Villain: Bullseye

Guest Appearance: Hank Jurgens, Chuckie Jurgens, Liz Jurgens

Cameo: Battlin' Jack Murdock (in flashback)

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Daredevil visits Bullseye, who is laid up in a hospital in traction, still suffering from injuries incurred during their last fight, after Bullseye had killed Elektra. He holds a gun in his hand, putting it to his head and pulling the trigger for Bullseye to see. It clicks to an empty bullet chamber, not firing. He then points it to Bullseye's head, pulling the trigger that clicks over another empty bullet chamber. DD explains why he's there, playing this sadistic game with his most hated enemy. He tells him the story of a little boy he met named Chuckie.

As Matt Murdock, he went to see Chuckie's father to help work on his embezzlement defense case. After Hank Jurgens meets him at the door, they walk in to see Chuckie absorbed in front of the TV, watching a replay of the famous battle on TV between Bullseye and Daredevil. Over dinner, Hank mentions that he's joined a group that organizes boycotts of TV sex and violence. While Matt tells him the district attorney has good evidence against him, Hank says they're all lies. After a little while, Hank turns to berating his son's lackadaisical attitude, as the boy claims from out of the blue that he is Daredevil. According to Hank, he is embarrassed to say that Chuckie seems obsessed by the videotape fight between DD and Bullseye.

While Matt left the strange family dinner weirded out by Hank Jurgens, he decided to follow up with the boy Chuckie. He meets up with him at the school playground and takes him on a ride on his back across the city rooftops. When they have a heart-to-heart, it appears to DD that the boys fascination with him is directly related to the violence he uses in his job as super-hero, and it bothers him. Returning to Bullseye, he tells him he was worried what he was being admired for by kids. He points and pulls the trigger of the gun again; no firing again.

On his way to question the plaintiff in the Jurgens case, Matt comes across Chuckie, who is hiding in a bush, watching his father meet with the plaintiff. Matt realizes trouble could start up and goes to change into DD. He catches up to them in the park, where Hank pulls a gun on the plaintiff Jurgens, who he claims is trying to blackmail him. Chuckie sees this going down and Hank tells him to go home. The boy stands astonished at what is happening, as Hank rails at him. DD walks up to Hank and grabs his gun, bringing Chuckie's father down to the ground, humbled.

Chuckie absorbs his father cast as the bad guy and goes back home to watch his DD vs. Bullseye tape. Sure that his father, who he identifies most with, is actually the bad guy, not the good guy, since Daredevil beat him up, he decides to emulate his father. He takes his gun to school and shoots a schoolyard playmate. Soon after, the boy quits communicating with the outside world.

Matt continues to taunt Bullseye with the gun, rushing through his history as a young boy, growing up in a household with a father who split time between being a loser pug and a drunk. One day, in fact, the father slipped up and slapped his son for getting into a fight. Matt ran away and spent all day thinking about that moment, and how it helped him decide to become a lawyer. He sums up his feelings for Bullseye by saying that despite how much he hates and loathes him, he can never bring himself to kill him, because he believes in the right and wrong established by law. His last click of the gun's trigger once again comes down on an empty trigger. He tells Bullseye he has no bullets, and they're stuck with each other.

--synopsis by Gormuu

--panel images provided by Avengers Assemble

--letter pages provided by Aussie Stu

Issues Reprinted
Daredevil #183-191, What If #28, 35,
and Elektra from Bizarre Adventures #28

Click on cover image to learn more about each issue.