Characters / MCU: Wilson Fisk

aka: MCU Kingpin

Main Character Index > Villainous Organizations > Criminals & Terrorists | Criminal & Terrorist Organizations (Sharon Carter | Ulysses Klaue | Arthur Harrow) > New York-Based Criminals (Fisk Crime Ring (Wilson Fisk | Benjamin Poindexter) | Stokes–Dillard Crime Ring | Vulture's Gang (Adrian Toomes))

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Spoilers for all works set prior to Hawkeye are unmarked.

Wilson Grant Fisk / The Kingpin

"A city crumbles and fades. It needs to die before it can be reborn."

Species: Human

Citizenship: American

Affiliation(s): Tracksuit Mafia, Union Allied Constructions (formerly), Confederated Global Investments (formerly), Vancorp (formerly), Red Lion National Bank (formerly), Sloan Limited

Portrayed By: Vincent D'Onofrio, Cole Jensen (young)

Appearances: Daredevil | Hawkeye | Echo | Daredevil Born Again

"It's funny, isn't it? How even the best of men can be... deceived by their true nature. [...] It means that I’m not the Samaritan, that I’m not the priest or the Levite. That I am the ill intent, who set upon the traveler, on a road that he should not have been on."

A powerful businessman with interests in the future of Hell's Kitchen and New York City. He's also a mob boss who has been building a major illegal enterprise in Hell's Kitchen.

