The most terrifying villain Daredevil ever faced was made even scarier thanks to Kingpin. When Wilson Fisk is faced with certain death after he finds himself in the Punisher’s crosshairs, he aligns himself with some unsavory characters in an effort to ensure his own survival. Though one of the assassins he hires stands above the rest in terms of the sheer terrifying nature of his presence.
Bullseye is by far the most terrifying villain in Daredevil’s catalog, something the Man Without Fear ironically proved himself. In the Avengers: Halloween Special story, “The Eyes Have It” by Rob Fee, Eoin Marron, and Mike Spicer, Matt Murdock receives an eye transplant that was sabotaged by Wilson Fisk. Kingpin discovered Murdock was Daredevil and blackmailed his doctor into filling Matt’s tear ducts with a powerful hallucinogen that would make him see his worst fear. When Matt opened his eyes for the first time, he thought his best friend, Foggy Nelson, was his arch enemy Bullseye and became so afraid of his vision that he killed Foggy thinking it was Bullseye in a fit of terrified violence.
As if the original version of Bullseye wasn’t terrifying enough, the version Kingpin hires in Punisher MAX is pure nightmare fuel. Bullseye makes his first appearance in the limited series in Punisher MAX #5 by Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon but doesn’t show off his sadistic nature until he accepts the job to kill Frank Castle. In order to better understand the man he was hired to kill, Bullseye decided he wanted to live out a life similar to the one Frank Castle did before his family was tragically taken from him, only completely corrupted in every way. Bullseye kidnapped a number of families, killed the husbands, and used them as if they were his own wife and kids before killing them as well to manufacture the feeling of having and then losing loved ones just as the Punisher did.
While this version of Bullseye is incredibly terrifying, his heightened sadistic nature didn’t make him any deadlier. When he and the Punisher finally go head-to-head, Bullseye doesn’t use his skills in precision as much as he taunts the Punisher by trying to get into his head. Bullseye, through his twisted reconnaissance, believed the Punisher never truly loved his family, and his mission to punish those who commit evil acts is a sham, and that he only kills criminals because he likes it. While this works for a time, the Punisher is successful in killing Bullseye which alone makes this version less intimidating to other heroes as the original version as he didn’t live long enough to face any other heroes besides the Punisher.
Bullseye’s insane method of understanding his victim before actually killing them, and the impact it has on innocent citizens in the area, makes him absolutely terrifying. In the main Marvel Universe, Bullseye’s ability to kill people alone makes him scary, but mostly to the heroes he is hired to eliminate, with Daredevil being the perfect example as shown in Avengers: Halloween Special. This version of Daredevil’s nemesis, however, makes the original look tame, and it’s all thanks to the Kingpin for unleashing that monster onto the general public in the hopes that he’d eventually kill the Punisher through his twisted and sadistic process.