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It seems like forever since the first three series of Marvel Minimates shipped (all at once) and while the few special offers we've gotten in the intervening months are nice, we've all been itching for some two-packs of new characters. Series 4 has finally shipped, however, and features one of comics' greatest ongoing rivalries, Daredevil and Bullseye.
The 2" scale for Minimates has proven itself to be the way to go - the more these comicbook Minimates reach shelves, the sillier their 3" counterparts look. Just a little bigger than your average Lego person, the Marvel Minimates are just as detailed as their bigger brothers, but you get two figures for the same price. Excellent!
When Art Asylum announced that they'd gotten the license for Marvel Minimates, they showed a poster of a score of Marvel characters done Minimate-style. One of those shown was Bullseye, and we've finally got him in three-dimensional form.
He's the assassin that never misses. Any object, from a knife to a playing card, becomes a deadly weapon in the skilled hands of Bullseye. The Minimate version looks nice enough, featuring a removable mask and detailed with all the proper white circles. He's got a white belt, a separate piece that fits between his torso and hips. He even comes with a tiny little knife, perfect for stabbing your other Minimates' girlfriends. This would be an absolutely great figure, if not for one small oversight.
They painted it the wrong color! Blue. Blue!? What the hell? Bullseye does not now, nor has he ever worn a blue costume. Black. Every page, every appearance from Daredevil #131 onward has had the same look. He wears black! Basic black! It might not be so bad if AA had at least used a nice dark navy blue, but no! He's bright sky blue! It's awful, and AA usually does better. Someone screwed this one up big-time. It looks like Bullseye will be the first Minimate I have to customize.
Well, the Daredevil in this set is much, much better. Though there were two DDs in Series 1 (red with Kingpin, yellow with Elektra), this one is still unique. Featuring some great battle damage, this Daredevil's been through the wringer: big rips and tears on his legs, a shredded shoulder, torn gloves, a cracked lens in his mask and scuff marks all over. Everywhere that skin is showing through, he's all scrapes and bruises. He looks a ton more injured than Battle Damaged Spider-Man did, which makes sense: Peter's superhuman, while Matt is still just a man. My BDDD seems to have some molding problems - he's bent and dented, but it just adds to his damaged look. It would have been cool if one arm was in a cast, as it was in the comics for a while during Frank Miller's run.
Beneath his mask, Matt has a different face than the previous two - he still has the blind eyes, though (unlike most people claim) they're not pure white.
If you look closely, you can see that he has pupils which are almost the same color as his skin. He's got his billy clubs slung on his hip, and they're individually removable. There is a variant of this set available, with a non-damaged DD who has the same head as the previous releases and a repaint of Peter Parker's hair and glasses - much like the custom Matt Murdock we showed you a few months ago. I passed on it initially, but I may get the set just to have a back-up "Blues"eye in case I screw this one up fixing him.
All the Minimates share the same body with different paint decos, and they all move at the same 14 points: neck, waist, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles. That's a heckuva lot of motion for something so tiny.
Sold in character-related multipacks, the Marvel Minimates have a small size that makes them perfect for creating dioramas. Since anything else would soon take over your entire house, the smaller 'mates can be given just a shelf to call their own. Art Asylum really put some thought into this line, and even though it's a departure from what has gone before, it's still very good.
Bullseye and Daredevil are available in the new-style Minimate packaging. The cool tubular blister packs are gone, replaced by plain cardboard boxes that show pictures of the figures inside. It's nice enough, but just doesn't stack up to last year's. Probably a good thing, because if I had been able to see that Bullseye was blue, I might not have bought the set.
Blue? Blue?! Frickin' BLUE!? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
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