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A-D

• Abusive Parents:
  • Bill Fisk was psychologically abusive toward Wilson, and coerced him into carrying out beatings. He also brutally beat Wilson's mother, forcing the boy to stare at the wall as he did so, leaving him with lingering trauma. Eventually, Wilson fought back, killing Bill with a hammer at the age of twelve.
  • In Echo, he himself turns out to be this to his surrogate daughter Maya Lopez. Despite him seeming to have a genuine soft spot for her, he doesn't hesitate to kill her birth father and shape her into a tool for his organization.
• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable:
  • Fisk has a noticeable stutter, which is part of the reason he dislikes being in public. It becomes even more pronounced when he speaks to Madame Gao in Mandarin. When he appears in Hawkeye, this trait of his is also kept, and in some respects, sounds much more frustrated.
  • The deep voice he uses to seem powerful, especially in his one-on-one confrontation with Punisher, is very pointed and affected, like a child trying to act like a big adult or even an animal making itself look larger to ward off predators — something that also fits perfectly with his history of abuse and his desire for control over others.
• Acrofatic: There's a muscularity to his immense weight that means he's able to dominate in most of the fights he partakes in, and he repeatedly beats people to death with his bare hands. He could keep up with a fully-suited Daredevil at the end of the first season of Daredevil, while in the second season, he quickly defeats the very capable Frank Castle in a one-on-one. In the Season 1 finale of Hawkeye, he's even more powerful, easily able to keep up with Kate Bishop, and very nearly kills her, only getting defeated due to some quick thinking from Kate.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Unlike the comics, Fisk acts as a socially awkward Psychopathic Manchild in public, and is a Visionary Villain. He does, however, share his comic book counterpart's traits of being a romantic, as well as very intelligent and cultured.
• Adaptational Curves: For practical reasons, Fisk's physique isn't as exaggeratedly rotund as it is in the comics and animation. He is still a reasonably large man, wearing bulletproof vests and suits to further amplify this, and in Hawkeye, he briefly wears an overcoat to make him appear larger, he's just not the egg-shaped giant he usually is.
• Adaptational Dye-Job: He has blue eyes in the comics, but has his actor's dark brown eyes in this iteration.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • Played With. Comics Fisk has Stout Strength that, especially in his time as a Spider-Man villain, was basically Super-Strength sufficient to let him crush a man's skull in his fist, throw people through brick walls, and go blow-for-blow with Captain America and a holding-back Spider-Man. Here, due to the more realistic tone of the MCU as a whole when compared to the comics, Fisk is just a really big and strong human, although this does match up with how the Daredevil and later Spider-Man comics depict him. In general, the MCU version and comics both depict Fisk as a very, very strong human; the difference being that the MCU depicts him as what a very strong normal human can realistically do (while meeting Castle, he bench presses a solid 300 kg), whereas the comics depict him to the norm of Charles Atlas Superpower. He's definitely not dead-lifting a small car like Captain America any time soon. This is later Played With in Hawkeye, where Fisk is shown to be much stronger than before. While shrugging off arrows to the chest could just be attributed to wearing some armor (as he did in Daredevil), his resistance to explosions, as well as direct punches to the face are something he wouldn't have been so blasé about. He was also is capable of ripping a door off a car's hinges, something he definitely couldn't do in Daredevil.
  • In the comics, Fisk is a master of several martial arts and is built like a sumo wrestler. This version is just a brute who relies on his natural size and strength as well as his psychotic temper to deliver unskilled but savage beatings which are noticeably less controlled and disciplined than Matt's fighting style. Daredevil season 2 shows that he does work out, however, and his battles with Castle and his three-way with Dex and Matt show him using some proper fighting form.
  • Also in the comics, Fisk is a confident, domineering Control Freak who rules through force of personality as well as terror. Here, he is much more shy, neurotic and visibly insecure, and while he terrifies his underlings he commands far less respect from his cohorts and relies more on mediation, with even Wesley accusing him of letting the others walk all over him (on the flip side, though, this does encourage others to fatally underestimate him, so it is still his true personality as much as it is a ruse). As Character Development kicks in, his ability to scheme and manipulate start to more closely approach his comic book counterpart's, and Daredevil season 3 has him outplay all other parties at every turn until the series finale.
• Affably Evil: Fisk has a girlfriend, a surrogate niece, would do anything for his mother, is respectful of his enemies, and wants to make his community a better place. He's also a brutal mob boss behind heroin and human trafficking, racketeering, money laundering, extortion, and murder. In the end though even if he shows a genuinely honorable and polite side, whatever you do, don't piss him off.
• Ambiguously Bi: He's unambiguously in love with Vanessa, but his interactions with James Wesley throughout season 1, suggest they might be more than just friends. Fisk's reaction to his death, certainly adds a few more layers of ambiguity to the situation too.
• And Your Little Dog, Too!: In the Echo season finale, Fisk clearly takes pleasure in the thought of "[killing] the rest of [Maya's] family" and fully admits to killing her father once it's clear the two are on opposite sides.
• Anger Born of Worry: He has a moment of this early in Daredevil season 3 when Vanessa is unable to be reached following the Albanians' attack on him while he's being moved from jail to his secret penthouse lair, worrying that the Albanians got to her. Fortunately, it turns out to be a false alarm as Vanessa's bodyguards were unreachable due to relocating her.
• Anti-Villain: Deconstructed. Fisk is evil, which he knows and admits to those closest to him, but he also deeply loves his mother and Vanessa, clearly cares for right-hand man Wesley (who reciprocates), and he believes that all the evil he does is in service of saving New York/Hell's Kitchen and ushering it into a brighter future. However, as his capacity for empathy drains and his crimes become increasingly heinous, he becomes less sympathetic. By Daredevil season 3, he's become a straight-up villain, resigned himself to being evil and given up on maintaining any kind of moral guidelines to achieve his goals. The only features that saves him from being utterly monstrous are his (very rare) Pet the Dog moments, his love and loyalty towards Vanessa, and his final deal with Matt for the safety of his beloved Vanessa with an honorable handshake.
• Appropriated Appellation: Seemingly adopts his name as the Kingpin after he manipulates Frank Castle to take out the former ringleader of the prison they were at, who used the name before Fisk did.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Funnily enough, due to not knowing that they are one and the same person until Daredevil season 3, he considers both Daredevil and Matt Murdock this, as he lost everything thanks to them/him. So naturally, when he does learn that Matt is Daredevil, he fully considers him this, and works actively to ruin Matt's life in both of his personas.
  • He's also this to Karen Page. He merely sees her as a roadblock and someone he can threaten to come after to have leverage on Matt, but the animosity becomes mutual when she tells him she killed James Wesley and he becomes even more determined to have her killed after finding out. He doesn't succeed, fortunately.
  • In Hawkeye, he's very much this to Maya Lopez and Kate Bishop. Fisk was indirectly responsible for the death of Maya's father, and he later groomed her into joining the Tracksuit Mafia to commit crimes on his behalf as a co-leader of the group. He also earns Kate's animosity by forcing her mother into pulling favors and working for him with the threat of her husband's unpaid debt keeping her from acting out. Four years passed between the cancellation of Daredevil and the release of Hawkeye, so they'll find it easy to justify the development in canon. However, his nemesis-ship with Echo appears more one-sided, as Fisk still cares for Maya like a daughter, even if she shot his eye out when she learned the truth.
• Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes: The majority of the first season has Matt wearing minimal protection as Daredevil and Fisk wearing body armor that can protect him against knives and other blunt force attacks. Matt later evens the odds in the finale when he has the same person who made Fisk's body armor make him one too that provides him even more protection than Fisk's and a pair of billy clubs so that he can fight Fisk on even footing.
• Ax-Crazy: Downplayed, but it's still there. He's just very good at hiding it. Fisk possesses a very dangerous temper and is rampantly homicidal when things don't go his way.
• Bad Boss: Fisk relies very heavily on manipulation, blackmail and threats to corrupt and control his subordinates. This ultimately means that the henchmen most responsible for protecting him or doing his dirty work are the ones who most despise him and want him defeated, worrying only about how they might save their own necks in the process. In Daredevil season 3, Mrs. Shelby (who runs Fisk's secret "war room") is positively relieved when she sees Matt sneak into his building planning to kick his ass and bring him down and is fully willing to help him, and he is largely undone by Nadeem's video confession, as well as Matt turning Dex against him by telling Dex how Fisk murdered Julie. This mostly stems from how self-absorbed he is, as outside a handful of people he genuinely cares for, he is unwilling and unable to invest in loyalty when obedience and fear seem to do the trick. Only James Wesley, Felix Manning, and Vanessa show any sort of loyalty to him that comes from a place of respect/admiration, and Owlsley was only with him for the money.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Matt is actually not able to fully defeat Dex at any point in Daredevil season 3; Fisk is the one who ultimately takes him down during a Mêlée à Trois with the three of them, slamming Dex's back into a brick wall and snapping his spine.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Perhaps invoked. He's always invariably clad in a sharp suit and the series explains his suits are tailored by Melvin Potter to be lined with knife resistant material. When we see his closet, it's composed entirely of suits, blacks in Daredevil season 1 and white in season 3.
• Badass Longcoat: Sports one during the Daredevil season 1 finale.
• Baddie Flattery: Fisk compliments Matt's decision to wage a one man war to change Hell's Kitchen.
  Fisk: I respect your... conviction; the lone man who thinks he can make a difference.
• Bald Head of Toughness: He's a three hundred pound crime lord who has low-level superhuman strength and lacks a single hair on his head.
• Bald of Evil: Fisk, as usual, has no hair as an adult, but he used to have it as a kid.
• Benevolent Boss: While he's a Bad Boss towards people he hardly knows, he's surprisingly kind, friendly and loyal to some of his most competent subordinates such as Wesley and Felix.
• Big Bad: Whenever Fisk shows up, he's usually at the center of the conflict of whatever show he appears in. He's notable for being one of the few recurring Big Bads of the MCU.
  • He's the overall main antagonist of Daredevil, serving as Matt's Arch-Enemy who seeks to impose his own vision of reform on Hell's Kitchen, New York. He's the leader of the crime ring Daredevil opposes in the first season, manipulates events from prison in the second, and returns in the third fully embracing his role as the Kingpin.
