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Kingpin
Art by David Mazzucchelli.
Publisher Marvel Comics First appearance The Amazing Spider-Man #50 (July 1967) Created by Stan Lee John Romita, Sr.
Characteristics Alter ego Wilson Fisk Team affiliations HYDRA (Las Vegas Branch) Fujikawa Industries Notable aliases The Brainwasher, Harold Howard Abilities Highly intelligent, Exceptional martial artist, Extremely strong and agile as a hand to hand combatant for his massive body size.

The Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) is a Marvel Comics supervillain who has battled many Marvel crime-fighters; most often Spider-Man, Daredevil and The Punisher. 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, Kasper Gutman.^{[citation needed]}

A titanic figure with an ever-present cigar and diamond-studded cane, the Kingpin is the cold-blooded leader of New York organized crime, although his army of lawyers maintain his image as a legitimate businessman. 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. According to Brian Michael Bendis's retcon, Fisk succeeded Alexander Bont as Kingpin.

Wilson Fisk is a criminal mastermind who was involved in extensive illegal activities such as drug running, smuggling, murder and dozens of other crimes. 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 6'7" 450 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." In the Spiderman animated series, Kingpin told him that "approximately two percent of [his] body weight is fat"). 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, Answer, and Typhoid Mary.

The Kingpin appeared in the 1990s-era Spider-Man animated series and in the 2003 Daredevil film, where he was played by Michael Clarke Duncan, who reprized his role in a subsequent Spider-Man animated series.

Contents 1 Fictional character biography 2 Powers and abilities 3 Other versions 3.1 Age of Apocalypse 3.2 Crossovers 3.3 Marvel Zombies 3.4 MC2 3.5 Spider-Man: Reign 3.6 Ultimate Kingpin 4 In other media 4.1 Animation 4.1.1 Spider-Man (1967) 4.1.2 Spider-Man (1981) 4.1.3 Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends 4.1.4 Spider-Woman 4.1.5 Spider-Man: The Animated Series 4.1.6 Spider-Man: The New Animated Series 4.2 Other Animated Appearances 4.3 Film 4.4 Video games 5 See also 6 Footnotes 7 References

Wilson Fisk began his life as a poor child, ridiculed by his classmates, as he was an unpopular overweight child. 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 wealthy 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.

Richard Fisk 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 was masquerading as a rival crimelord known as the Schemer, intending on toppling his father as the kingpin of crime. When Kingpin's empire was at its top, Fisk was the most powerful human politically and financially speaking 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, broken 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 in the form of the nonexistent "Murdock Papers" that Matt Murdock is Daredevil. Having made so many enemies who were in prison, 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 F.B.I. 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. Ironically, the enemies were forced to team up in order to survive a prison riot which was directed at them. Finally, Murdock sacrificed the deal, refusing to let Bullseye, who was also incarcerated, leave the prison as Kingpin had planned. The fight ended with the Kingpin shot point-blank in the knee by gunfire from Bullseye intended for Murdock, while Murdock escaped.

Fisk also appeared in the Civil War War Crimes one-shot. He offered a deal to Iron Man- consideration on his sentence in exchange for information about Captain America's Resistance base. However, as his status in prison is threatened for collaborating with Stark, he betrays him; he first sets up Iron Man by revealing a gathering of supervillains by Hammerhead to create a new criminal empire, claiming it was a base of Captain America's, and gives information to the Secret Avengers instead.

He also put out a hit on Spider-Man and his loved ones after Iron Man convinced Spider-Man to unmask in public as a means of demonstrating his support for the SHRA. A sniper attempted to hit Spider-Man, only to hit the "secondary target" of Aunt May. Spider-Man tracked down the hit to Kingpin. He entered the prison he was kept in and badly beat the Kingpin in a fight in front of the prison's inmates. He decided to let the Kingpin live for a time under the humiliation of his defeat, news of which would quickly spread through the Underworld. Spider-Man vowed to return and kill the Kingpin the second his aunt died.^[1]

However, at some point later, after Matt Murdock returns to America with his name cleared, he completes Vanessa Fisk's last wish and takes on Fisk's case, getting all charges dropped in exchange for Fisk leaving the country and giving up his American citizenship, but delayed the case enough so Fisk would not be able to attend his wife's funeral. Fisk is later seen visiting his wife's grave and mourning her death.

Fisk later temporarily returned to New York to "[wrap] up some loose ends that he had to deal with." [1]He has a meeting with the Runaways, making a deal with the youngsters to secure a mysterious object for him.

The Kingpin has no superhuman powers. However, he is incredibly strong and durable, possessing a remarkable strength concealed by his somewhat corpulent appearance. He has been shown to be strong enough to hurl people across a room, crush a man's skull with his bare hands, leave imprints in concrete walls after punching them, and even crushing one of Spider-Man's web shooters without making any great effort. Contrary to all appearances, most of his body mass is actually muscle that has been built to extraordinary size, much like a sumo wrestler. The Kingpin is a master of many forms of armed and unarmed combat, particularly sumo, jujutsu, and hapkido. His proficiency is such that he was able to hold his own in a battle with super-powered adversary Spider-Man early on in Spider-Man's career. However, he is no longer a match to the improved Spider-Man.

