but at the time Marvel was still trying to like shuffler around and figure out what they wanted to do but there was enough fan interest there that the idea of bullseye kidnapping Black Widow and then daredevil having to rescue her and defeat yet again was enough to pique interest even if only a little bit the idea of him having a tumor and that's the reason why he's insane bullseye fans hated that they did not like the idea behind it because their whole concept was he really is just a crazy guy but he's also just that good because what it did is that opened the door for the possibility that Marvel could reduce his ability to be accurate and then say well once he was cured of his tumor he's not as accurate as he used to be and fans were afraid mother would take certain liberties ultimately they didn't and this actually segue directly into Frank Miller's run and that's the important thing here is because when Dennis O'Neil was riding daredevil when Roger McKenzie was riding daredevil it was actually Frank Miller who was drawing it or at least drew a few issues here in there and so once Frank Miller took over as the actual writer that changed everything because again at the time daredevil was like by that point in time when Frank Miller took over Dirt Devil was struggling I mean you almost couldn't give his comics away because there's been a few interviews of people have done and a lot of people have drawn the conclusion that at the end of the day because of how his character was written because of the narratives that were given because of the direction of the art and so on that really all daredevil came down to was like a Spider Man clone as a result was that people just kind of said well if I'm gonna read spider-man that I'll just go read spider-man and so that you know among other things you know the fall of characters like Iron Fist and Luke Cage they're they're they're dropping popularity it was one of those things where street-level characters are basically beginning to die out and so enter Frank Miller now Frank Miller's take on daredevil this is something a lot of people don't know Frank Miller's take on daredevil almost didn't happen and the reason why was because where you had Roger McKenzie who was writing it at one point and then you had did so Neil who was writing it at one point with Frank Miller doing a lot of the art work he hated the scripts of Roger Mackenzie's well he considered them to be absolutely terrible and there was one point where he almost quit because the sales just weren't improving anymore but eventually Dennis O'Neill went on to be editor I went on to become editor-in-chief reigai I think editor but he went on to a higher ranking position within Marvel and then actually appointed Frank Miller to become the writer for the stories and so when that happened everything shifted entirely because now Frank Miller looked at Roger Mackenzie's work and said this is basically work going nowhere if we're gonna take street-level superheroes or street-level characters and we're gonna make them characters that people like then we have to start making them darker we have to start giving people a reason to want to read them and so Frank Miller basically took the entire concept of daredevil and turned it on its head bull's eye was part and parcel to that and that's where people make the mistake the whole idea of bullseye killing Elektra was not rooted in making bullseye more interesting he was a means to an end it was rooted in making daredevil much much darker and so the way this played out originally was that on the line between Roger McKenzie and Dennis O'Neal's run as well as a couple runs before there's especially in Marv Wolfman there came a point where bull's eye was basically a henchman working for kingpin now the issue with this was that he eventually ran to daredevil tried to implement a scheme was busted and sent to jail and so what Frank Miller did is he used that as a way to not really write bull's-eye out of the picture but to replace him and then set up the means for bullseye to make daredevil a darker character the way that this played out was that following the imprisonment of bullseye Elektra was introduced Elektra had been introduced in in 168 1981 and that she actually became a lover of daredevil and so the weight of this played out was bull's eye had basically managed to escape prison after realizing that a lecture was the number one assassin of kingpin and then in turn killed Elektra but kingpin actually ordered bullseye to cure kill daredevil if he was looking for a return to his position if those so in response to this bullseye actually tracked down and I'm sorry on either bullseye track down daredevil or data will track him down I want to say bull's eye was the one who tracked down daredevil a fight initiated and then daredevil actually broke his back he broke his spine like shattered the whole thing and so this this allowed for Frank Miller to make daredevil a lot more a lot darker and a lot more screwed up when it got to daredevil 191 which is actually one of the most popular issues of his character and the way that this played out the way that this happened is you ended up having a bull's-eye who is recovering in a hospital from his injuries from daredevil when daredevil broke in brought a revolver and then sort of playing a game of Russian Roulette it's actually one of the most one of the most dark moments for his character and it's super twisted but also super amazing because when daredevil breaks in there and starts interrogating bullseye bullseye thinks the guns loaded and Daredevil's just like we're playing a game of Russian Roulette and that's just the way it goes and it's and it's kind of nuts and so it was a little more than like bull's eye could handle and the way the Frank Miller really kind of concluded this was intending to write bull's eye out to basically say like that's the end of his character or at least with regards to the Frank Miller run because you don't really hear from from bull's eye again after that and so following this you end up jumping into daredevil vol 2 now for the most part you don't really see bull's eye that much in daredevil vol 2 he's just kind of there he just like occasionally pops up in reality this really marked one of the one of the not really as good