Kingpin

The Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) is a fictional character, a Marvel Comics villain 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.

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 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, 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 reprised his role in a subsequent Spider-Man animated series.

Fictional character biography

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 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 he rose up to be one of the Kingpin’s greatest criminal enemies, a rival crimelord known as The Rose. 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.

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, 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.”He has a meeting with the Runaways, making a deal with the youngsters to secure a mysterious object for him.

Powers and abilities

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.

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’snemesis 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 to 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.

Ultimate Kingpin

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 recently 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 Kinght (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.

Name Kingpin
Human CR 12
XP 19200
Fighter level 13 (skill points 52) Thug
(Brawler )
Any Medium Humanoid
Init 0; Senses ; Perception +5

DEFENSE

AC 13, touch 11, flat-footed 12 ( +2 armor, +1 feats)
hp 141 (0d8+13d10+52+13);
Fort +12, Ref +4, Will +4

OFFENSE

Speed 30ft.
Melee +1 Mace Heavy +20/+15/+10 (1d8+11/19-20)
Ranged +1 Pistol, double-barreled +14 (1d8+1 X4) range 20
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks
Close Combatant -1 (Ex) Gains a bonus on attack rolls with weapons in the close weapon group 3
Close Combatant -2 (Ex) Bonus on damage rolls with weapons in the close weapon group = + 5
Close Control (Ex) Gains a bonus on bull rush, drag, and reposition combat maneuver checks. The brawler also gains a bonus to CMD when attacked with the bull rush, drag, and reposition maneuvers. Bonus =+ 3
Maneuver Training (Ex) -1 A brawler can select combat maneuvers to receive additional training in. She gains a bonus on combat maneuver checks when performing that combat maneuver and a bonus to her CMD when defending against that maneuver. Number of Maneuvers and CMD =
No Escape (Ex) Taking a 5-foot step out of the area of a brawlers menacing stance or moving out of the area of a brawlers menacing stance with a withdraw action provokes an attack of opportunity from the brawler.

STATISTICS

Str 18, Dex 10, Con 19, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 11
Base Atk +13; CMB +17; CMD 28
Feats Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Greater Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Specialization, Improved Sunder, Improved Unarmed Strike, Armor Proficiency Heavy, Armor Proficiency Light, Armor Proficiency Medium, Great Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Critical, Martial Weapon Proficiency, Power Attack, Shield Proficiency, Simple Weapon Proficiency, Skill Focus (Diplomacy), Stand Still, Tower Shield Proficiency, Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization
Skills Climb +20, Diplomacy +3, Handle Animal +4, Intimidate +16, Know Arch & Eng +5, Know Dungeon +5, Perception +5, Ride +0, Survival +8, Swim +20
Languages Common
Gear +1 Quilted Cloth armor, +1 Heavy Mace, +1 Double-barreled Pistol, Belt of physical might-1 (+2), Gauntlets of ogre power (+2)

ECOLOGY

Environment Any
Organization Company 10-20, Band 30-100, Squad 4-8
Treasure Standard