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 intellectually formidable and is a master tactician. He is self-educated 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. Kingpin is also a master manipulator, occasionally going so far as to lead superheroes into taking down criminal rivals that pose a threat to his position, as he once did to Sleepwalker and Spider-Man.

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, he attacks the human refugee camps of Wakanda. However, Dirigible is killed by Gwen Stacy.

• In the second Batman/Spider-Man crossover, 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, but the Kingpin actually formed an alliance with Batman and Spider-Man to save the city. Ra's attempted to get his revenge by denying Fisk the cure for Vanessa's cancer, but Talia Al Ghul, Ra's' daughter, provided the cure herself, recognizing in Vanessa a kindred spirit, as both of them loved a man that society would regard as a monster.

• 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 his fear toxin throughout New York. In this book, Kingpin is shown to be a formidable physical match for Batman.

• The Big Question is an infusion of Riddler of DC Comics and Kingpin, resulting from all characters from Marvel Comics and DC Comics merging in Marvel vs. DC.

The Kingpin appears in Marvel Zombies vs. The Army of Darkness #2 with his underlings, willing to work with the Punisher to try and save humanity from the zombie attack. The Punisher kills the group instead. He's seen in a quick bit for the original Marvel Zombies run, leading to the possibility he survived being shot only to be bitten anyway (another possibility being this was just an oversight). In this quick bit, Kingpin is seen as one of the zombified villains making a run at Galactus before being killed by the zombified superheroes.

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 is slain by a bomb while still in prison.

Fisk appears in a vegetative state in the first part of Spider-Man: Reign. He is seen with Mayor Waters, who is saying that he hasn't eaten solid food in ten years. What the mayor has to do with this is unknown.

In the Ultimate Marvel continuity, Kingpin remained mostly unchanged. He is still a large, thick set bald man who usually wears a white suit and carries a cane. He is the head of New York corporate crime, a ruthless murderer and notorious for bribing his way out of any prosecution. He has a reputation for simply owning many parts of New York, such as the McDonalds in Times Square. His employees include Electro, Elektra and The Enforcers. In the universe, his wife Vanessa Fisk also exists but is in a comatose state. The Kingpin is trying to remedy this with an ancient tablet that he had stolen. Unfortunately for the Kingpin, it was stolen and lost by the Black Cat as revenge. It is unclear why Vanessa is in a coma. He also finds competition in another crimelord called Hammerhead, and manages to play his enemy against Spider-Man, Black Cat, Moon Knight, Iron Fist, and Shang-Chi.

Captain Jeanne De Wolfe was secretly working for the crimelord before being killed by the Punisher. The Kingpin was seen mourning of her death in Ultimate Spider-Man Annual #2, possibly indicating an affair. Her death came at the end of a play for territory by another crime boss, the Kangaroo, who was taken into custody.

The Kingpin purchases the holding firm GG Enterprises, which owns the company that carries the licencing rights of the Spider-Man movie franchise. By purchasing the GG, Kingpin now technically owns Spider-Man's likeness. After Iron Fist betrayed the Ultimate Knights team's intentions to him, he had Spider-Man captured and waves this information in front of him, citing it as the only reason he would allow Spider-Man to continue to roam free. At the same time, he has Moon Knight assaulted and taken away, and torches Daredevil's offices. In retaliation, a crazed Daredevil breaks into Fisk's offices and threatens to murder his comatose wife by snapping her neck. As Kingpin pleads with Daredevil not to turn something that he only saw as 'business' into something personal, Spider-Man and the rest of the Knights persuade Daredevil to let her go on the condition that Fisk leaves the country. Daredevil grudgingly agrees.

Fisk, furious that the heroes had broken into his house and threatened his wife, orders their deaths, and that Spider-Man's school to be blown up while class is in session. Unfortunately for Fisk, the Moon Knight (whom Fisk had ordered his assassination) escapes death from the Kingpin's men and turns himself in, saying the Kingpin ordered his kill. As such, Fisk is arrested as he tries to leave the country.

The character has appeared 1967 version in "Kingpinned" and "The Big Brainwasher".

The Kingpin appeared the 1981 version in "Wrath of the Sub-Mariner" and "The Return of the Kingpin".

He appeared in Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends in "Pawns of The Kingpin".

He also appeared in the Spider-Woman episode "The Kingpin Strikes Again".

In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, he was one of the main villains. This Kingpin is fairly close to the comics version, but he is often occupied with manipulating super-powered characters to do his bidding. He's the mastermind behind the creation of the Spider-Slayers and is responsible for the creation of the Insidious Six, the animated equivalent of the Sinister Six. He's also involved in a power struggle with crime boss Silvermane. Initially, he operated behind the scenes until the "Framed/The Man Without Fear" two-parter, 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's main associate here was at first Alistair Smythe, but after Smythe nearly betrayed the Kingpin because he believed Kingpin was going to kill him for placing his son in jail during the Daredevil two-parter, Dr. Herbert Landon replaced him. Kingpin remained at large throughout the series, although an alternate dimension's version was arrested in the series finale. The Kingpin was voiced by the late Roscoe Lee Browne in this series.