as frame Miller's but like it's still one of the pretty solid runs that came with foe okay with someone by the name of an miss NT now where M Masson T's run was notable for introducing characters like typhoid mary who's probably one of the most I were the most interesting of the daredevil villains her involvement with bullseye was fairly limited in the sense that you had issues 284 to 291 I think it was which actually had somewhat of an identity crisis where you ended up having daredevil who left you had bullseye who took up the daredevil mantle and then sort of believing he was daredevil and then daredevil took up the bullseye mantle and the two of them fought which kind of you know brought bullseye back to his senses you know so to speak but nonetheless um from there it really just kind of picks up into him going out and it's really sort of fluctuating around and free-floating in the Marvel Comics universe and the reason why I say that is because again outside of his involvement in the death of electric bullseye was just kind of a villain who was there and nobody ever really knew what to do with him and so when you go and look at like Chuck Dixon's Punisher run for example issues 101 to 102 he has a part in that story are you start going and looking at like future stories that are written later on down the line you look at like daredevil vol 2 a forty eight through 49 which I think was written by Kevin Smith he's just kind of there and and just sort of free-floating around and just does a few things here and there he's contracted by like Mysterio things like that but nothing too significant he just kind of occupies a place and this really segues and goes all the way up to the events of Civil War when he finally gets a home so to speak and the reason for this was because during the events of Civil War one of the things that Marvel had done which is actually really interesting was make a super villain team something akin to their own Suicide Squad but not exactly the way this played out was you had of course Tony Stark and Captain America who were essentially fighting against one another you know kind of splitting the superhero community down the middle but with regards to Iron Man the entire superhero landscape was in shambles you had the Mighty Avengers who existed to track down various superheroes but then you also had their need to be able to access the criminal element of the Marvel Universe and so what they did is they brought together a team called a thunderbolt which was led by helmet Zemo Baron helmet Zima the son of Baron Zemo and man was basically filled with like your your PRNDL ik rim so to speak of like the various villains and Marvel kind of like the unsellable the ones who couldn't really hold a book and who were just kind of free-floating out there and I really knew what to do with I think Norman Osborn played a role but the fact remains that you ended up having like the thunderbolts going forward and like rounding up vigilante heroes and so on and so forth the cool thing about this was that for the various scripts that were written with the various stories that were done really with the whole Thunderbolts concept you ended up having like like Warren Ellis and others who really kind of built on the idea that bullseye was crazy that bullseye was absolutely bonkers that he loved killing people and used that as a means to kind of make his character a little more diff and what I mean by that is what they would do is they would have him continue to go on these missions with you know the Thunderbolts and so on and so forth but he was always kind of treated like the Joker like he was absolutely sadistic if he was allowed to just go off on his own reins and do his own thing he would kill everybody that he came across and so they were basically keep him shackled up shut away from everybody else in addition to this because Civil War went directly into the events of Secret Invasion that's when you ended up seeing a bull's-eye along with a handful of others end up defeating you know some of the scrolls and and so on but again he's just kind of there he's just kind of free-floating he plays these these roles where he kind of spikes up and drops down and his spikes up and drops down but that's about it there was never one of those things where he ever achieved the same level of popularity or the same significance that he had during Frank Miller's run at least not into the events of Dark Reign now Dark Reign is when a lot of things shifted up for bull's eye and for a lot of the villains that were out there and the reason for this is because going from from civil war to secret invasion to Dark Reign itself what ended up happening here in this sort of really the the middle road the halfway mark er of joke Asada's like reinvention of Marvel Comics you ended up having Norman Osborn who intervened information that would allow the superheroes to defeat the scrolls and then passed it off as though it was his idea that in turn led to the u.s. government telling Tony Stark that he was ineffective as director of shield because he didn't know Secret Invasion was happening they kicked him out they replace him with Norman Osborn and Norman Osborn basically dismantled shield created hammer and then when almost all the superheroes evacuated bailed out and went underground then that led directly into the Dark Avengers and really like the dark dark x-men and dr. superhero teams it was away from Marvel to shift things up so that instead of having like your Avengers your Mighty Avengers your your x-men and so on and so forth that you could have villains playing those characters and so for a bull's-eye he was shifted up and he became the character of Hawkeye so he was kind of like the dark version of Hawkeye himself which is kind of cool I mean he had run-ins with like the century like the the stories themselves in terms of what they did were not that significant the Dark Avengers had a couple good stories but they would do things like fight you know if I nonsense stuff you know robots and different things like that and it was it was all right for what it was but there did come a point it's actually one of the coolest parts of the story they did come a point and Deadpool volume three issue number 12 where he actually faces off against Deadpool