The Fisk Family Tree

 

I said back when I wrote about The Kingpin in the MC2 that I should have made the post when it was most relevant. This time, I’m going to try and seize the recent resurgence in popularity of Wilson Fisk thanks to his appearance in the Hawkeye series on Disney+ by bringing back my series of MC2 Family Trees. Here is the Fisk Family Tree.

 

Wilson Fisk aka the Kingpin of Crime first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #50 in 1967 but we didn’t learn of his origins until far later. In 1993’s flashback series Daredevil: The Man Without Fear #3 we find Wilson Fisk working for the Maggia Crime Family boss Don Rigoletto. We witness the moment Fisk takes control of the various gang leaders not only here but with added context in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man #-1 written by the legendary Tom Defalco in 1997. Needless to say, from here on out Wilson would be known as the Kingpin of Crime, a title he would hold until his death in the MC2 as seen in Spider-Girl #63-64

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Vanessa Fisk is first mentioned in Amazing Spider-Man #69 and makes an obscured cameo in Amazing Spider-Man #70 before her proper first full appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #83. While we don’t know a great deal about Vanessa, we get some details in the Marvel Graphic Novel: Daredevil Love and War written by Frank Miller. There Wilson recounts that Vanessa was brought to him at age 15 as an amnesiac by his ‘band of petty thieves’ as chattel twenty years prior. This would make Vanessa around 35 years old during the events of that story.

 

Richard Fisk made his debut in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man #83 under the mask of The Kingpin’s rival The Schemer, only revealing his true face in Amazing Spider-Man #85. Richard would go on to use many aliases through the years, including The Supreme Hydra, The Rose and The Blood Rose. In Web of Spider-Man #86 we learn that when he was a child, Vanessa would shield him from the life of his criminal father. Richard watched Vanessa’s health deteriorating through the years with the strain of her relationship to Wilson until he was sent away to school in Europe. While it appears Richard first learned of his father’s criminal empire when The Kingpin was outed in the news, this issue seems to suggest Richard may have known at some capacity and was simply shamed when it was made public. Either way, Richard faked his death and assumed the identity of The Schemer to oppose his father while posing as a crime lord. It stands to reason that Richard couldn’t have been more than 18 or 19 years of age given that his parents only met 20 years prior.

It’s worth noting the MC2’s Kingpin’s origins are briefly depicted during his dying vision on the operating table in Spider-Girl #63. Here learn he was an overweight young man from a poor family and no one ever liked him until he grew tired of being beaten and began to lift weights and study martial arts, becoming an intimidating figure. We also see the aforementioned death of Rigoletto at Fisk’s hands. It’s also during Wilson’s vision that he is confronted by his son and wife and we learn that they are both already dead. The MC2 diverges from the Main Marvel Universe prior to Richard’s death in 2002’s Daredevil (Vol.2) #31 but it’s entirely possible events unfolded in a similar way. Additionally, Vanessa didn’t even die in the Main Marvel Universe until years after this issue was published in Daredevil (Vol. 2) #92-#93, meaning the MC2 predicted her demise.

 

It seems obvious that the life of a crime boss is destined to leave a man lonely and eventually end in tragedy for the whole family. That’s a wrap on this shorter MC2 Family Tree. I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know if you want me to cover another family in the near future.

 

Until I fake my own death in Switzerland only to return wearing an old man mask, I remain

 

frogoat