Today's Fact
Verified against 2 independent sources. Issue numbers cited below.
Before he was an assassin, Bullseye was a pitcher — and a phenomenal one. As told in Bullseye: Greatest Hits #2 (2004) by Daniel Way and Steve Dillon, the boy who would become Bullseye skipped a college scholarship for minor-league baseball, and after just three games was called up to start a sold-out major-league game.
He was pitching a no-hitter. Bottom of the ninth, two outs — and he was bored. He asked his coach to pull him from the game. The coach refused. The batter mocked him as a coward. So Bullseye did the thing his whole life would be built on: he threw the ball directly at the batter's head, killing him, and — in the retelling — said one word: “Bullseye.”
He was barred from professional baseball and convicted of manslaughter. The NSA recruited the disgraced pitcher as an assassin, and the rest is Hell's Kitchen history. One honest warning, though: this origin comes from Bullseye's own interrogation — and he later boasted that some or all of his life story was made up to amuse himself. Even his origin may be a thrown story.
Why It's Obscure
Everybody knows Bullseye the assassin. Almost nobody knows Bullseye the major-league pitcher — or that his baseball career ended with a corpse at home plate.
Gallery
Real depictions tied to this fact — no AI imagery, nothing mislabeled.
Sources
Every claim above is verified against at least two of these independent sources.
Bullpen Bulletins
- Why Bullseye is the Most Dangerous Man in the Marvel Universe — Marvel.comOfficial Marvel account: as detailed in Bullseye: Greatest Hits (2004) #2, Lester pitched a no-hitter, grew bored, and killed the mocking batter with a throw to the head.
- Bullseye (Earth-616) — Marvel DatabaseAfter only three games he became bored while pitching a no-hitter and hurled the ball at the batter, killing him; he was later recruited by the NSA — and his interrogation stories may partly be lies.