again and the reason why that matters and the reason why it's kind of cool is because that actually shifts it really kind of jumps back really to a story from I want to say was Deadpool vol 1 with Joe Kelly were you actually defining out that that bullseye had adamantium laced to his bones by Lord darkman in order to be more effective assassin whatever the reason was and of course that's what he faced off against dead pull at one point but that kind of established the idea between these two stories it laid out the idea that bullseye and Deadpool had actually teamed up on a multitude of occasions back when Deadpool before Joe Kelly took him over and he became comedic back when Rob - was writing the stories and Deadpool was like a straight-up assassin like a straight-up killer for hire the two of them will work together they they had been you know teammates that were really allies for a little while then eventually became enemies and and so on and so forth but things were just kind of shifting around and that goes into things like siege it goes into shadow land it goes into like a lot of these stories and running all the way up until all-new all-different marvel when he basically ends up ends up losing his eyesight from from daredevil and he's just kind of trapped inside of his own body but it's a cool situation because what it does is it allowed mauville to kind of shift the character around and move them around throw them in weird different positions and see if they would all work at the end of the day but I would say and this is one of the coolest things for people who are daredevil fans and this is hopefully something will see in daredevil season 3 I would say that one of the most significant moments of bullseye outside of his hem killing a lecture during Frank Miller's run came during the events of shadow land now for those who guys who don't know shadow land was a story where daredevil was possessed by like the Great Beast of the hand and floating I don't know the hand what is an organization that dates back decades you know thousands of thousands of years and we need to go through the whole thing but they they were really hundreds of years they go back quite a ways but there was one point in the very very early days of humanity that the group that would later on become the hand had worshipped this you know demonic entity of sorts and it was kind of like their God so to speak well eventually that God takes possession of Matt Murdock who in turn takes control of the hand and so he's basically this villain sitting inside shadow land in the middle of Hell's Kitchen New York and just like running this massive criminal empire and so there comes a point when bullseye basically travels to try to fight daredevil and says look like I want you like I want to I want it like I want to take you out daredevil comes out with a veritable army of the hand and bull's eye defeats them all and then goes on to fight daredevil now of course he ends up getting beat by daredevil because of all the advanced abilities he has because he's possessed but successfully defeating multiple ninjas of the hand that was designed for the purpose of saying that like bull's eye is not just a guy who's there he's a guy who's a legit incredible threat because for those who have been reading Marvel Comics the hand or no joke they are deadly as hell if somebody contracts the hand to come after you then you better have your affairs in order and that's just all there is to analyse your Wolverine spider-man unless your Spider Woman Jessica drew or like more lafha there's nothing you're gonna be able to do to stop the hand from getting to you so successfully like defeating a few dozen of them by himself is no small feat and that's one of the things that like a lot of a lot of bullseye fans kind of champion is one of the great moments of his character when he was literally able to rip things apart now again it's kind of interesting to see what they're gonna do with this character it is Netflix so it's gonna be a lot more grounded than we're used to it's not gonna be as near nearly as like far flung and and crazy but I do think we might see things like him defeating the hand of course we'll see him going toe-to-toe with daredevil and we'll certainly see like some pretty crazy stuff in terms of being super accurate with stuff I wonder if we're gonna see the one that we saw from like that terrible ben affleck deadpool move I'm sorry bullseye a daredevil movie from back in the day where bull's-eyes introduced and he actually ends up throwing like what what does it he did hit through paper clips into a guy's neck and killed him I were never gonna see stuff like that because in the comics he's done crazy things like that like there was one point he threw a toothpick a hundred yards and killed a guy like I mean it's nuts the kind of stuff that this guy can do and it's absolutely bonkers there was one point where he threw a paper I'm pretty sure he threw a paper airplane with such accuracy with such an incredible accuracy that like it flew all the way to another building unlike the other side of not really the other side of town but like a pretty good distance like it was it's pretty crazy in terms of the kind of stuff he's able to do it's a little bonkers in terms of the stuff that he can then he can pull off but nonetheless you know I'm curious to see what we're gonna get I'm curious to see how the whole thing is gonna unfold I'm pretty excited about it but yeah we got being said guys we're gonna bring this video to an end if you are new here too comments explained make sure you guys at the sub button to become part of the Rob core if you guys enjoy this video make sure you drop a like and yeah I will catch you all later peace [Music]

Channel: Comics Explained

Views: 356,814

Keywords: comicsexplained, marvelexplained, fluidicbeats, Comics, Comic Books, Marvel, Marvel COmics, Bullseye, Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D, Agent Carter, Captain America, Iron man, The Avengers, Thanos, infinity War, Netflix, Trailer, Series, Villain, Kingpin, Wilson Fisk, Lester, Benjamin Poindexter, Matt Murdock, Spider-Man, Street Level, Marvel Legacy, MCU, Marvel Freshstart

Id: IcuLetGkL98

Length: 17min 40sec (1060 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 18 2018