Kingpin #1

[cyberghostface]

"Kingpin isn't like the other villains in a lot of ways. Guys like Red Skull and Thanos are monsters and there is only so much time you can spend with a monster. But Kingpin is really only slightly off from being a hero. He has all the makings of a Spider-Man type really. He is smart, overcame adversity, he's passionate, driven, and gifted. The problem is his moral compass is a bit off. He is self-serving, sure, but he really cares about the city and he wants to be a force of good for it. He is just willing to cross lines that shouldn't be crossed to get there. So when it comes time to go further into who the Kingpin is, we don't need to change that. He's not a monster. He's a man who contains a lot of contradictions. He thinks he will end up being judged on the right side of history. Only time will tell." -- Matthew Rosenberg

Comments

[lordultimus]

Why is it that writers love writing heroes as villains, and villains as heroes?

[cyberghostface]

I don't think the writer is aiming to make Fisk a hero but I think it comes down to villains that aren't purely evil and have their own moral complexities are more interesting characters.

[erikred]

Without having read the rest of the issue, the impression I'm left with is that this is the same Wilson Fisk we've always had: purely evil AND complex, although not particularly morally complex.

The power dynamic surrounding the Kingpin is that he will always be the one with the power. If he chooses not to use that power to force you to do what he wants, bully for you, but it's all up to him, not you, so, really, your only choices are temporary safety (do what he wants, in the hopes that he'll then leave you alone) or risk (don't do what he wants). The only way to be safe and secure from Wilson Fisk is to never come to the attention of Wilson Fisk.

[cyberghostface]

I think it depends on who writes him but idt he's pure evil. At least on two separate occasions he's tried to leave his criminal enterprise and live a normal life (first with Vanessa then with the family in Argentina) but bad things happen that force him to return.

[erikred]

Those are fair episodes to bring up in his defense. They do seem to be the exceptions though.

[captainbellman]

The Further Adventures of Criminal Churchill

[thanekos]

In some panels, Fisk's so Miller you except Hawkman and Hawkgirl's kid to brain him with a mace any second now.

[cyberghostface]

Yeah I was getting some Marv vibes from his forehead myself.

[jmacq1]

I'm not 100 percent sold on the art but there's enough va-va-va-voom in that panel of Ms. Dewey in that dress that I think the page just won the Indy 500.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I'll have to remember that one.

[lamashtar]

Villains seem to be able to go full circle. From evil to truly repentant and back to evil. And people like them at every step of the way. Heroes, once tarnished, are despised forever, even if they go through the same repentance and seeking redemption stage.

[flint_marko]

Not really, it depends on who the hero or villain is, what they've done, and how they're written at the time.

[lamashtar]

Thats the whole point of a written story. But people still complain over the crimes of heroes long after it shouldn't matter anymore because of revealed villains or retcons or whatever. People were protesting the Antman movie because, in an alternate universe, Hank Pym hit his wife. Kingpin operated snuff porn on children but nobody protests him. The audience likes him. I could probably pick any number of horrid things Loki has done but none of them matter anymore.

[cyberghostface]

"Kingpin operated snuff porn on children but nobody protests him."

Wait what? When?

[lamashtar]

Man Without Fear miniseries. Its the current canon for Daredevil's origin. This is just one example of the horrible crap he's done. Has it been whitewashed?

[cyberghostface]

I don't recall him making snuff films there but MWF's canonicity is already up for grabs in numerous respects (Elektra being a prime example) as it was basically an adaptation of a potential movie script Miller had done and it's something that hasn't been carried over by any other writer. The CWII miniseries for example had Kingpin forbid human trafficking on his turf.

[flint_marko]

It's very iffy. Man Without Fear was supposed to be a script Miller wrote for a potential DD movie, which he later adapted into the miniseries. Parts of it have crossed over into canon, like Typhoid Mary being the prostitute Matt knocked out of the window, but it also contradicts a lot of stuff, including things that Frank Miller himself wrote, like how Matt and Elektra's relationship started.

And current canon has Kingpin being against trafficking.

https://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/6303892.html

[lamashtar]

Thanks. CWII is very very recent though, and Man Without Fear, while details are reworked, is still the new basic origin. Miller's original story of Elektra's origin was definitely retconned. Fisk's deciding against trafficking might be a recent rule meant for strategic reasons.

The notion that I'd have to drag through decades of awful things the man has done to prove that a murderous gangster is a bad guy is somewhat ridiculous. There were Netflix viewers, unfamiliar with the character, who were insisting that Wilson Fisk was more heroic than the protagonist, although Fisk was making money off the human trafficking the Russians controlled and trying to take it over. This is the kind of facile ignorance that requires over-the-top villainy displayed for the viewer, like raping a supporting character (because just trying to kill Karen Page wasn't enough) or killing nice old black guys like Ben Urich. It wasn't until Fisk murdered Urich in cold blood that some people woke up to the fact that 'yes, Wilson Fisk is not a nice man'.

