Kingpin (comics)
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The Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) is a Marvel Comics supervillain who has battled many Marvel crime-fighters, most often The Punisher, Spider-Man, and Daredevil. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist John Romita, Sr., he first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #50 (July 1967). He was modeled after Sydney Greenstreet's character in The Maltese Falcon.
A titanic figure with an ever-present cigar and diamond-studded cane, the Kingpin is the cold-blooded leader of the New York mafia, although his army of lawyers maintain his image as a legitimate business man. The character played a prominent role in the Daredevil stories of the late 1970s and early 1980s written by Frank Miller, and the two have had a bitter, violent feud ever since.
The Kingpin appeared in the and in the 2003 Daredevil film, where he was played by Michael Clarke Duncan, who reprised his role in .
Character history
Wilson Fisk is a criminal mastermind who was involved in extensive illegal activities such as drug running, smuggling, murder, and so forth. Despite this, he had (until recently, see below) no criminal record and an army of lawyers to keep it that way, and is a criminal financial strategist without parallel. Fisk has no superhuman powers, but the majority of his 400-plus pound bulk is muscle (when he delivered a kick to the Kingpin's back, Daredevil could only think, "Whatever that was, it wasn't fat. Felt more like rock"). He is a superb fighter who has held his own against Spider-Man, but in recent years Daredevil has occupied his attention. He has been aware of Daredevil's secret identity for years, thanks to Karen Page's drug-fueled betrayal. Though Spider-Man and Daredevil are his greatest enemies, he has also tangled with Captain America, Moon Knight, Doctor Strange, The Punisher, the Avengers, and Ghost Rider, among others. He has employed any number of costumed criminals and assassins, notably Elektra, Bullseye, Jack O'Lantern, and Typhoid Mary.
Wilson Fisk began his life as a poor child, ridiculed by his classmates, as he was heavy and unpopular. When he was repeatedly harassed by bullies, Fisk began training himself in physical combat. Using his newfound strength, he intimidated the bullies into joining his gang, and he started on the road towards being one of the most successful criminals in New York City. His first gang was a small one with only a few thugs. However, he eventually was found by crime lord Don Rigoletto. Fisk became Don Rigoletto's bodyguard and right-hand man. Eventually, Fisk killed Don Rigoletto and took control of his gang, immediately becoming one of the most powerful criminals in the city.
The Kingpin stayed the ruler of New York's criminal underground for a long time. However, he had made enemies with other gangs, specifically the Maggia and HYDRA, who teamed together to bring down Fisk and his gang. Fisk left for Japan after his empire was brought down, and started a spice business, in order to become rich once more. After earning enough money, Fisk returned to New York and started gang wars, in an attempt to bring down the Maggia. With the criminal world in chaos, Fisk was able to step in and take control.
While Fisk was a powerful crime lord, he posed as a legitimate businessman, one who made donations to charities, and seemed like a generous, wealthy man. He eventually met a woman named Vanessa, whom he married and had a son with, Richard Fisk. Vanessa did not know that Fisk was a criminal when she married him, and when she found out, she threatened to leave him if he did not give up his life of crime. He temporarily retired from crime, and the family moved back to Japan, until gang wars in New York required Fisk's attention.
Fisk's son did not find out that his father was a criminal until he was in college. After graduating, Richard told his parents he would travel through Europe. Only months after he left, they received news that Richard, who was angry after learning the truth about his father, had died in a skiing accident. However, this was not what really happened. It turned out that Richard Fisk was still alive, and he rose up to be one of the Kingpin's greatest criminal enemies. When Kingpin's empire was at its top, Fisk was the most powerful human in the Marvel universe, controlling several governments including the United States of America.
Wilson Fisk eventually lost his criminal empire to one of his employees, Samuel Silke, who was working with his son Richard, in a bloody Caesar-like assassination bid. In the aftermath, Vanessa killed Richard and fled the country with Fisk's remaining wealth while the Kingpin recuperated in an unnamed eastern-European country, broke and alone.
He returned and after getting revenge on Silke by crushing his head, almost managed to regain his empire through sheer will but was defeated by Daredevil, who declared himself the new kingpin. Fisk was put in jail.
Recently, he hatched a scheme to be freed and regain his wealth by giving the F.B.I. proof that Matt Murdock is Daredevil. Having made so many enemies, trapped in one place, Fisk was constantly under attack from the Hand, HYDRA, or any number of criminal organizations with which he had had intimate contact. The U.S. government was hard pressed to get rid of this expensive, dangerous, legally clean master criminal, and Fisk succeeded in manipulating the F.B.I. into gravely wounding Daredevil and directing them to his D.N.A. He tells Ben Urich to give the feds the location of the Night Nurse, the only medic for injured superheroes, or go to jail.
He succeeded in getting Matt Murdock finally arrested, but the FBI betrayed him at the last minute and arrested him as well, placing him in the same jail as Murdock with hopes that the two would kill each other.
Fisk proved himself to be a formidable threat even incarcerated. Three prisoners armed with knives tried killing him in the shower, yet he managed to overpower and kill them with ease. He also set up the plan that culminated in the death of Foggy Nelson.
