Wilson FiskKingpin

Ruthless, cunning, and wide-bellied, Wilson Fisk may not have super-powers like most of his foes, but he does have the brains to outsmart them...at least for a little while.

At the center of many, if not most, wrongdoings perpetrated in New York City, Fisk clashes with heroes, antiheroes, and villains alike. He does whatever it takes to maintain his stranglehold on the New York underground—that's why he's called the Kingpin.

Unlikely Heir

Wilson Fisk was not always the feared crime boss he would grow up to be. He is the descendant of Anatoly Fyskov, a Russian businessman who immigrated to the United States in the late 19th century. Growing up, Wilson is a highly unpopular and chubby boy who is mercilessly picked on by his peers. Not partaking in the usual athletic activities of kids his age, Fisk discovers a knack for uncovering the weaknesses of others—and using them to his advantage. This aptitude proves a much-desired skill he'd carry into adulthood as the criminal mastermind of New York.

As he grows up, Fisk believes that physical strength is a major factor in building power in the underworld. He commits his first murder at the age of 12 and trains to build up his strength as much as he can, becoming fascinated by the art of sumo wrestling and the academic field of political science. Ravenous for knowledge, he steals books from stores and libraries, while refusing to become just a henchman for local criminal overlords. Instead, he collects his own band of teenage cronies who gave him the nickname of "Kingpin of Crime" by the age of 15.

Might Makes Right

Most of Fisk's bulk is actually muscle, not fat; his enormous size is comparable to that of a sumo wrestler. Wilson Fisk is learned in several types of hand-to-hand combat, and uses his enormous bulk as a means of defense as much as attack. As such, he is able to fight super-powered heroes, like Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, without fear of being seriously harmed or killed.

His immense size and strength notwithstanding, Fisk's true power lies within his skull. As a genius planner and strategist, he is able to control vast amounts of dedicated thugs, henchman, such as Oswald P. Silkworth, AKA Arranger, Big Turk, Blackie, and Blinker, assassins, including Bullseye and Elektra Natchios, AKA Elektra, government officials, like Randolph Cherryh, scientists such as Dr. Jonathan Ohm, AKA Spot, specialists like Alistaire Smythe, Phineas Mason, AKA Tinkerer), and a general assortment of petty criminals in order to achieve his nefarious ends. Even Super Villains like Phil Urich, AKA Hobgoblin, Flint Marko, AKA Sandman, Mary Alice Walker, AKA Typhoid Mary, and Quentin Beck, AKA Mysterio have been known to pledge loyalty to him. Fisk's talent for manipulation has duped powerful and well-connected agencies, such as the NYPD, the FBI, and S.H.I.E.L.D.

By donating large sums of money to charitable causes, hiring a crack team of attorneys, and choosing to be as hands-off as possible in his illegal operations, he has built himself a pristine reputation that would prevent the press from ever linking him to any kind of chicanery.

As if he wasn't formidable enough, he is sometimes known to carry a walking stick that can fire a laser pulse powerful enough to disintegrate a normal handgun. It, along with his diamond-studded tie, can also spray a concentrated dose of sleeping gas. Fisk is known to utilize a Vita-Drain, which is a machine that transfers life force from one person into another, and a brainwashing machine designed by Dr. Gerhard Winkler.

Rivals

You don't rise to be the leader of Manhattan's criminal underworld without making a few enemies along the way. Fisk’s earliest adversary is the original "Kingpin," Silvio Manfredi, AKA Silvermane. An immigrant from Italy, Manfredi builds up the criminal organization known as the Maggia in Manhattan. After Manfredi is sent to prison for tax evasion, however, Fisk seizes a good chunk of his territory and power.

Some brazen reporters like the Daily Bugle's Ben Urich try to bring Fisk down by hunting for evidence of his sins, of which there are many. He is warned to stop snooping around by Elektra, when she works as Kingpin's enforcer. Sadly, when Urich refuses, she impales him and leaves him for dead.