  • In Hawkeye, he's the true boss of the Maya and the Tracksuit Mafia, as well as the one who hired Yelena to hunt down Clint. He's much more hands-off in this show, however, as his involvement isn't revealed until the penultimate episode and he only physically appears in the finale.
  • In Echo, he survives his apparent death and is the main obstacle Maya is trying to break away from.
• Book Ends: Fisk's life of crime in Daredevil season 1 begins with him staring at a wall, thinking of the man he will become. It ends with him in prison, staring a blank wall, clearly thinking what man he will become once he leaves prison.
• Boxing Battler: His general fighting style is to simply use his fists to deliver exceptionally quick and devastating blows to opponents and overwhelm them with sheer brute force.
• Broken Pedestal: By the first season finale of Daredevil, the destruction of his empire has left Fisk bitter and resentful to the very city he was once trying to save.
  Wilson Fisk: This city doesn't deserve a better tomorrow! It deserves to drown in its filth! It deserves people like my father! People like you!
• Brooklyn Rage: He's a born and bred New Yorker and played by Brooklyn native Vincent D'Onofrio and is a simmering powder keg of rage, ready to go at a moment's notice.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • After being absent for a large portion of Daredevil season 2, he makes a return for three episodes, allowing us to catch up with him. He then returns to being the main antagonist for Season 3.
  • Three years after he was last seen in Daredevil, he returns as the Big Bad of Hawkeye.
• Card-Carrying Villain: A rather complex one, since he's not your typical self-aware villain. As a firm believer that the end justifies the means, Fisk knows how evil he is, and admits to those closest to him, but he also sees himself as Necessarily Evil for a better future of the city.
• Character Development:
  • He starts Daredevil barely able to articulate, and is almost cripplingly shy. Wesley runs the day-to-day operations of his business while he gives the orders from the shadows, but as the series goes on he is forced more and more to deal with things himself, and by the end you can start to see the man who would become the Kingpin. By Season 2 he has made a full transition into his ruthless, cunning comic book counterpart.
  • He seems to have gone through some between Daredevil and Hawkeye as while he's still a violent criminal who intends to have Eleanor and Kate killed, he's much more calm and reasonable. Compare his reaction to Eleanor threatening to blackmail him versus Leland. Time seems to have dulled his infamous temper. However, Leland also commits the more egregious betrayal of poisoning Fisk's love, Vanessa Marianna, so this is a Downplayed Trope.
• Charles Atlas Superpower:
  • Though falling short of superhuman levels, Fisk is still a pretty strong and unstoppable fighter. Because of this, he's one of the strongest and deadliest enemies Matt has ever faced. Pretty much every fight he's been in has been a Curb-Stomp Battle, at least until Matt comes along in a new suit crafted by Melvin. And even then it took great difficulty from Matt and Dex to bring him down because he's that damn strong.
  • Even more so in Hawkeye — he's now strong enough to rip car doors off of their hinges, throw Kate around like a ragdoll and survive being hit by a car and thrown through a wall without so much as a scratch without any indication he's anything more than a human.
• The Chessmaster: While Fisk is regularly sabotaged by his Hair-Trigger Temper, he still possesses a very sharp mind for tactics, outmaneuvering his foes and making sure that whatever happens, he wins. Perhaps the finest example is when he orchestrates the downfall of the Russians by engineering a war between them and Matt, and then striking them down while they're busy dealing with Matt, and absorbing their business. Daredevil season 2 shows that he hasn't lost his touch. While in prison, he's able to take control of the contraband trade from a rival kingpin, while using Frank Castle to boot, and ruining Nelson & Murdock as an extra bonus. In Season 3, he sets up an extortion racket that taxes other prominent gangsters while under house arrest, and effectively turns the FBI detail that was supposed to guard him into his enforcers. As the season continues, it becomes apparent this had been a plan long in motion, meaning it was something that was being set up before he even went to jail.
• Classy Cane: When he returns in Hawkeye, he's using one like in the comics.
• Combat Pragmatist: When Fisk deigns to get his hands dirty, he simply does not stop until his target is dead or incapacitated. He uses his massive size and strength as well as any object he can gets his hands on in order to get the upper hand in a fight.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Slowly averted. While he doesn't go by "The Kingpin" at first, just like with Daredevil, he slowly grows into the moniker, earning it fully over the course of several seasons.
  • In Daredevil season 1, he's only referred to as Wilson Fisk, although his "The Kingpin" name is given visual references: Ben Urich uses the King of Diamonds playing card to represent him on a chart (tacked on by a white pushpin). His father tells him he's going to be a king. Detective Blake refers to him as "King Freakin' Kong".
  • By Season 2, Fisk seems to consider taking on the moniker from Dutton after orchestrating his murder, becoming the "kingpin of this bitch" (Rikers).
  • In Season 3, Fisk just goes by his legal name, and Matt, Karen, Foggy, Brett, Tower, and Nadeem only ever address him as such. On the other hand, the corrupt FBI agents he's blackmailed into working for him use the codename "Kingpin" for any dirty work Fisk orders them to do.
  • By Hawkeye he has fully earned it, where his first appearance in the show has Clint refer to him as "Kingpin".
• Complexity Addiction: On occasion he plays complex manipulations with people he's planning to just kill anyway.
• Cool Old Guy: He puts on this persona, coming off to most people as a well-spoken, community-focused man in his late fifties/early sixties.
• Cop Killer: He isn't above ordering the deaths of cops on his payroll who have become liabilities, generally having other corrupt officers be the ones to carry out the deed.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: He is a rich businessman with a lot of companies. Actually, many of his companies acted as façades for the illicit activities and money laundering operations of Fisk himself. This makes sense, he is The Don, after all.
• The Corrupter: Fisk is very good at turning otherwise good people, or maybe just vulnerable people, into accomplices and killers. While Dex was already a psychopath and a killer, he was trying to hold his life together in a largely law-abiding way. Fisk learns all his dirty secrets, manipulates him with ease, takes him under his wing and grooms him into becoming a top assassin. He also corrupts the entire FBI task force handling him into becoming his muscle.
• Crazy-Prepared: Fisk's back-up plans have back-up plans. His suits have a special armored lining, he tends to have secondary assassins in place in case the first killer fails and he has juries tampered with well ahead of time. Even his stay in prison effectively helps to increase his power base, as he manages to turn the FBI into his personal enforcers. Given that his base of operations was inside a penthouse that he had renovated specifically for the purpose of running things from the shadows, it shows that he had long planned for this eventuality.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: His brutal murder of Anatoly certainly qualifies. He later inflicted one on Matt, albeit after he'd just fought Nobu and was seriously wounded and weakened. His fight with Kate Bishop is similarly one-sided as well.
• Deadpan Snarker: Very, very subdued, but he does have somewhat of a sense of humor, such as when he compares Eleanor's arrogance of thinking working for him is no different than working for Goldman Sachs. Most typically, though, his snark is reserved for his Arch-Enemy Matt Murdock as a form of seething contempt.
• Deal with the Devil: Any dealings one may have with Fisk almost invariably end with their death. A literal example occurs by the end of Daredevil season 3, with Matt being on the bargaining end. Fisk is forced to sacrifice any chance of a happy life with Vanessa as well as any chance at revenge against Matt by willingly going to prison and taking the fall for his crimes; Matt, in turn, won't go after Vanessa or prove her involvement with the death of Nadeem, absolving her of her crimes.
• Demoted to Extra/Commuting on a Bus: After being the main antagonist of Daredevil season 1, Fisk only appears in three episodes in Season 2. However, the impact of his removal from the streets is shown in great detail throughout the first part of Season 2. What limited time Fisk appears onscreen is responsible for setting up the entire third act of Season 2, as well as set up Fisk for his return to main antagonist status in Season 3.
• Deuteragonist: The antagonistic variety for Daredevil season 1. Season 1 is just as much his story as it is Matt Murdock's. The story is heavily centered around him even in episodes that don't showcase his war with Matt, explaining his origins, his motivations, and his personal life.
• Diabolical Mastermind: He's at the top of the criminal empire Matt is trying to dismantle.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Simply speaking his name is considered sufficient for Fisk to brutally murder his own personnel and then wipe out everyone they've ever known or cared about.
  • He beats Anatoly to death with his bare hands, then purges Anatoly's brother and entire gang, because he embarrassed Fisk during his dinner with Vanessa.
  • He kills Ben Urich for merely speaking to his mother, though he was under the impression that he somehow directly or indirectly caused the death of Wesley.
  • He nearly beats Francis to death for not accompanying Wesley, thus possibly preventing his death, even though the ever-loyal Wesley ordered him to stay and guard Fisk. However, he still places his trust in this guy afterwards simply because Wesley trusted him.
  • Matt threatening him in prison is enough to get him to declare war on the members of Nelson & Murdock, and set up a multi-tiered attempt to kill Matt when Matt visits the prison in season 3.
  • He beats one of his FBI agents to death simply because he tells him that Karen escaped Dex's assassination attempt with Nadeem's help.
  • Maya Lopez rejecting his offer to return to his organization is enough for him to kidnap her remaining family and explicitly tell her he knows how much it'll hurt her watching them die. He even plans to have his men slaughter a Choctaw powwow, just because they're her tribe.
• The Don: Using 'Kingpin' as his code name, Wilson Fisk is the mastermind of an immensely powerful criminal network that straddles the line between legality and illegality. His influence is so extensive that he has both the police and the media in his pocket.
• The Dreaded:
  • In Daredevil Season 1, Fisk's associates are afraid to say his name under penalty of death, and Healy immediately impales himself on a metal spike out of fear of Fisk's retribution the moment that he gives it up to Matt. When he discovers that Leland and Gao were responsible for the assault on Vanessa's life, even the latter seems to prefer skipping town for a bit.
  • In Season 3, it turns out that he's managed to control FBI agents for years and manipulated Ray Nadeem for the longest time without Nadeem ever knowing it.
  • He's feared by both Clint (the Avenger who has fought killer robots and aliens and had been The Dreaded himself during his time as Ronin) and Kazi as someone who they don't want finding out about the current problems between the Hawkeyes and the Tracksuits. Of course, it seems that Fisk himself is a bit unnerved that an Avenger is involved, meaning the feeling might be mutual.