Powers and abilities
The Kingpin has no superhuman powers. However, he is as strong and durable as it is possible for a man of his height, weight, and build who engages in intensive regular exercise to be, and he is a very large man (over six and a half feet tall). Like Captain America, Fisk is stronger than any Olympic athlete who has ever competed. His stamina is likewise honed to the virtual pinnacle of human abilility. He has remarkable agility and dexterity for a man of his size.He typically wears Kevlar armor under his clothing. Fisk sometimes carries a walking stick that conceals a laser beam weapon capable of firing a blast of concussive force sufficient for vaporizing a handgun (or a person's head) at close range. He typically wears an ornamental stick-pin that conceals a highly compressed chamber of sleeping gas that is effective if sprayed directly into his victim's face. Due to his wealth and intellectual industry, Kingpin could use far more advanced paraphernalia, but he prefers to use such things as a last resort. As Fisk became less Spider-Man's nemesis than Daredevil's, he became more of a naturalistic mafioso than a comic-book criminal mastermind, and depended less on science fiction-like weaponry.
Aside from his remarkable physical advantages and special paraphernalia, the Kingpin is brilliant. He has self-educated himself to the university graduate level in the field of political science. He is extremely skilled and knowledgeable in the organization and management of criminal and legal business operations. The Kingpin is a master of many forms of armed and unarmed combat, particularly sumo, jujitsu, and hapkido. His proficiency is such that he has beaten characters with superhuman abilities without too much difficulty in the past.
Alternate Versions
Ultimate Kingpin
In the Ultimate Marvel continuity, Kingpin remained mostly unchanged. He is the head of New York corporate crime, a ruthless murderer and notorious for bribing his way out of any prosecution. His employees included Electro, Elektra and The Enforcers. He is more a Spider-Man villain than a Daredevil one, partially because Ultimate Daredevil has not caught on as much as Ultimate Spider-Man.In this continuity, Vanessa Fisk is also introduced. It is very briefly and shown that she is in a comatose state that Kingpin was trying to remedy with an ancient tablet that he had stolen. Unfortunately for Kingpin, it was stolen and lost by the Ultimate Universe's Black Cat as revenge. The reader isn't revealed the cause of the comatose state.
Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse, Wilson Fisk is known as Dirigible, a wealthy businessman who bought his way into the Marauders, a human terrorist group serving Apocalypse that makes up for their lack of mutant powers using technology in order to fly and emit explosive blasts. Alongside Red (Norman Osborn), the Owl and Arcade, Dirigible attacks the human refugee camps of Wakanda. However, Dirigible is killed by Gwen Stacy.MC2
In the alternate future portrayed in the MC2 comics, Fisk has finally succeeded in killing Daredevil, although he made the mistake of betraying Kaine in the process. Kaine attempted to revive Daredevil with sorcery, but ended up bonding him with the demon Zarathos and Reilly Tyne (son of Ben Reilly, the Scarlet Spider), creating the superhero Darkdevil.
At some point, Fisk was sent to prison, although he is still able to manage his criminal empire from within the prison, often with the assistance of bribed guards. Fisk and his lawyer, Foggy Nelson, were on their way to court for his latest appeal when Kaine attacked Fisk. Spider-Girl intervened and saved Fisk.
When Kaine was being taken away by the police, Kaine asked Nelson why he represented the man who murdered his partner, Matt Murdock. Nelson had been unaware of this (it is not stated how much Nelson knew about Murdock's alter ego Daredevil or the circumstances of his death), and refused to represent Fisk further. This causes Fisk to lose the appeal in question.
When a gang war started, Fisk was assinated (while still in prison) by a bomb.
Crossovers
In DC's Elseworlds series Batman/Spider-Man crossover book, Kingpin is forced to partner with Ra's Al Ghul in a plan that would destroy New York City, in an exchange for a cure to Vanessa's cancer. As it turned out, Ra's gave Vanessa her cancer to force Kingpin to aid him. In the second Batman/Daredevil crossover book, Kingpin almost lost his entire criminal empire to the Scarecrow, who had tried to dismantle it merely as a distraction so that he could spread fear toxin throughout New York. In this book, Kingpin is shown to be a formidable physical match for Batman. Oddly, he considers Gotham City to be a worthless "podunk town" despite the fact that Gotham is a large economic center for the United States.Other media
The character has appeared in each animated series adaptation of Spider-Man. In , he was the main villain. This Kingpin is fairly close to the comics version, but he is often occupied with manipulating super-powered characters to do his bidding. He is responsible for the creation of the Insidious Six, the animated equivalent of the Sinister Six. Initially he operated behind the scenes until a two-part episode where his identity was revealed to Spider-Man with the help of Daredevil, who was seeking revenge for his father's murder at Kingpin's hands. The Kingpin was voiced by Roscoe Lee Browne in this series. It is interesting to note that the Kingpin, although white, is voiced by Browne, a black actor.
John Rhys-Davies played Fisk in the TV movie, Trial of the Incredible Hulk.
In the feature film, Daredevil, Michael Clarke Duncan played the character. As in the animated series, he is responsible for the murder of Daredevil's father. Although he is African American and in the comics the Kingpin is Caucasian the studio decided to use Duncan, who at least resembled the character's intimidating stature, after several white wrestlers gave poor screen tests.
Duncan reprised his role as the character in one episode of . Here, the Kingpin manipulated Spider-Man into thinking he worked for the FBI and assigned the super hero to steal a chip from the mob (they were acutally innocent scientists). Spider-Man soon realized he was scammed and with the help of Harry Osborn and the real FBI, Spider-Man had the Kingpin behind bars.
The NPC of Kingpin featured in the video game The Punisher is also African American and is heavily based on Duncan's portayal.
The Kingpin was featured in the first wave of Minimate action figures.
See also
External links
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