This series also described an origin for the Kingpin, somewhat different than the comic-book version. As a boy, Wilson Fisk was influenced by his father, who sought employment as a mob criminal. When older, Fisk assisted his father in robbing banks and jewelry stores, culminating in one robbery where his father escaped but Fisk, hampered by his already-considerable weight, was captured by police. In adulthood, Fisk emulated his father's goal and climbed to a position of seniority within the mob, adopting the alias "Kingpin". He has had his police file destroyed, removing all record of his earlier arrest. He arranged for the arrest and conviction of his father, still an aspiring but minor criminal, and declared that he did this because "Sacrifices must be made". It was also revealed that his real name was Wilson Moriarty. He maintains a strained relationship with his wife Vanessa, who is well aware of his activities, while his son Richard works for him.

Michael Clarke Duncan reprized his role as the Kingpin in one episode of Spider-Man: The New Animated Series. Here, the Kingpin manipulated Spider-Man into thinking he worked for the F.B.I. and assigned the superhero to steal a chip from the mob (they were actually innocent scientists). Spider-Man soon realized he was scammed (evidenced when he learned that the first F.B.I. agent he met is just a movie actor) and with the help of Harry Osborn and the real F.B.I., Spider-Man had the Kingpin behind bars after a confrontation in one of the Kingpin's helicopters. When the copter crashed, both of them successfully escaped and due to Kingpin's weight, he fell from Spider-Man's hand. But the superhero saved him and had him trapped behind a crater long enough for the F.B.I. to arrest him. In this series, Kingpin uses a red diamond-studded cane capable of shooting lasers from the diamond.

• In Police Academy cartoon, a "crime boss" bearing a very strong resemblance to Marvel's Kingpin made several appearances.

• John Rhys-Davies played Fisk in the TV movie, The 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 (and presumably of Irish descent, as his status as a Hell's Kitchen mob boss),^{[citation needed]} the studio decided to use Duncan, who resembled the character's intimidating stature. Many fans and critics have praised Duncan for his portrayal of the character. Here, Kingpin started out as an enforcer for a mob boss named Fallon, in which capacity he was hired to kill Jack "The Devil" Murdock after he refused to throw a fight. Years later, Fisk became a crime boss in his own right and successfully hid his criminal activities from the public, although the media picked up on reports of a "Kingpin", running all crime in the city. He hired Bullseye to kill Nikolas Natchios (attempting to frame Natchios as the Kingpin in the process). He was successful, but Fisk also wanted Natchios' family killed as well and hired Bullseye to kill Natchios' daughter, Elektra, as well as the troublesome Daredevil. After he supposedly killed Elektra, Bullseye lost to Daredevil, although he revealed that Fisk was really the Kingpin during the fight. Having learned of his assassin's failure, Daredevil and Kingpin confronted each other in a final showdown. Due mainly to his injured shoulder- stabbed by Elektra when she believed him to be her father's killer- Daredevil was severely beaten by Fisk, who unmasked him, revealing that Daredevil was really "the blind lawyer from Hell's Kitchen", Matt Murdock, who Kingpin met at the party that took place prior to Nicholas Natchios' death. Daredevil nevertheless managed to make a comeback, triggering the sprinkler system in Fisk's office- thus allowing him to better 'see' his opponent while rendering Fisk practically blind- and subsequently taking Fisk down by breaking his legs. Daredevil prepared to kill Fisk to take revenge for his father and for Elektra by impaling him with a steel pike, but let the Kingpin live so as not to stoop to his level. Instead, Daredevil left Fisk for the police, who had learned of his identity as the Kingpin. Fisk threatened to tell everyone who Daredevil really was, until Daredevil pointed out that revealing to his prison inmates that he had been beaten by a blind man was the equivalent of suicide. Nevertheless, Kingpin swore that he'd get out of jail soon and that he'd be back to kill Daredevil, who merely said he would be waiting.

• The Kingpin is featured in the video game The Punisher.

• In The Punisher arcade game, Kingpin was the final villain.

• In Spider-Man: The Video Game, the Kingpin was one of the main villains, the last boss of the stage 3, 'The Lair of Kingpin'.

• He is also of course included in the game "Spider-man vs. the Kingpin" for the Sega Master System and Genesis

• In Spider-Man 3, Kingpin features in one of the games many sidequests. Spider-Man earns Kingpin's enmity when he takes an incriminating photo of Kingpin meeting with a corrupt police chief, which if published, could ruin his public identity as a legitimate businessman. Ultimately, Spider-Man ends up fighting Kingpin in the latter's penthouse. His strength and aggression amplified by the Venom symbiote, Spider-Man causes Kingpin to fall to his apparent death, although no body is found.

• Daredevil: Born Again

• Kingpin's Profile at Spiderfan.org

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