E-H

• Establishing Character Music: The Wham Shot and subsequent cut to credits in his reveal in Hawkeye is accompanied by "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Fisk is in love with Vanessa, a woman who works at an art gallery he frequents. You mess with her at your own risk.
  • Also his mother, who he's willing to do absolutely anything for. Including murder. Especially murder.
  • His love for Wesley also starts to become clear as the show goes on. In Daredevil season 3, he admits to Dex that he'd even come to see Wesley like a son by the time the latter died.
  • Fisk is effective as a crime boss because he'll go out of his way to take care of the families of those who work for him and have proven themselves very loyal and competent. And if you fall out of his favor or piss Fisk off, those families become a highly effective tool for leverage, or who will pay the penalty for your failure.
  • Although he expresses disappointment in the trail she leaves while hunting Ronin and her subsequent betrayal later on, Fisk genuinely cares for Maya Lopez and pleads with her that they're family, even as she's holding a gun to him.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite the fact that he's a ruthless mob boss, he has some firm morals.
  • He states that he's not cruel for the sake of being cruel, since he knows perfectly well that all his actions serve a purpose. Despite his highly reprehensible acts, he's far more aware than other mob bosses.
  • After killing Anatoly, Fisk sincerely admits that sooner or later he still would've cut the Ranskahovs off, on the grounds that their inability to deal with Matt has made them "too unpredictable" to have them in business. Given the nature of Anatoly's death, Leland is a bit skeptical.
  • Fisk finds the most important painting for his collection in the hands of a Holocaust survivor, whose relative was the actual painter. Her story is so sad that Fisk realizes this is a line he won't cross. He's somewhat annoyed and appalled to learn that Dex doesn't have the same standards, going behind Fisk's back and murdering Mrs. Falb to get the painting anyway, and is more so offended when Dex tries to endear himself to Vanessa by calling himself "the new James Wesley".
  • During his appearance in Hawkeye, when Eleanor Bishop tries to get out of the business, Fisk gives her a chance to reconsider her decision "in the spirit of the holidays".
  • In Episode 4 of Echo, Fisk becomes utterly enraged when he sees an ice cream vendor bully and shun a young Maya Lopez for her deafness and attempts to communicate through ASL, to the point where he gets out of the car he's in and beats the man to a bloody pulp. As evil as Fisk is, it seems that mocking disabled people is a bridge too far even for him.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Happens in the climax of Hawkeye. When Kate Bishop confronts him to protect her mother Eleanor from his wrath, Fisk seems rather confused as to why a girl with a bow and arrow is trying so valiantly to stop him, and outright tells her to "mind [her] own business". Apparently he doesn't realize that threatening her mother very much makes what's happening Kate's business.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Matt Murdock. Both have the desire to "make their city a better place" and don't hesitate to use brutality if needed. However, Matt generally stops shy of lethal force and tries to direct his brutality towards criminals while Fisk's ambitions often impact everyone including innocent lives. Fisk started off as a meek child who abhorred violence and gradually became murderous. The Murdocks' familial dark side is a penchant for brutality, yet Matt keeps it in check despite being trained as a warrior. Fisk's father was abusive and coerced him into violence, while Matt's father was very loving and never wanted him to fight. Both men were shown to be offered alcohol as kids. Matt's case was one of father-son bonding; Fisk's case was one of peer pressure. Matt's faith is a major reason he stays on the side of angels. Fisk claims he's never had the mind for prayer or religion, and in the Season 1 finale invokes a bible passage in his Then Let Me Be Evil speech.
  • To Frank Castle, aka The Punisher, to the point that both men are complete opposites. While both believe that the end justifies the means, their methods in achieving their goals could not be more different. Frank Castle is a tactical genius and a brutal vigilante who kills only criminals, while Fisk is a cunning manipulator and mob boss, willing to kill criminals and civilians alike, including innocents. Castle wears combat clothing, while Fisk is always impeccably dressed in a suit. Castle is sullen, while Fisk is polite and courteous. And finally, while Castle is a One-Man Army, Fisk (usually) prefers others to do the dirty work for him, though he is more than capable of handling himself in a one-on-one fight.
• Evil Is Bigger: He's a ruthless mob boss who absolutely towers over everybody in the main cast.
• Evil Is Hammy: There is no shadow of a doubt that Vincent D'Onofrio is having the time of his life when he is in character.
• Evil Is Petty: While in prison, he's threatened by a powerful inmate named Dutton. After arranging for Frank Castle to fatally wound the man, Fisk visits Dutton in his hospital room and enjoys a meal in front of him as he dies.
• Evil Laugh: Gives off a particularly sinister chuckle when he playfully pinches a young Maya's cheek.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: His plan to further destabilize Dex's mental state, and make him more dependent on him, backfires spectacularly once Dex learns Fisk had Julie killed. Not only did he have an extremely vengeful Matt Murdock to deal with, he now also made a mortal enemy out of an utterly unhinged psychopath looking to kill them both.
• Evil Old Folks: He's at least in his early fifties (D'Onofrio was fifty-five when the first season of Daredevil aired) and the main threat of the show. He's in his early sixties by the time of Hawkeye and just as dangerous as ever, both as a crime boss and a physical threat.
• Evil Power Vacuum: After he's beaten and imprisoned in the end of Season One, several criminal gangs are fighting over the territories left open due to his incarceration and collapse of his criminal empire and some are even trying to completely take over Hell's Kitchen. Unfortunately, not only do they have to deal with the devil who bought Fisk to prison in the first place, but also another vigilante who has no qualms brutally murdering criminals.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Speaks in harsh, quiet whispers.
• Evil Versus Evil: The conflicts between him, Dutton, the Russians and the Albanians. Although, considering his charisma and the fact that he's an Affably Evil Wicked Cultured mob boss, viewers prefer that he wins over them.
• Evil Wears Black: In Daredevil season 1, Fisk wears stylish suits with dark colors. In season 3, his black dress shirts clash with the white suits he now wears.
• Eye Scream: In the finale of Hawkeye, Maya shoots him in the eye for his betrayal of her trust. When we see the aftermath five months later in Echo, despite the wound being nearly healed, he still sports some significant scarring around the wound.
• Eyes Always Averted: Fisk has a tendency to not look directly at people when talking to them and seems to have trouble maintaining eye contact in general.
• Eyepatch of Power: Throughout Echo, following Maya Lopez shooting him in the face in Hawkeye, Fisk is shown wearing an eyepatch. It appears to be some form of high tech healing, as his wound is nearly healed, and a distinct blue glow is seen from it when he takes it off.
• False Flag Operation:
  • He pays Jasper Evans to shank him non-fatally, so the FBI will be prompted to move him into his penthouse base of operations.
  • He directs Dex to carry out these sorts of operations while impersonating Daredevil.
• Faster Than They Look: Despite being massive in size, Fisk is surprisingly fast and when he gets his hands on whoever he wants to hurt, he will dish out a ton of damage in just a few seconds.
• Fat Bastard: Admits to Vanessa in an unguarded moment that he may have enjoyed zuppa inglese "a little too much" as a kid. However, he demonstrates that he is far from being out of shape.
• Fatal Flaw: His Hair-Trigger Temper. Acting rashly out of sheer wrath is something that ends up sabotaging his The Chessmaster tendencies. One specific instance is his murder of Owlsley because he tried to kill Vanessa. Murdering Owlsley directly causes Hoffman to spill information to the FBI. More subtly, despite his skill as a manipulator with a criminal empire, he has a pronounced habit of falsely assuming everything is in place and beyond disruption, then being surprised by unexpected challenges both relatively minor and immediately dangerous — for himself, and people he actually cares about.
