#457 - Holiday Reading 2022: Bullseye: Perfect Game

I must confess, I really thought that Black Bolt, having followed These Savage Shores, Black Panther vs. Deadpool and Sheriff of Babylon.

However, as mine and my family's holiday came to an end, I found a final bit of time for one last (short) comic series.

My final read of the weekend was Bullseye: Perfect Game #1 and 2 by Charlie Heston, Shawn Martinbrough, Lee Loughridge and  Jeff Eckleberry. This (very) mini-series focused on the Marvel Universe's greatest assassin and his 'year off' where he went off the gris and performed no kills. However, this was no holiday as Daredevil's arch-nemesis took on a job to kill a baseball player, but planning it in such a way that meant he'd have to become a baseball pitcher, all to keep things interesting.

I don't actually remember when I picked up the first issue of this series, although I do recall that it had been a free issue that I had found on the old Comixology (RIP). However, upon reading it way back when, I certainly found it to be an interesting read and one which warranted me to pick up the second issue, which I did during a BOGOF sale along with the last three issues of Boba Fett is Dead.

So, obviously, it has been a long time since I bought the second issue but I certainly wish that I had read this mini-series sooner because Bullseye: Perfect Game was, in full, a really great and captivating read. I really enjoyed the way Charlie Heston told this story, with a narrator of Bullseye's missing year, in the form of someone writing his biography or an interviewee on some behind the magic documentary. 

However, what I really enjoyed was how this mini was much depth it gave Bullseye's personality, turning him from an almost 2D maniac that I've always seen him in the past into something a little more fleshed out as everything he does with his talent is simply to stave off boredom (it also helps sell me Bullseye's role during the first of the Waid/Samnee runs a lot better in hindsight).

Shawn Martingbrough and Lee Loughbridge's art collaboration, meanwhile, is equally impressive to me. This is because, it has a real Michael Lark/Mitch Gerads feel to it in which I think gives a tremendously real and lived in look. I think this helps tell the story because, under any other name, you'd wouldn't think this is a superhero/villain story but simply a reminiscing (for want of a better word) about a mysterious killer or a seemingly real conspiracy theory. That said, the art also reminds me a lot of Alex Maleev's work, which I think places it perfectly within one of the best Daredevil runs around (thus adding credence to its place as part of canon)

In the end, Bullseye: Perfect Game is a really good read. In fact, given its obscurity (from my point of view), I'm surprised by how good it actually is. I guess it's a reminder that there are still plenty of hidden gems put there in comics.