Netflix Daredevil

Obviously you don't want Fisk instantly getting out and continuing where he left off, lest Murdock's effort to bring him down in the first season be retroactively made futile.

Exactly. Keep him locked up for a season, and then have him get out.

It'd actually be really cool to see how Fisk would react (planning-wise) to the Punisher. Perhaps he'd try to somehow steer him to kill his adversaries as a Unwitting Pawn.

Kind of like his debut, but DD replaces Spidey, while Fisk replaces the Jackal?

And there's no problem with having that. Fisk shouldn't be the Big Bad of Season 2, but that doesn't mean we can't peek in on him every once in a while, and that could mean seeing him manipulating the Punisher to off his enemies. He shouldn't necessarily play a big part in Season 2, but he can still have his moments.

edited 27th Jun '15 2:47:03 PM by kkhohoho

I know we haven't reached that point yet, but when do you guys think would be an appropriate time to write Fisk out of the show so he doesn't become like Sylar?

Well, the thing with villains like Fisk is that they don't absolutely have to be taken down. If he escapes or is released from prison, he's going to hurt a lot of people and do a lot of bad things, but it's not like he's planning to blow up the city, take over the world, or devote himself entirely to killing our protagonists.

For some villains, letting them hang around too long creates the problem that they either a) succeed in their plans, causing the end of the series, or b) have their plans constantly foiled, damaging their credibility as a villain. With Fisk, however, the series could continue with him on the loose and being very successful in his mobster career, without having to kill off Daredevil or create a doomsday scenario that would harm the show's ability to continue.

I can see them eventually painting Fisk as the lighter shade of black compared to some others out there - go down the Gentleman John Marcone route, a la [[The Dresden Files]]. Yes, he's a criminal and a bad person but he keeps organised crime, well, organised. Force Matt to choose between the devil he knows and all those he doesn't. But for that to work, we need to see the alternatives.

This is the same reasoning that keeps Fisk's alive in the comics, incidentally: every alternative is worse.

Though I'll throw my two cents and say the series should end with Turk as the last man standing in Hell's Kitchen's crime.

Sylar's issues began when(like everyone else in season 1) he was brought back due to popularity, resulting in inconsistent motivations and having no proper plot until far too late into the show to save his character(and the show).

Kingpin isn't in this position. His biggest contribution is being a member of Daredevil's supporting cast from the word go.

Fisk works best when he's Bigger Bad incarnate anyway, as well as one of Marvel's best examples of an Incidental Villain. He doesn't need to constantly be present to function well, and as the series goes on using him less might even add to his image if done well.

Ideally, while his control is always a factor in the setting, the show should be able to have many Big Bads and conflicts while still balancing his role as Arch-Enemy.

edited 28th Jun '15 3:36:57 PM by KnownUnknown

If he escapes or is released from prison, he's going to hurt a lot of people and do a lot of bad things, but it's not like he's planning to blow up the city, take over the world, or devote himself entirely to killing our protagonists.

You sure about that last one?

For some villains, letting them hang around too long creates the problem that they either a) succeed in their plans, causing the end of the series, or b) have their plans constantly foiled, damaging their credibility as a villain. With Fisk, however, the series could continue with him on the loose and being very successful in his mobster career, without having to kill off Daredevil or create a doomsday scenario that would harm the show's ability to continue.

Yes, interesting, Fisk's goals mean that he's actually an inversion of Evil Only Has to Win Once. He's got long-term goals of ruling/fixing the city, and those aren't things that are accomplished in a single stroke. On the flipside, ahis plans could be ruined by a single bad turn of events, or a particularly good night for DD.

Having Fisk in prison during a season dedicated to the Punisher is a good choice. It sidesteps the question of, "Why doesn't the Punisher go after the Kingpin of Crime?"

The Kingpin's Joker Immunity creates some problems in a setting where one of his three iconic adversaries has built a career out of averting Joker Immunity. Spider-Man and DareDevil are both limited by their unwillingness to just drop Fisk off a high-rise and be done with it, but writers have had to come up with various justifications for the Punisher's failure to do the same.

All of those explanations, however, have massive drawbacks. If we say Fisk is better than the alternative, then the Punisher - a character who once ended mankind's chance to rebuild after nuclear war because the survivors were responsible for said war - is allowing the worst of crime to exist for the sake of the long-term consequences, an out-of-character decision that demonstrates more big-picture thinking than the Punisher typically cares for.

Likewise, we can say that Fisk's just that good and the Punisher is incapable of reaching him, but that defangs the Punisher's threat potential; it's good for Fisk's character but bad for Castle's, whose entire concept depends on the fact that his intense military training and decades of experience has made him so much more dangerous than the thugs and mafiosos he runs up against. Without Castle being the biggest dog on the mountain, the idea that this one man can slaughter entire syndicates is completely indefensible and Fisk should have successfully had him killed years ago.

The Kingpin and the Punisher are two characters that have a lot of trouble coexisting without one inevitably killing the other in a climactic and triumphant moment. Putting Fisk in the safety of a prison cell for the duration of DareDevil's conflict with the Punisher neatly sidesteps the issue and allows the Kingpin to return triumphantly in a later season.

edited 29th Jun '15 11:07:45 AM by TobiasDrake

There was actually a fantastic Punisher story in the late '80s where he tried to go after the Kingpin. Both Punisher and Kingpin were allowed to come across as incredibly dangerous and resourceful. In the end, Kingpin was able to put Punisher's buddy, Microchip, in trouble, so Punisher was forced to let Kingpin go.

I think that's ultimately the best way for confrontations between them to go: Make them evenly matched, but Kingpin uses human shields to force Punisher to back off. Usually, Punisher wants to avoid innocent people dying in the crossfire of his war.

Has Punisher ever gone after someone in prison or is he willing to let the law handle things once they're actually caught and convicted?

He attacked prisoners in the Ultimate universe while he himself was in prison. They ended up having to stop giving him plastic spoons at mealtimes...

edited 29th Jun '15 7:57:12 PM by spashthebandragon

And yet, I can totally see Frank finding a way to kill people with those.

What he did was stick the round end of the spoon in his clenched fist so that the narrow, blunt end was sticking out between his fingers, and then he, y'know... gave the criminals a stern warning and let them off the hook.

edited 29th Jun '15 8:47:35 PM by spashthebandragon

And then everyone had pie.

Yeah, but that was more the punisher going after what was already available to him. Actually breaking into a prison to punish someone would be too much effort, wouldn't it?

A scant few times, though the only instance I can currently think of is The Cell, which is set in the MAXVerse.

I guess you could half-count The Trial of the Punisher.

...Was that the one that ended with the Punisher getting surgery that ended up turning him into a black guy?

edited 1st Jul '15 12:58:06 PM by KarkatTheDalek

The Kingpin story ended with Frank in prison, where Jigsaw destroyed his face. That lead to race lift story.

No, the bizarre race change thing came a couple years later. The story I was thinking of ended in a stalemate. A couple years later, Kingpin decided to go after Punisher, and that led to Punisher becoming black. Because reasons.