• Final Boss: He's one of the last enemies Matt must defeat in the climactic showdown of Daredevil season 3, along with Dex. He later serves as this for Kate Bishop in Hawkeye.
• Flipping the Table: He does this to his own penthouse table after he gets embarrassed and threatened by Madame Gao in his own penthouse.
• Foil:
  • To Nobu. Nobu has a very foul mouth and doesn't demonstrate much in the way of manipulation, but has a strict code of honor and shows respect towards his opponents. Wilson Fisk can be quite charming and is firmly Affably Evil, but excels at planning due to being an accomplished The Chessmaster. There is also a huge contrast between their fighting styles, with Nobu being a master martial artist who is able to butcher Daredevil, while Fisk has no formal training and is primarily a brawler who relies on Stout Strength to overwhelm his opponents.
  • To Dutton in Season 2. Both are ruthless mob bosses, but while Fisk is reserved, cultured, Affably Evil, doesn't boast of his achievements and is The Chessmaster, Dutton is just a nasty Smug Snake who gloats his position as "the kingpin". Unfortunately for him, his arrogance gets in the way of him giving Fisk as much credit as he should. Ironically, Fisk takes his position as the real kingpin.
• Foreign Culture Fetish: He seems to have a passion for Asian culture, particularly that of Japan and China, due to his time living abroad. He wears a kimono while preparing breakfast and has a decent knowledge of Japanese culture due to working with Nobu and enjoys Chinese tea as well as having decent fluency in both languages, enough to understand Nobu and Gao even if his own responses aren't as fluid.
• Freudian Excuse: A very powerful one. In his childhood, he was a nonviolent kid who grew up in a violent place, with a Domestic Abuser of a father who taught him violence and brutality. He is undoubtedly pushed to the limits when he ends up killing his father. Maya using her newfound powers to enter his mind shows that his father still has a vice grip on his psyche long after his death.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He went from being a bullied and abused kid and son of a failed politician to one of the most feared crime bosses in New York City.
• Fury-Fueled Foolishness: Fisk is a very meticulous Chessmaster, able to trick his enemies into making fatal decisions or walk into traps he orchestrated. However, once he loses his temper and lets his emotions get the best of him, he starts making rash decisions that sabotage his well-constructed plans and gives his enemies opportunities to take him down. His eventual defeats in Seasons 1 and 3 both begin with him being consumed by his own anger and making a reckless decision that fails and comes back to bite him in the ass.
• Genius Bruiser: A huge guy who spends most of his time masterfully building and overseeing a massive criminal enterprise, is a terrifyingly skilled manipulator and strategist and frequently discusses matters of art and philosophy.
• Genocide Survivor: Hawkeye reveals that he survived the Snap and managed to build his criminal empire back up again after it was toppled in the third season of Daredevil.
• Gone Horribly Right: When Julie threatened his hold over Dex by being the latter’s Morality Chain, Fisk has her killed so he can keep Dex as his loyal assassin. Then when Fisk spares a Holocaust survivor who refuses his money for a painting her family owned, Dex kills her and takes the painting, undoing one of Fisks few Pet the Dog moments. Why did Dex do this? Because he’s a psychopath who thought that it would impress Fisk. He was being a loyal weapon just like Fisk wanted.
• Grand Romantic Gesture: Fisk tries to do this with Vanessa to various degrees of success.
  • The first time he asks Vanessa out, she says she has to close up shop, and he just politely leaves. She's surprised that he didn't offer to buy the place so she could leave early; he quietly says that "Any woman who can be bought isn't worth having."
  • On their second date, he does buy out the entire restaurant, but this was a pragmatic move, not a romantic one. He's not good in public and doesn't want to be interrupted (like that fatal mistake Anatoly made last time), so buying the restaurant was the simplest solution.
  • In season 3, we see Fisk going to great lengths to regain "Rabbit in a Snowstorm" in time for Vanessa's return to New York, but ultimately giving up after learning of the sentimental value the painting for its owner.
• Greater-Scope Villain: For Hawkeye. He's the one in charge of the Tracksuit Mafia, but he's very much The Ghost and mostly uninvolved with the show's events. Maya Lopez and Kazi are the ones actually commanding the group.
• Heel Realization: He comes to the realization that he isn't a Good Samaritan, but the ill intent in the Daredevil season 1 finale.
• Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: He had a full head of hair as a kid.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He hides it better than most, but Fisk has a very low patience threshold and will brutally murder people with his bare hands if he detects the slightest disrespect. As Anatoly sadly discovered.
• Hated by All: Zig-Zagged. His downfall, repeatedly, is that he works hard to maintain an image of a well meaning philanthropist falsely accused of horrible crimes, yet he invariably alienates those who actually work for or with him through his behavior (with the notable exception of Wesley, who dies early on anyway) to the point that some of his closest underlings are only there because he's bullied, blackmailed or manipulated them. This is especially notable in Daredevil season 3 where he gets his entire FBI detail in his pocket by digging up dirt on them and/or threatening their families, leading to them testifying against him once he is actually arrested anyway, and especially with Dex who turns on him the moment he learns that Fisk had Julie killed just to undermine his sanity further. The public at large alternates between loving him and loathing him depending on what they think about him is true, and at the end of the day he's just plain unable and unwilling to invest in genuine loyalty rather than mere obedience, basically giving members of his own organization every reason to want him to somehow fail, even if they end up going down with him.
• Hidden Villain: Fisk renders himself very insulated from his illegal activities to the point he's like the boogeyman. He has Owlsley (and later Red Lion) handling all his money, while having James Wesley (and later Felix Manning) serving as his mouthpiece, and the few criminals who do take direct orders from him are intimidated into silence by the threat that they and their loved ones will be killed if they so much as whisper his name. Before he goes public, Ben Urich has to mark him with a King of Diamonds with a big question-mark on it to represent him. He isn't even heard until the very end of the first episode, and his face isn't shown until the end of the third episode.
• Hoist Hero over Head: Does this to Daredevil in their climactic showdown and slams him to the ground afterwards. It's not enough to beat him though as he finds his second wind and beats Fisk to a pulp and knocks him out.
• Honorary Uncle: Maya Lopez's father refers to him as her "Uncle" in a flashback to her childhood.
• Hypocrite:
  • He does not welcome intrusions on his privacy or people using his loved ones against him, yet is perfectly willing to do those sorts of things himself to underlings or innocent pawns.
  • When held at gunpoint by Maya Lopez at the end of Hawkeye, Fisk pleads with her not to shoot him, citing their familial connection as a reason for her not to pull the trigger. This is moments after Fisk complained about Kate trying to save her mother from his wrath, claiming that it was none of her business to do so.
  • He rages against a local New Yorker for not understanding a young Maya and mocking her ASL. As she calls out, even several decades later, Fisk himself never bothered to learn ASL, and either relied on a translator or technology to understand his own adopted child.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: The story of Wilson Fisk is ultimately a fall from grace. He has spent his entire life accumulating wealth and power, and by the start of the first season of Daredevil, he is at his absolute most powerful, having control of virtually every criminal faction in New York, and even has the upper hand in his business dealings the Gao's and Murakami's factions of The Hand. Repeated defeats and humiliations at Matt Murdock's hands have left his authority into barely a shell of what they were.