[cyberghostface]

MWF still isn't undisputed canon. When Bendis and Loeb did their takes on Matt's history they still used the Stan Lee era as point of reference with the yellow costume and everything.

[lamashtar]

Bendis is regular canon, but Loeb's Daredevil: Yellow is based on period origin and makes several retcons. Loeb himself shrugs off the alterations as unreliable narrator.

[flint_marko]

Did I say he wasn't a bad guy? He's a bad guy. I just said I didn't think MWF, which was just supposed to be a movie script and contradicted earlier stories, was meant to be canon. Why would Miller retcon his own classic run like that?

And yes, for a lot of people rape is a special kind of evil.

[bj_l]

Are you able to give me the issue and page number or possibly post a scan where it says that he did that? I'm curious, as I really don't remember that when I read the book a couple of months ago.

[lamashtar]

Sure. Issue 4, page one, child trafficking is an established part of the Kingpin's empire: "And the profits roll in. By the billions. Profits--from the kidnapping and outright sale of the city's children--condemning innocents to fates that are unspeakable."

Issue 4, page 11: "Meanwhile, the biggest bully in town makes his first mistake. It begins with a simple order to cut costs in the film division. After all, the product is not art--and, for all the scenes of perversion and torture and murder--there is no need for special effects."

Issue 4, page 12: "And so..."
Film guy: "Cut costs? With this production schedule? Has the Kingpin lost his mind? Ulp! I never said that. I never said that. Tell the boss we'll make it work. That's a promise."

"Soon."
Film guy: "You get one chance. You blow it and I never see you again. Nobody does. You stay off the junk and you get me a girl. She can't be older than twelve."
Junkie girl: "We'll do it, Clay. We'll do it and we'll stay clean. We will. We'll do it."

[bj_l]

I didn't exactly make the connection that the middle two examples were about children but seriously, thanks for backing it all up. Much respect.

[flint_marko]

for starters, Marvel keeps bringing up Hank hitting Jan and how he feels guilty over it, so it's not like it's something that the fans just won't let go even though it's over and done with.

And while it's still a problem for some people, I don't recall there being a lot of controversy or protesting over the Ant-Man movie. Strange got more backlash for the racebending. And I don't recall anyone complaining when Hank was the lead for Mighty Avengers or Avengers AI.

I don't know what you're talking about with the Kingpin's child porn, but the villains who do commit sexual crimes, like Dr. Light, are pretty much universally despised.

[grapeweasel]

She is so going to sleep with him.

[cricharddavies]

And he is so going to kill her afterwards.

Apparently, the author thinks no one else ever watched the original "House of Cards".

[cyberghostface]

If that actually happens, maybe.

I can see her dying if they get romantically involved but I don't see him killing her.

[reveen]

The thing with Kingpin is that he kind of follows the classical archetype of the Ubermensch. So while he makes a great villain he also makes a fascinating character in his own right. We don't dislike antagonists because they do bad things, we dislike them because of their character flaws that make them unsavoury or clearly unadmirable, which is something characters like Kingpin Lex Luthor or even to an extent the Joker lack compared to your Dr. Lights and Penguins.

If a villain has admirable qualities, it's only natural for us to frame them as anti-villains in our mind due to our desire to see the best in people we admire. Giving heroes too many flaws has the opposite effect, where if they're too unsavoury in their foibles we cast them as an anti-hero even when in context of the story they really aren't. The genre conventions of white hat black hat have no bearing on these psychological factors of fiction.

[lamashtar]

That's very clear reasoning. I appreciate it. I used to correspond with a woman in a relationship with a convicted serial killer. It can be maddening to listen to people fawning over someone who does hideous things, especially when its a real life murderer who won't stop using excuses to evade responsibility for their actions.

[commodus]

It's easy to ignore evil if it comes with a pleasant face. I respect the writer's opinion on Kingpin, but him knowing how to say please and thank you doesn't wash away the lives he ruins.
Al Capone opened soup kitches, Pablo Escobar built football stadiums, the Kray Twins used to help little old women cross the road. But do a few little kindnesses really compensate for flooding communities with drugs?
It's not really a sustainable moral stance to take.

[cyberghostface]

Can't speak for the others but I've read up on him and Al Capone wasn't that bad as far as mobsters go. I wouldn't call him evil at least.

In regards to Fisk, the writer said he's not making him a hero. In another interview he said "He's a bad guy, but he's not just a bad guy." So we're going to see different facets but he's not whitewashing him either.

**spoilers for this issue**


For example there's another scene in the comic where a mugger accosts them and Fisk defuses the situation peacefully. But the end of the issue shows that he later has him killed via an overdose.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Hm, registration? Did this take place back around the first Civil War?

[starwolf_oakley]

Fisk usually sees what he does as a business, and running it in such a way that organized crime is properly organized. That's why he hated Spider-Man and Daredevil more than regular superheroes: street-level heroes kept hurting his wallet.