Welcome to thefwoosh.com “buy 1, get 3 free” reviews. Below you will be subjected to not just one person’s opinion, but 3 people’s opinions, all of whom have extensive experience and references on things entirely unrelated with reviewing action figures. This time, Carl, RoboKillah, and Jason_in_NC will be bringing you their thoughts on Marvel Legends 9 Bullseye!
First, a little background on Bullseye:
Bullseye is the softest and sweetest Powerpuff Girl. But that doesn’t mean he’s a pushover. He can kick monster and villain butt just as well as his sisters Blossom and Buttercup can. Sometimes bad guys and monsters have a tendency to dismiss him, but they’re the ones who are always sorry.*
*Note: the authors of this review are the ones sorry here, and fully expect to be killed by Bullseye with a pencil, a grain of rice, or some other relatively innocuous item.
PACKAGING
Jason_in_NC: Standard ML carded goodness.
RoboKillah: No reason to mess with a good thing, and the Biz hasn’t.
Carl: Standard ML stuff – cut it open and throw it away. Bleh – packaging is the devil.
SCULPTING
Jason_in_NC: What a great medium build figure. To be honest, I think this is one of the best sculpts we’ve gotten from ML ever. This is partially due to how well the articulation is integrated into this design. They really go hand in hand. For instance, no huge obvious shoulder balls a la Parachute Spider-Man, Daredevil, or Deathlok. These shoulders are recessed into the chest articulation and they’re proportional to the body. Everything is in great proportion except the head, and I won’t count that against it. I say that because the huge noggin is either a factory mistake or bad communication from Toybiz during the scanning process.
On the original 2-up, as can be seen from any 2004 SDCC pics, the head was originally proportional. Too bad it was not as smooth a transition to the 6” version, but still, this is a well sculpted figure. The forearms and shins have the proper bend, it’s about as realistic a sculpt as you can get for a comic figure. Looks great in many, many poses. I can’t wait to customize a few of these. Oh, he actually looks like Bullseye too. I know very little of Bullseye. Never been much of a Daredevil comic reader but my appreciation for this figure has nothing to do with the character it’s supposed to represent. It’s just a great figure independent of all that.
RoboKillah: The sculpt works really well for Bullseye. I’ve always pictured him as a lean, mean killing machine. All the right details are there. The addition of zippers here and there are just icing on the cake. This is a great sculpt to use for other medium- to small-build figures. He’s a bit lanky to be used a lot, but the possibilities are there.
Carl: Big head, small hands. I love the sculpt overall, but proportions-wise, his head is just huge compared to other parts of his body. The articulation is mostly well done and there are lots and lots of tiny details in his gloves and boots to look over. Zippers and seams are the wave of the future. All the complaints I can offer are related to his head, as mentioned the size is just a bit off, and my other beef is his ears. The way they are out and exposed combined with the head size makes him look “impish;” otherwise he’s perfect.
PAINT
Jason_in_NC: I don’t have a problem with the paint except that it’s pretty hit and miss. Several of the Bullseyes I have seen have some paint slop on the face.
RoboKillah: The white is a tad dirty. I guess this is to up the realism factor. It works. I woulda liked for the third white stripe on the gloves to be painted, ala the variant, but no biggie. On mine, the target on the forehead is a little off, but again, no biggie.
Carl: Only paint issues that I have are the paint slop on his face, and the missing white section on his gloves. I have seen a few Bullseye’s with what look like shark eyes because the color of the pupil and iris are so similar. I have seen some of the later versions of the figure recently and it’s starting to look like the newer figures have less of the blue highlights on the figure aswell as a cleaner paint job. I prefer that one, even thought the gloves haven’t been fixed yet.
[Editor’s note: the Bullseye featured in this review had the upper glove stripe painted white.]
ARTICULATION
Jason_in_NC: Again, one of the best designed figures to date. The articulation is tight, meaning that there are very few obvious gaps in the parts that make up any given point of articulation. It is functionally tight also. The hips are placed at an angle, but don’t seem to be as steep as Brown Wolvie’s hips. They allow the legs to come almost together and they can be positioned back farther than most ML’s allowing for some good imposing stances. Did I mention that I really like this figure? If a body is to be re-used where appropriate, this is the one to re-use.
RoboKillah: I doesn’t get much better than this. Articulation in all the right places, and done to be aesthetically pleasing, yet useful and well designed. What more can a geek ask for?
Carl: Just about perfect. Have a few minor complaints but I wanna cover the good stuff first. I love his ankles; the side to side range he has is really great. There have been a few ML style figures recently that have the capacity for the side to side movement but just come up short when you try and use the joint. The other thing is the pec/shoulder pivots that they added. They figured out a real nice looking way of doing this on Bullseye. I wasn’t a big fan of this mechanism on the Parachute Spider-Man body for a number of reasons but they pulled it off very well this time. As for the bad, I hate the angled ball hips. I know they are essentially the same thing as a normal ball hip but they don’t pose as well so being a person who likes articulation over aesthetic I want them to stop being used.
ACCESSORIES
Jason_in_NC: He came with this giant leg. I have no idea why. 😉
RoboKillah: Yeah, the giant leg thing. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
Carl: Boooo, I know I know he came with a part to a mega-cool 16″ Galactus figure but they couldn’t just slip in a little knife or something, a playing card, not even a throwing star? I feel like I’m complaining because they really did an excellent job with this figure and the series overall. But c’mon – he’s Bullseye! He needs to come with something to throw. I guess I’ll just have to have him throw Galactus’ leg around.
PLAYABILITY
Jason_in_NC: Tons. I absolutely love this figure. This is a perfect example of what action figures should be.
RoboKillah: Whether you’re facing him off against Daredevil or teaming him up with Deadpool, you’re going to be posing to your heart’s content. The only way I could see Toy Biz upping this is drilling a hole in his butt for a clear stand.
Carl: Uhm he needs some weapons first?
IF FWOOSH RULED THE WORLD
Jason_in_NC: For me, I’d want a few cases of this guy. He’s a dream base figure for me; just beautiful. I’m going to shut up now before I ask it to marry me.
RoboKillah: The variant would have been the regular release with no variant. It just rules so much harder. I guess that’s the point of a chase though… kinda… sorta?
Carl: I’d give him weapons, shrink his head, cover his ears, paint that unpainted stripe on his gloves, evenly pack the variant and give him a normal set of ball hips. Then my fictional toy making company would go out of business because of my terrible business sense.
