| “ | There is no profit to be made in the destruction of the planet. It is very bad for business. | „ |
| ~ Kingpin to Herbert Landon, explaining why he's helping Spider-Man and the Spot save the Earth. |
| “ | Norman Osborn: Something occurs to me: either Spider-Man's destroyed, or you'll get Oscorp. Whatever happens, you win. Kingpin: That's why I'm the Kingpin. |
„ |
| ~ Kingpin to Norman Osborn, planning to kill Spider-Man with robots. |
Wilson Fisk (formerly Wilson Moriarty), better known as the Kingpin, is the main antagonist of the 1994-98 animated superhero TV series Spider-Man.
He is a powerful and wealthy crime lord of New York City and one of Spider-Man's archenemies. He also is the archenemy of Daredevil, Silvermane, and Black Cat, serves as the founder of the Insidious Six and has many supervillains work for him. He also had many lieutenants and business partners that work for him, such as his son Richard Fisk, Herbert Landon and Hammerhead. Some of his former supervillains, lieutenants, and business partners eventually become his enemies, such as Norman Osborn, Hobgoblin, Chameleon, the Spot, Silvia Lopez, and Alistair Smythe. He also had an ex-wife named Vanessa.
He was voiced by the late Roscoe Lee Browne.
What Makes Him Magnificent?[]
- For starters, Roscoe Lee Browne's voice-acting is so good that many fans can't help but hear his voice when reading comics with Kingpin in it.
- He has a tragic backstory of being an ostracized loner due to being overweight, until one day where he resorted to a life of crime alongside his abusive father in hopes of gaining some form of acceptance; his father eventually left him in prison to save his own hide. All these events combined made him realize that he lived in a dog-eat-dog world where he couldn't afford to be weak and useless.
- Upon being released from jail, he'd already gathered all the required resources to build a worldwide criminal empire as the Kingpin. He started by hacking into the criminal database to delete all records of his past, changing his name to Wilson Fisk. It's also heavily implied that he had his father killed for leaving him in prison.
- While still a villain, there's a few things that keep him from being too despicable:
- He does genuinely love his wife and son despite leaving Richard in prison, even staging an attempted jailbreak for him and Tombstone in "Guilty". Despite ultimately beating Silvermane in a race for the expensive, powerful Tablet of Time, Kingpin orders it thrown away out of frustration due to his wife Vanessa divorcing him.
- While it's arguably for purely pragmatic, self-serving reasons (proven by saying there is no profit to be gained in the destruction of the planet), when faced with a genuine threat to the world like Red Skull, Spider-Carnage, or the Spot's giant portal in the sky, Kingpin is gladly willing to temporarily team up and help Spider-Man stop it (unlike Landon who's too psychopathic to even understand why he's helping at all).
- He's not shown to be a genocidal racist like Herbert Landon; his partnership with Landon is purely professional due to his scientific savvy.
- It's a Saturday morning cartoon show for kids, not to mention it has six Pure Evils and shares continuity with another show that has seven more (X-Men: The Animated Series); he can only be so bad without getting past the censorship.
- His reputation as one of New York's lead philanthropists is so charismatic, it takes Spider-Man almost three seasons just to finally discover that he's the Kingpin. And even then, he's unable to face justice for his actions by the end of the show due to his wealth, with only slight physical injuries to his person the last time we see him.
- While his onscreen appearance indicates otherwise, only 2% of his body mass is fat with the rest being 350 pounds of muscle, and he has more than enough strength feats throughout the series to back that up.
- He makes a deal with Norman Osborn in his debut: either Spencer Smythe's robot destroys Spider-Man, or Kingpin gets the rights to OsCorp, meaning Kingpin wins no matter what. The latter scenario ultimately happens in the end.
- He spends nearly three whole seasons flawlessly manipulating Alistair Smythe into working for him, playing off his desire to get revenge on Spider-Man for his father Spencer's presumed death, all the while Alistair's completely oblivious that Kingpin was keeping Spencer imprisoned in cryostasis the whole time.
- After being usurped by the Hobgoblin in his titular 2-parter, Kingpin allows Spider-Man into his own hideout to successfully force Hobgoblin into retreat, using bombs in the tunnel to cover his tracks afterwards.
- He forms the Insidious Six, who successfully defeat and even unmask Spider-Man as Peter Parker for a short time after luring him into a trap. If it wasn't for the mutation disease nullifying Spider-Man's powers in battle, Doc Ock wouldn't have falsely deduced Peter as an imposter, and thus the Six would've won in the end.
- He stages two successful jailbreaks on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, using an invisible jet to get away. He even purposely had the Chameleon arrested in order to pull off the first heist.
- Easily escaped from Morbius when the vampire attacked him.
What Makes Him a Baddie?[]
- He had his men transport radioactive waste in trucks across New York, eventually causing one truck to crash and thus blind the child Matt Murdock, a.k.a. Daredevil.
- It's heavily implied that he killed Daredevil's father, Jack Murdock.
- He's a bad boss willing to kill any subordinates who fail him, or try to expose his criminal status to the public.
- He abandons his own son, Richard Fisk, in prison purely out of self-preservation.
- Even worse, this was after Kingpin revealed his tragic backstory while lamenting being a better father than his own, who did the exact same thing to him when he was younger, making him a hypocrite (albeit a remorseful one).
- Once Alistair's usefulness expires, Kingpin turns him into a cyborg slave against his will.
- He frames the innocent Robbie Robertson for armed robbery and attempted murder, nearly ruining his life.
- He kidnaps John "The Cat" Hardesky to experiment on his daughter, Felicia Hardy, with the Super Soldier Formula, thus turning her into the Black Cat. He then tries to have them both killed once their usefulness expires.
- He has three moments of being an ungrateful bastard:
- In "Enter the Green Goblin", Spider-Man rescues Kingpin and several others being held prisoner in the titular Goblin's underwater hideout. While fleeing in a submarine, Kingpin uses the guns to cause a rockfall at the lair's exit, leaving both Spider-Man and the Green Goblin to die with a sarcastic smile and thumbs-up.
- In "Framed", Kingpin gets Peter Parker arrested by framing him as a traitor to his country because the feds were onto his data smuggling operation, despite Peter saving Kingpin from the Hobgoblin's assassination attempt back in Season 1. In fairness, however, Kingpin somewhat makes amends for this by arranging Peter and Mary Jane's wedding (even if it was partly to one-up the Daily Bugle's newspaper).
- In "The Prowler", Hobie Brown saves Richard from assault in prison. Kingpin repays Hobie for his son's wellbeing with a powerful stealth battlesuit to take out Iceberg, his old boss...only to betray Hobie soon afterwards, threatening to let the suit's electric shocks kill him if he disobeys. Furthermore, Kingpin seems fairly apathetic that the suit's self-destruct device could blow up an entire neighborhood if taken off.
- Overall, he's a powerful crime lord who wants to take over the world, has tried to kill Spider-Man numerous times (as well as Harry Osborn in one of those instances) and is even partly responsible for creating the Green Goblin.
Trivia[]
- Kingpin is one of the 3 MB’s alongside Venom and Mysterio to originate from Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
External Links[]
[]
 Magnificent Baddies
| ||
|
Comics Movies Television Video Games | ||