Kingpin frequently crosses paths with Spider-Man. To protect himself against the web-slinger, Kingpin once allies himself with Justin Hammer. By trading construction contracts with him, he is able to utilize the services of Max Dillon, AKA Electro, who overpowers and captures Spider-Man when he breaks into Fisk's offices. When Parker is unmasked, luckily, Fiskhas no idea who he is. Fisk is bested by Spider-Man, though, when Fisk accuses an associate, Mr. Big, of betrayal. He places Spider-Man's mask on Big's head and crushes his skull. This is caught on surveillance footage, which Peter obtains and sends to Urich. With concrete proof of Fisk's treachery in the hands of the press, the Kingpin is forced to flee to Brazil.

However, Fisk's greatest opposition is Matt Murdock, AKA Daredevil. Clashing both on the streets and via the law, the lawyer-turned-District Attorney Murdock makes great efforts throughout the years to take down the number one gangster in New York. As a masked vigilante, Murdock also joins his Defenders allies—Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Danny Rand, AKA Iron Fist—to bring the fight to Fisk as a team.

Accomplices

Fisk usually prefers to work alone, and allies himself with underlings, but he does not believe they are worth his time.

However, there are a select few people he cares for. While a good deal of selfishness is needed to force an entire city to submit to one's will, Kingpin actually thinks of someone other than himself when he falls in love with Vanessa, an amnesiac woman who had been brought before him by his employees. She reciprocates his feelings and the two marry and have a son together, Richard. Richard would later become a mid-level adversary to his father as the masked crime boss, the Rose.

He later becomes guardian to 9-year-old Maya Lopez, AKA Echo, after slaying her father and his business partner. He recognizes her talents and sends her to a school for prodigies. He encourages her to become a warrior, though they don’t always see eye to eye. 

Fisk also fathers an illegitimate son, Byron “Butch” Pharris, whom he eventually names as his heir.

Long Live the King

Nevertheless, it would be the nighttime activities of Matt Murdock who would prove to be the biggest thorn in the side of Fisk's criminal empire. As Daredevil, Murdock and Kingpin's relationship would come to be characterized as that of cat and mouse. Fisk became Daredevil's main antagonist during a Gang War in 1972. Fisk then became obsessed with eradicating the Devil of Hell's Kitchen after clashing with him in the subsequent years.

Fisk once learned the secret identity of the vigilante and set out to ruin Murdock's life and career when Murdock's girlfriend Karen Page sold him out for a shot of heroin. The hero's bank accounts were frozen by the IRS, his apartment was foreclosed upon, and he was wrongly accused of perjury. To add injury to insult, Kingpin also nearly beat him to death, but Matt was determined to defeat his enemy no matter the cost. After Matt was publicly exposed as the Man without Fear, he turned the tables on his enemy with the help of Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, and exposed Fisk as New York's Kingpin of Crime, which led to Fisk's brief incarceration.

The two did team up once in an attempt to take down the ninja gang known as the Hand. Kingpin tried to double cross Matt at the last minute, but Daredevil convinced the Hand to mobilize against Fisk instead.

Still, he could sometimes ally himself with the good guys when it suited his own interests. After being tricked by Johann Shmidt, AKA Red Skull in a Hydra plot to take over America, Fisk actually teamed up with Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. to bring down the criminal crew. He would later turn on Steve Rogers in the first Super Hero Civil War, when he offered to give Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man, the whereabouts of Captain America.

Vanessa represented much to Fisk, particularly a peace of mind he had lost during his ruthless struggle for power. Fisk once kidnapped the blind wife of a talented doctor, hoping the medical practitioner would cure his amnesiac and mentally unpredictable wife. Daredevil rescued the doctor's wife, removing Kingpin's only piece of collateral. This blow left Fisk's wife uncured, and her husband dejected and miserable. 

Fisk and Vanessa had one child together, Richard, whom Vanessa attempted to shield from the life his father led. Fisk saw their son as weak, pathetic and an embarrassment. However, Richard would grow up to become a crime lord himself, known as the Schemer and later the Rose, and had it out for his father. He attempted to assassinate Fisk, but was ultimately confronted by his mother, who killed him and kept it from Fisk, during a time when Fisk was out of commission and she was leading the Kingpin’s men. She divided up his empire and returned to Europe. Vanessa’s illness eventually took her life.