I-N

• I Am Not Left-Handed: Fisk openly lets an already-injured masked Matt (who's out for blood that night) take a shot at him — with an armed Wesley and Francis at his side — soaks up a few blows and then starts whaling on him... but when Matt uses the shoge hook lying on the floor from the fight that tore him up, which is only repelled by hidden body armor, Fisk visibly realizes that that's all that saved him, and starts giving it his all.
• I Am Not My Father: He despises his father and everything he stood for, and he admits to Vanessa that the only reason why he still wears his old man's cuff-links is to remind himself that he doesn't want to become like him.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Fisk genuinely feels some regret when innocent people get hurt for the needs of his vision, as Matt observes when Fisk mourns Elena Cardenas' death on TV, though he's perfectly willing to sacrifice innocent people for the sake of his pawns, like Karen's Bulletin colleagues or Julie.
• Idiot Ball: In order to further tighten his control over Dex, he has his Morality Pet Julie killed and had Manning use her phone to block Dex to make it seem like she cut him out of her life. However, instead of cremating her corpse or burying it somewhere no one will find it, he leaves it in a freezer along with the hitmen he hired to assassinate her. Matt uses this to his advantage when he informs Dex about where her corpse is located in order to turn him against Fisk and use him as a pawn to take out the FBI agents while Matt confronts Fisk himself and defeats him for good.
• I'll Kill You!: He tells Daredevil that he's gonna kill him for ruining his plans to change the city in the Season 1 finale. He doesn't succeed and is arrested and taken to prison afterwards.
• Intergenerational Rivalry: He's visibly much older than Matt Murdock.
• It's All About Me: Evident in his philosophy, especially as we learn more about it. All that matters to Fisk are his vision and the things he wants, and to him the horrible things he does to obtain either of those are justified because he doesn't see himself as cruel. This ultimately drives a rift between himself and his associates when he wants to have his cake and eat it too, and becomes really obvious after his defeat and subsequent Heel Realization, where he rants to Matt about how the city deserves to fall into squalor because it denied him his vision of change.
• It's Personal:
  • Matt/Daredevil exposing his criminal activities and ruining his plans to rebuild Hell's Kitchen as a result makes Fisk intent on killing him.
  • At first, he sees Karen Page as just another someone that he needs to silence so that nothing and no one can get in the way of his plans and as someone that he can use as leverage against Matt/Daredevil. Then she tells him that she murdered his best friend Wesley, which pisses Fisk off so much that he sends Dex to go and assassinate her to avenge Wesley. Unfortunately for Fisk, this attempt fails and leads to his next defeat.
  • After her attempted revenge in Hawkeye, and her further disabling his operations in Echo has him decide to handle Maya Lopez personally. Despite her being captured by the Black Knives, he calls them off and works to set up an arrangement with his surrogate daughter, and when that fails, kill her and her family personally.
• Joker Immunity: Maya Lopez shot him through they eye. He made a full recovery with nothing but some superficial scarring.
• Kill the Parent, Raise the Child: He has William Lopez and the Tracksuits working under his branch killed by Ronin so he could take full control of their activities and fully take his daughter Maya under his wing.
• Kingpin in His Gym: Fisk spends lots of his time in prison bench-pressing weights to keep his strength up. He also arranges for Jasper Evans to shank him in the rec room as part of his gambit to manipulate the FBI.
• Kneel Before Zod: On sneaking out of the hotel to go to a sitdown with crimelords he wants to extort into paying him, Fisk demands that Ray Nadeem be the one to remove his ankle tracker. Fisk refuses to simply take the key to the bracelet, making Nadeem unlock it himself, which requires him to kneel before the Kingpin.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: He's willing to swallow insult and threats from Nobu that he would never tolerate from most other criminals and associates, save for Madame Gao, and while he manipulates Nobu into confronting Daredevil with the hope that the two would take each other out, he never does anything to mess with him and his organisation. It's unclear if he knew about the Hand, but he visibly knew that Nobu and the organisation he belongs to weren't people he could afford to antagonize. He's also visibly afraid of and intimidated by Madame Gao.
• Large and in Charge: Fisk is unquestionably the boss and probably weighs around 300 pounds. Not to mention at 6'4", Vincent D'Onofrio towers over 5'10" Charlie Cox in their scenes together. He also looms over his subordinates (though this effect is achieved through copious use of Scully boxes and trenches).
• Legacy Character: Technically, Dutton was the first person to have the moniker of "Kingpin". Fisk takes it for himself after arranging Dutton's death.
• Let's You and Him Fight: If Fisk can't get rid of an enemy or inconvenient ally directly, he'll manipulate someone else into taking that person out for him.
  • He escalates the conflict between Matt and the Russians, so that the Russians are in a position where Fisk can target them with bombs, and then sends in the corrupt cops in his pocket to kill the survivors.
  • When Nobu gets too insistent that Fisk immediately fulfill his part of the Hand's deal to acquire Elena's property for Midland Circle, Fisk sets him up to fight Matt in the hope that they kill each other.
  • When Dutton tries to intimidate him in prison, Fisk makes arrangements for Frank Castle to be delivered to him and then manipulates Frank into killing Dutton and his entire gang, allowing Fisk to take over the prison's underground economy and gain a new revenue source.
  • He helped Frank escape from prison, believing that Frank would cripple any crime syndicate with the ability to rival his own by the time his plan to be released legally came to fruition.
  • Set Ronin on the path to killing William Lopez.
• Light Is Not Good: He wears his comic book counterpart's iconic white suit in Daredevil season 3, and again in Hawkeye.
• Lightning Bruiser: He can be incredibly quick, belying his size. He can take on a younger and fitter opponent in a fight and mete out a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown (see below) with little trouble.
• Like Father, Like Son: As much as he would never admit it, Wilson is not terribly different from his own father. Bill Fisk taught his son to deal with every little problem with violence when he was a child, and much in that same way, Wilson taught Maya the exact same lesson when he beat up the ice cream vendor half to death in front of her when she was also little. And much like how Bill Fisk got a hammer in the brain from his son, Wilson got a bullet in the eye from his "niece." The only difference is that Wilson lived through it.
• Limited Wardrobe: In Daredevil season 1, his wardrobe is limited to an assortment of black suits, plus his late father's cuff-links. Vanessa influences him to wear a lighter shade of black and different cuff-links. In season 2 and the beginning of season 3, he only has his prison uniform, and for the rest of Season 3, again wears an assortment of similar-looking suits (which are white this time instead of black).
• Love Makes You Dumb:
  • He is incapable of keeping his emotions in check when it comes to his Morality Pets. Leland uses this against him, giving Fisk an ultimatum to either let Leland part with half his money and out of the organization, or he'll have Carl Hoffman reveal all of Fisk's criminal activities to the FBI. Fisk kills him regardless because he poisoned Vanessa. Even though he does send his corrupt cops out to kill Hoffman afterwards, Matt just barely manages to get to Hoffman first. The fact that Fisk has to personally see to Vanessa getting out of the country due to Wesley being dead also prevents him from getting away himself.
