Bullseye (character)

Bullseye is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. A psychopathic assassin, Bullseye uses the opportunities afforded by his line of work to exercise his homicidal tendencies and to work out his own personal vendetta against Daredevil.

Early life and back-story
Bullseye grew up in The Bronx, where he lived with his brother and their abusive father. His brother's main form of recreation was playing with rifles, leading him to become an expert shot. When he was 10 years old, his brother started a fire in their home in an unsuccessful attempt to kill their father. Shortly thereafter, Bullseye was placed in a foster home, and became a baseball player in high school. He was an extremely talented pitcher, and was offered a scholarship, but instead opted to enter the minor leagues. After three games, he was called up to play a sold-out Major League game. He had surrendered no hits the entire game, and in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, he became bored and requested the coach pull him from the game. The coach refused, and insisted that he finish the game. The opposing team's batter mocked him, accusing him of cowardice. Bullseye threw the ball at his head, killing him. As the ball struck, he said only one word: "Bullseye". He was barred from professional baseball and convicted of manslaughter.

This is a retcon of a previous origin story, which depicts Bullseye growing up as a below average student in a trailer park with an alcoholic, physically abusive father. In this version of events, Bullseye fakes his father's suicide using a handgun set off by a toy arrow. It is unclear how many elements of this version are actually true.

His cold demeanor and unique skills, however, meant subsequent recruitment by the National Security Agency as an assassin was inevitable, and he was soon assigned to train Contras in Nicaragua. By the time he arrived, however, he claimed to have already been planning to leave the NSA. He had planned on robbing the Contras blind and fleeing, but soon discovered they were desperately poor. Bullseye made the best of the situation: within seven hours of being informed of their poverty, he had led the Contras in seizing a landing strip that the Colombian cocaine smugglers were using as a staging area before moving on to the United States. Without use of the airfield, the smugglers were unable to send new shipments. Bullseye set up his hapless Nicaraguan translator Paolo as the leader of the new force controlling the airfield, and let the word spread around, however, Paolo was nothing but a patsy. Bullseye planned to invite several organized crime heads to the airfield to broker a new deal with him as Paolo's supposed "right hand man". He would take their money and disappear, presumably leaving Paolo to suffer the wrath of the Mafia, Russian Mafia, Yakuza, and various other criminal elements. However, before the deal could be finalized, the Punisher (Frank Castle) arrived.

Castle killed all the organized crime leaders in a fiery explosion from which Bullseye barely escaped. The two engaged in a fierce battle in which Bullseye was able to wound the Punisher and evade or disable several of his weapons. Bullseye then used some blood-reddened mud to paint a bull's-eye on his forehead, mocking Castle's inability to hit him. The fight concluded when Drug Enforcement Administration agents arrived, and the Punisher fled. Bullseye turned himself in to the D.E.A. agents and soon was assigned to infiltrate the Kingpin's criminal empire. He obtained a costume, fled yet again, and became one of the most dangerous hitmen in the world.

All of the above information is given by Bullseye during a subsequent interrogation by US intelligence. Just prior to escaping from custody, Bullseye confesses he made up some or all of his story to amuse himself; for example, he claims that he was really the one who started the fire which burned down his childhood home. The whole capture was a plan by the assassin to gain access to the prison where his father is being held. Bullseye finally gets revenge on his father, leaving him to burn as the prison's security systems torch everything inside.

Costumed criminal career
Bullseye battles (and defeats) Daredevil at a circus in order to establish his reputation as an extortionist.