Fisk adopted the young Maya Lopez after he had killed her father, Willie “Crazy Horse” Lincoln, who was one of his business partners. When Maya, a warrior vigilante called Echo, sought her father’s killer, Fisk led her to believe that Daredevil was responsible. Though she came to realize Fisk was the true culprit and took her revenge by blinding him.

In recent years, Fisk has relied more on his cunning than fancy gadgets to control New York. He took a liking to a low-level member of his criminal enterprise, Janus Jardeesh, during the second Super Hero Civil War—not because Kingpin was feeling magnanimous, but because Jardeesh was an Inhuman who could shield himself from the future predictions of another Inhuman, Ulysses. When other criminals were getting arrested for crimes they hadn't yet perpetrated, based on Ulysses' visions, Fisk was able to keep his New York operation running smoothly without detection

Kingpin was also elected to be the mayor of New York City. Daredevil’s fight against his nemesis reached a critical impasse when Matt Murdock was offered the job of deputy mayor. Murdock accepted the job, as it could have proven to be a position to observe Fisk and bring him down. As soon as Fisk took office, however, he outlawed all vigilante activity, and put a warrant out for Daredevil’s arrest. Fisk is nothing if not ruthlessly determined to wipe out his enemies.

But when the arrest came to fruition, the Hand attacked, putting Fisk into a coma and making Matt the mayor. When Fisk came out of his coma, the Hand had been defeated by Mayor Matt/Daredevil and other vigilantes. Fisk attempted to resume his duties as mayor but was met with resistance from Matt, who claimed he was never competent to serve in the position. He offered to step down if Fisk would end his anti-vigilante crusade, especially since the people of the city had just witnessed the heroes save them from the Hand. Fisk agreed.

Back in power, Fisk’s next goal was to obtain the Tablets of Life and Time and Death and Entropy, hiring the best and brightest in archeology, cryptography, code breakers and historians. His goal was to revive his deceased wife, Vanessa. He initially asked for help from Kindred, who gave him a grave warning that Vanessa might not want to be brought back. After some betrayals in obtaining the tablets, he finally had them in hand and heeding Kindred’s warning, he brought back Richard instead to honor his late wife and redeem himself.

Typhoid Mary soon came into the employ of Fisk again as his bodyguard. While protecting him, she was infected with a symbiote during an invasion of the city and fought with Elektra, who had taken up Daredevil’s mantle. Her devotion was returned when Fisk found her to be a mystery to unravel, and they married.

Fisk eventually found out that he previously knew Daredevil’s secret identity. Approaching the Man Without Fear about it, he received only taunts and it was enough for him to outlaw Super Hero vigilantes within city limits. However, he used his deputized super-villainous Thunderbolts to enforce the law alongside the NYPD. Many heroes were arrested, including Reed Richards, AKA Mister Fantastic, and Sue Storm Richards, AKA Invisible Woman, while others went on the lam. Luke Cage soon ran for Mayor, while Fisk attacked and violently acquired the powers of the Purple Man to manipulate people’s minds for re-election purposes. Fisk also moved Dr. Otto Octavius, AKA Doctor Octopus, into the Baxter Building to begin mysterious experiments. The remaining Super Heroes attempted to bring Fisk in when Doc Ock made a move against the mayor with help from extradimensional Ottos. 

Meanwhile, Fisk used the Purple Man’s powers on himself to reveal Daredevil’s identity, and forced the Purple Man and his Purple Children to unleash the entire city against the heroes making a stand. Fisk attacked Matt Murdock, who was actually Mike Murdock (Matt’s at first fictional twin brother who had been manifested to life by an Inhuman) and killed him. Enraged, Daredevil and his allies, including Elektra, attacked Fisk and his Purple posse. 

Despite seemingly having the upper hand, Fisk, the Purple Man and the Thunderbolts were soundly defeated. 

Fisk faced arrest for his crimes, but was liberated by his illegitimate son Byron “Butch” Pharris. Taken to city elites Quinn and Una Stromwyn, they offered Butch an opportunity to operate crime with total immunity and the Stromwyns offered to clear the charges against Fisk if he ran for President of the United States. Fisk violently declined the deal to be under anyone else’s thumb, gave his title of Kingpin to Butch, and dubbed him a Fisk. He then sailed off into the sunset with his wife, Mary Walker.