  • In season 3, despite initially planning to deal with Nadeem by discrediting him rather than killing him, his desire to please Vanessa allows her to convince him otherwise. It then turns out that Nadeem recorded a confession video, and his death renders the contents of said recorded testimony admissible against Fisk in court. What's more, allowing Vanessa to give the assassination order herself gives Matt leverage against Fisk, as he threatens to expose Vanessa to prosecution if Fisk causes any more trouble.
• Love Makes You Evil: Fisk's protectiveness towards his mother drives him to murder his father at the age of 12, then the assassination attempt on him that nearly kills Vanessa drives him over the edge. This eventually leads to him murdering Ben Urich for simply talking to his mother.
• Luxury Prison Suite:
  • Averted in Daredevil season 2. While Fisk's situation would be idyllic for most incarcerated crime bosses, given Fisk's unique mental state, he absolutely detests being in prison despite all the comparative freedom he has in it and he's desperate to leave it so he can take revenge on everybody that helped put him there.
  • Of course, he is just biding his time until his plans in season 3 are ready, which upgrade him to a penthouse suite when he's under FBI house arrest, which also contains a secret room from which he can give orders to his henchmen. Eventually he's able to have nice furniture and art moved in to the point that it's as much a luxury apartment as his season 1 penthouse, and the only thing keeping it from losing the status of being a "prison" altogether is the cameras...but even he has control over when they're recording. Karen lampshades it when visiting him:
    Wilson Fisk: Miss Page. I must admit, I'm surprised you're here.
    Karen Page: I suppose this qualifies as hard time?
    Wilson Fisk: Yes, I'm sure all of this is offensive to you, given our personal history.
    Karen Page: You mean the times you tried to have me killed.
    Wilson Fisk: Crimes for which I'm still paying.
• Made of Iron:
  • Even after surviving his getaway truck overturning and bleeding from the head, Fisk is still lucid enough to make a run for it when he realizes Matt/Daredevil is after him. In the subsequent fight with Matt, he takes countless blows to the head from clubs, fists and feet and still keeps coming. Matt has to completely wear him out to put Fisk down for good.
  • In Hawkeye he's shot with an arrow, hit with a car and thrown through a display window, beaten up by Kate and caught in an explosion and he's still in good enough shape to outrun the police.
  • At the end of Hawkeye, Maya shoots him in the face at point-blank range^note even if the bullet missed, the pistol's muzzle blast would have been lethal to a normal human yet he returns in Echo, seemingly none the worse for wear. Aside from scarring on his face, his eye is shown to be intact beneath its bandage and implied to still be functional.
• Manipulative Bastard: Overlapping with his skill at being The Chessmaster, Fisk is just as good at manipulating people as he is at manipulating events. To family man Ray Nadeem, he appears as a contrite man pained by the loss of his true love. With Dex, he hits at very specific emotional beats while pulling strings that Dex can't see. It says something that at the start of Daredevil season 3, Dex is bullying Fisk and treating him with disdain. But five episodes later, when Fisk orders Dex to kill Karen to avenge Wesley's murder, Dex pledges to carry out the order like Fisk is a father he fears disappointing. Later down the road, he even manipulates an Avenger into doing his bidding, all the while remaining largely hidden behind the scenes.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: During the Netflix run, he's an unbelievably strong but still normal man. Come the Hawkeye series, he's capable of ripping the doors off of cars and walking away from explosions. He may have had some kind of upgrade, but we don't yet know.
• Might as Well Not Be in Prison at All: Even while imprisoned, Fisk still has people working for him, inside and out. Once Frank Castle is imprisoned as well, Fisk manages to play events so that Frank kills his competition, allowing Fisk to run Riker's with an iron fist. A lot of Daredevil season 3 is also the result of long-term manipulations that Fisk began before or while he was in prison.
• Momma's Boy: Due to his father was being an abusive monster, he's incredibly close with his mother growing up and anyone who dares compromise his mother's safety will personally face his wrath.
• Moral Myopia: Is perfectly willing to kill anyone who crosses him along with everyone they care about. However, whenever someone close to him, be it his mother or Vanessa, is hurt or threatened, he treats it as though it is completely unforgivable.
• Never Got to Say Goodbye: Invoked. When Fisk begs to say goodbye to Vanessa one last time before being detained at the end of Season 3, his crimes up to that point (including Nadeem's death) have been so atrocious that Brett Mahoney denies his final request.
• Never My Fault: Fisk rants to Matt in the Daredevil season 1 finale, during his Villainous Breakdown, that it's his fault that Fisk lost his empire. While it is true that Matt is the driving force, both as Nelson & Murdock and as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, that leads to Fisk getting arrested, this is ignoring that the major factors that put Fisk in that situation are his own temper tantrums (his murdering Leland being the tipping point as it leads to Hoffman being rescued, causing Hoffman to testify against Fisk).
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Daredevil season 3 could have very easily ended with Fisk the absolute and complete winner. But his blind vendetta and petty grudge against Matt Murdock, and repeated attempts to manipulate and control Dex, a severely mentally unstable and extremely dangerous psychopath, both result in an Epic Fail of biblical proportions that ends with him back in prison and Matt forcing him to forfeit his vendetta against Karen and Foggy in the name of Vanessa's freedom. He quite literally orchestrated his own downfall when he was in peak control.
• Nice to the Waiter: Fisk gives a heavy tip to the maitre'd who accommodates his second date with Vanessa, knows the first name of the head of his security detail (Francis), and is always respectful to James Wesley and Felix Manning.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed:
  • As this article explains, season 1 Fisk is partially based on Robert Moses. ^note Moses even died in the "Good Samaritan" hospital in New York.
  • Maybe intentionally, maybe not, but several people have noticed similarities between him and several real-life criminals who were as powerful, cunning, and ruthless as he was, such as Al Capone and Pablo Escobar.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: After Anatoly embarrasses him during his date with Vanessa, he savagely beats him to death and keeps going until he decapitates him using his car door. He also gives one to Matt after he is weakened from the fight against Nobu. He gives one again to the restrained Frank in the prison, though Frank is tough enough to remain conscious after the thrashing.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Zig-Zagged. Fisk is very hands-off, and generally has others do his dirty work for him, unless he's in a really bad mood and it's for very personal reasons. At which point he's more than willing to dirty his own hands. The only five times he's personally killed someone rather than have someone else do it, they've all been for personal reasons: his father (for beating his mother with a belt), Anatoly Ranskahov (for crashing his date with Vanessa), Ben Urich (for visiting Fisk's mother), Leland Owlsley (for poisoning Vanessa), and Agent Weller (for being the unfortunate agent to inform him that Dex has failed at killing Karen to avenge Wesley).
  • In Daredevil season 3, Fisk is under house arrest and it's gambits he's been planning while behind bars that are the main hurdle for Matt and friends to tackle, with Dex as his main enforcer. The only fight scenes he ends up having are his staged shanking by Jasper Evans, and the three-way at the end with Matt and Dex.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Fisk claims this about himself and Daredevil, though Matt aggressively denies it.
  Wilson Fisk: You and I have a lot in common.
  Matt Murdock: We're nothing alike.

