Yesterday was December 11th…not an especially important day nation wide,but an important one for me. The 11th was “last call” to get your layaway out of the various Wal-Mart’s around our great nation. So off I went to Wally World to retrieve my Marvel Legends Netflix wave…..don’t look at me like that. Yes ,I said layaway. I have 2 kids,minimal income, and its Christmas. A man’s gotta do what he needs to get his plastic fix. At any rate, I won’t be spotlighting this whole wave all at once. I’m pretty backlogged as it is,so I’ll throw them in randomly whenever I see the chance. However, since they’re new gets, I feel compelled to open at least one and get the ball rolling on the set. Today we’ll look at Bullseye….a fast draw assassain who can make anything a weapon of choice. This is Bullseye’s second go around with Marvel Legends. His first was with Toybiz in the initial Build a Figure wave,which was for Galactus. Technically he had 2 figures in that set,one being a variant with alternate head and paint scheme.
Bullseye debuted in Marvel comics in 1976. Created by Marv Wolfman and John Romita Sr as a foil for Daredevil, Bullseye quickly became one of Marvel’s top hitmen. He’s had victories over Daredevil,Elektra, and even took The Punisher to the limit a couple of times. In recent years, his backstory has become a bit of a mystery kind of like The Joker in the Dark Knight Rises. He once gave an in depth retelling of his childhood,his strained relationship with his father, and supposed real reasons for working with The Kingpin, but later said he made up those stories and his origin for the fun of it. He’s a cold blooded murderer with high intelligence and a strange sense of humor. Those qualities have made him one of comics most interesting of mercenaries. Now here he is,back in the fold of Marvel Legends, ready to make his mark on the Hasbro era…..does he hit the mark….or Collin Farrell it instead?
This is a rare instance where I kinda want to shut up and just let pictures do the talking. However,I’m here for analysis so I’ll stick to the format. Starting with sculpt ,as per usual, we’ll see that Bullseye’s main piece of sculpted materials are his utility belt/holster combo. Pouches adorn the front of the belt itself which connects to the functional holster. At first I didn’t like the design because I was afraid it would hamper articulation. We’ll get to that in the next section of course. Aside from the belt/holster, most sculpting takes place on the head. Hasbro gave us a fine sculpt resulting in a portrait that captures Bulleye’s rather maniacal look superbly. Nothing too over the top,but the message is conveyed nonetheless. His alternate head features a little bit more of that craziness than his masked one. The target branding is replicated with tremendous effect. Paint apps are sufficient except for some white slop I got on his chest near the left shoulder. He includes a breadth of accessories this time out. No less than 3(!) different left hands, one trigger hand,one pointing hand,one hand with triple knife throwing effect. There’s a pistol and knife included as well. Of course there’s also Man-Thing’s arm for the BAF piece.
As far as the articulation is concerned, this dude is on the famed “Pizza Spidey” buck. That’s probably all you need to hear to make an informed decision of how poseable Bullseye is going to get. He’s got it all. Ball joint head,butterfly shoulder joints,ball joint shoulders,bicep swivel,double jointed elbows,wrist swivel and hinge,ab crunch,waist swivel,ball joint hips,thigh rotation,double jointed knees,calf swivel,ankle hinge,and ankle pivot…..you’re going to get him to do damn near anything you want. Seriously,I thought about just snapping poses and saying “Here….look at Bullseye” but I digress. The articulation is functional and 99% uninhibited. The 1% is for that holster,very slightly, restricting the reach of the leg. However, it’s not enough for me to take anything away from the overall effectiveness of this figure’s range.
Overall Thoughts: We have a winner! Seriously, I don’t want to overhype the figure. I think my contentment with this guy comes from the fact that I’ve heard next to nothing about him. No raving on the big sites,no “you MUST own this” decrees from the collector faithful….nor have I heard anything bad. So there was no set bar for this when I opened it. It came as a surprise that Bullseye turned out being the solid piece of action figure awesomeness that he is. That isn’t to say I don’t have a couple of nit picks…no figure is perfect. The paint slop on my sample’s chest ,while not terribly distracting, was a pretty simple area. How that ,of all places,got the suspect outline; I’m not sure. The other minor quibble is that I wish he had a sheath on his boot for his knife. I always love it when an action figure can be a self containing piece for all his accessories. In closing, I gotta say I had a ton of fun working with this guy. I forsee Bullseye making the grade in several dios and scenes from here on out. Bullseye was a figure I had no major excitement for, but he ended up reminding why I’ve loved the Marvel Legends series and style for the last 15 years. Go grab yourself one…….