O-Y

• Obfuscating Stupidity: Downplayed. Fisk pretends to not understand Chinese or Japanese for several episodes before Madame Gao, who herself is revealed to be fluent in English, breaks the illusion to prove she knows the value of seeming simple.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: A villainous one. Whereas Daredevil ended with Fisk getting arrested and having his empire dissolved, Hawkeye shows that after seven In-Universe years, he has managed to claw his way back to power once more.
• Old Master: He's in his sixties by the time of Hawkeye and still incredibly dangerous, capable of terrifying feats of strength and able to effortlessly overpower the decades younger Kate in a fight, nearly killing her.
• Omniglot: Fisk understands several languages very well, but his own vocabulary is somewhat limited and his diction poor, even with his stutter.
• One Head Taller: His towering figure is pretty obvious when he stands up after Karen provokes him with the details of Wesley's death.
• Out of Focus: During Daredevil season 2, while he's in prison.
• Papa Wolf: Echo shows he's genuinely protective of Maya and he savagely beats up the street vendor who mocked Maya using ASL for some food.
• Parental Substitute: Fisk assisted single father William in raising a young Maya Lopez, going as far to pick her up from school and protecting her from bullies, as well as taking care of her after her father's death. He was however a much more sinister and manipulative figure for her; where her father wanted a better, non-criminal life for her, Fisk was seeking to mold her into his successor. Not to mention Fisk being ultimately responsible for William's death.
• Pay Evil unto Evil:
  • While Anatoly's death at the hands of Fisk is incredibly brutal, the man was in life a human trafficker who willingly kidnapped women and young children, so...
  • At the age of 12, Fisk beat his own father to death with a hammer. But said father was a smug, selfish and violent Jerkass who physically and verbally abused his wife and son over petty slights and/or problems that were his own fault to begin with. So it's hard to feel much sympathy for Bill.
  • When Fisk finds out that Leland is stealing from him and poisoned Vanessa, Fisk responds by throwing him down an elevator shaft.
  • In general, Fisk gets people to do things for him through blackmail and threatening their loved ones. That's how Matt defeats him: by threatening to have Vanessa sent to prison for ordering the murder of Ray Nadeem if he ever hurts anyone again.
  • In Echo, Fisk is shown brutalizing an ice cream stand owner for mocking Maya's attempt to use ASL to communicate with him.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In Daredevil season 3, after listening to Mrs. Falb's Dark and Troubled Past, he allows her to keep the painting he was obsessed to get back. Too bad Dex later undoes this by going behind his back and killing her for it anyways.
  • During the events of Hawkeye, Fisk is nothing but courteous to Maya Lopez, having helped raise her as her "uncle" ever since she was a child. He even learns some American Sign Language to better communicate with her, and spends his final moments in the series genuinely pleading with her not to shoot him. This is, however, Zig-Zagged in Echo, which shows a more manipulative, borderline abusive side to their relationship and exposes the lack of respect Fisk has for Maya.
• Please Kill Me if It Satisfies You: Offers this ultimatum to Maya nearing the climax of Echo. Beat him to death to perpetuate the cycle of Kingpin and prove she will have what it takes to run his operation, or leave him be and join him once more.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Fisk knows when to push ahead (like when he finally takes up a public persona when Matt is about to expose him as a criminal mastermind) and when to fall back to best benefit him; for example, he has Karen Page spared once the Union Allied pension laundering goes public, rather than have her killed like McClintock, Rance and Farnum, on the grounds that what she knows is already in the papers, so there's no point in killing her and leaving a possible trail back to him. He's also very apt in manipulating his enemies against each other to avoid having to tie up loose ends himself. If relationships with an ally are on the rocks, Fisk generally tries to handle things through diplomacy and offers of support, only escalating to physical violence when those don't work out.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Vincent D'Onofrio himself describes Fisk as "a child and a monster". It's implied that in many ways, Fisk is still stuck at the age of twelve when he killed his father. Much like his archnemesis Matt Murdock, he's very childish in terms of his vision to improve Hell's Kitchen and New York City, especially considering that having the mob on his side is not the best way to improve the city.
  Wilson Fisk: I wanted to make this city something better than it is, something beautiful. YOU TOOK THAT AWAY FROM ME! YOU TOOK EVERYTHING! I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!!
• Psychotic Smirk: He sports one while watching a wall of TV monitors all tuned to news stations covering Dex's attack on the Bulletin.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: He's both the head of a criminal empire and shown personally kicking crap out of his enemies on occasion.
• Resignations Not Accepted: Once you work for Fisk, you're in his employ for life until he decides he has no further need for you.
  • Fisk murdered one of Hattley's kids, and the threat of killing the other is how he keeps her from turning against him.
    Ray Nadeem: You could've gone to Homeland Security or the NYPD. Not take me down with you. Not murder an agent. You make a report. You get your family somewhere safe.
    Tammy Hattley: That's not an option with Fisk. I used to have two children, Ray. They made it look like a hit-and-run. I got a divorce. Maybe that keeps him a little safer. But there's still Allie, so think about Seema and Sami. And do what Fisk tells you.
  • In the season finale of Hawkeye, Eleanor Bishop tries getting out, and the minute she does Fisk sends people to murder her in public.
  • Likewise, Kazi tells Maya that he can't get out, much as he might want to.
  • In Echo, Maya's uncle Henry notes that he tried to quit working for Fisk as well after William died, but that he was threatened with death if he went through with it.
• Returning Big Bad: He was the Big Bad for much of Daredevil's run, and suffered a rather brutal defeat at the end of the series, which ended with him being exposed and locked up for a long time. But, Fisk returns as the main antagonist in Hawkeye after spending 5 years rebuilding his criminal empire.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant:
  • Downplayed. Fisk is naturally well-known for being Daredevil's arch-nemesis like he is here, but the comics character is equally well-known, and was even originally introduced as a Spider-Man villain. However, this version of Fisk has never encountered Peter Parker in any way.
  • Played straight in Hawkeye, where Fisk's revealed to be the Big Bad of the show, making him an enemy of both Clint Barton and Kate Bishop, two people the Kingpin has never really faced in the comics.
• Same Character, But Different: In Hawkeye, Fisk personality-wise has grown closer to how he is in the comics, being calmer and more of a public speaker. His physical strength is also a lot closer to superhuman, and he has a Classy Cane.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: He has a walk-in closet full of stylish suits, shirts, and accessories.
• Shrinking Violet: Fisk is extremely shy and introverted, to the point of struggling with even basic conversation, and is deeply uncomfortable with crowds and strangers.
• Signature Move: A devastating headbutt.
• A Sinister Clue: Fisk is, much like his actor, left-handed. ^note This can be seen in Daredevil season 1 when he eats an omelette with the knife in his left hand and the fork in his right, and likewise with a steak in season 2.
• Small Role, Big Impact:
  • Within Daredevil season 2, Fisk only appears in two full episodes, but he also plays a major role in the breakup of Nelson & Murdock by manipulating Frank Castle into throwing his trial, and is responsible for the Blacksmith's death due to arranging Castle's escape.
  • For Hawkeye, he only appears in the final episode of the first season, but as the Greater-Scope Villain is responsible for the show's entire plot.
• The Sociopath: By the start of Daredevil season 3, prison has hardened Fisk into a callous, ruthless, greedy, power-hungry, Machiavellian, remorseless, cold, sociopath. Having given up on his old ambitions, he cares solely about attaining money and power, getting revenge upon the people who had wronged him, and being reunited with Vanessa. While in season 1 he shows reluctance and remorse about having innocent cops shot alongside Detective Blake, and in having Elena Cardenas killed as part of Nobu's trap for Matt, in season 3, Fisk is perfectly willing to have innocent people be murdered if it benefits him, as shown with Karen's colleagues and with Julie Barnes. In short, his capacity for empathy has drained away, feels no remorse for any of his murders, and manipulates people like pawns, eventually proving that, by the end of the day, there's no place for emotions in his ambitions. Bear in mind, he's already quite violent and homicidal in Season 1, seeing as he decapitates Anatoly for merely interrupting his dinner with Vanessa, and kills Ben Urich with his bare hands for speaking to his mother Marlene.
• Socially Awkward Hero: A villainous inversion. Mentally, Fisk is a meticulous, efficient, and sophisticated long-term planner and manipulator, who understands how to make his criminal operation run smoothly. In a physical confrontation, he is a force to be reckoned with, despite having no superpowers, as he tanks damages like a brick wall and hits like a freight train. In social situations, however, he shows overt signs of anxiety and always appears notably awkward and nervous.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: Fisk always speaks quietly, sometimes even awkwardly, and can come across as a man not used to speaking publicly. Which makes any moment where he does erupt like a volcano more terrifying.
• The Spook: When he first arrives on the scene in Daredevil, no one knows a thing about him or can find any record of him and even those who work for him avoid using his name in dealings and Fisk makes a point of keeping details about his private life, such as his home address, secret and he scrubbed all traces of his father's existence from records. It takes some intense digging from Ben Urich to find out about Bill and a chance conversation with his mother to gain any real information.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: With Vanessa. Both he and Vanessa love each other dearly, but are constantly separated thanks to Fisk's actions jeopardizing his standing with the law. By the end of Season 3, Fisk is forced to sacrifice any chance of a happy life with Vanessa, as well as any chance of revenge on Matt, lest Matt go after Vanessa and incriminate her in Ray Nadeem's murder. In the end, Fisk begs for one last chance to say goodbye to his wife as Brett is taking him back into custody, but his crimes up to that point have robbed him of any sympathy the NYPD may have for him. His villainy robs him of even the chance to say goodbye.
• Start of Darkness: As a child, Fisk killed his father in response to his acts of domestic abuse. It certainly doesn't help the fact that his father is the main reason for what he is today: a ruthless mob boss with anger issues and internal conflicts.
  • Taken even further after his imprisonment during Season 3: He has taken even more extreme measures to ensure control over the city, no longer deluding himself into believing it's for a noble cause. The Kingpin manages to take control of the FBI, convince a psychopathic Dex to work for him, and even after his second arrest, his shadow looms over NYC and broke free again.
• The Stool Pigeon: When introduced in Daredevil season 3, Fisk learns that Vanessa will face criminal charges as an accessory to his crimes in Season 1, which prompts him to turn state’s witness against other criminals and cut a deal with Agent Nadeem of the FBI, who becomes his handler. Of course, the reality is that Fisk has all the power here, as he's using his control of the FBI to sell out criminal gangs that refuse to pay a protection tax to him.
• Stout Strength: When he kills people himself, as opposed to having his henchmen do it, he prefers to use his own bare hands instead of a weapon, and very few people prove capable of escaping once he decides to do this. He doesn't have a bodybuilder's physique; indeed, he looks like a larger version of the pudgy boy he was. However, the second season of Daredevil shows him bench pressing roughly five hundred pounds. Kate Bishop, being only a wiry young woman, gets literally tossed around by Fisk when they throw down, and she merely bounces off of him when she tries to directly attack him.
• Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: Tries to goad Matt into killing him by swearing to come after Karen and Foggy as long as he lives, but he vehemently refuses and instead gives Fisk an ultimatum: he will keep his identity a secret and he won't harm anyone, or else he'll come after Vanessa. Fisk accepts the ultimatum to protect Vanessa.
• Super-Strength:
  • Downplayed. While he falls short of what passes as superhuman by Marvel standards, Fisk is evidently still far far stronger than the average human, being able to decapitate a man using a car door, lift a grown man above his head with ease, pull handcuffs apart, and his punches leave holes in a brick wall (though it caused him visible pain).
  • As of Hawkeye he has firmly been pushed to superhuman levels. He is able to rip car doors off with little effort and throw full-sized people around just by lightly shoving them.
• Targeted to Hurt the Hero: His primary way of getting people to do his dirty work is to find out who that person's loved ones are, then use them as leverage. And since he never makes idle threats, the person in question almost always obeys.
  • He gets Clyde Farnum to carry out a hit on Karen by having Wesley threaten the man's daughter.
  • He gets Jasper Evans to shank him as part of plan to manipulate the FBI by threatening Evans' son.
  • He tricks Foggy's family into committing fraud, so that when Foggy is on the verge of publicly exposing him, he can threaten to have them all thrown in prison if Foggy doesn't recant.
  • He kills one of Tammy Hattley's kids and threatens to kill the other one to get her to work for him.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: When his empire crumbles and the city that hailed him as a philanthropist turns on him, he undergoes a Heel Realization and declares that he will not be held back by noble intentions any longer. "I am the ill intent."
• Time-Shifted Actor: Cole Jensen plays him as a kid during flashbacks while Vincent D'Onofrio plays him as an adult for the rest of his appearances.
• To the Pain: When Matt threatens to separate Fisk from Vanessa, he snaps his handcuffs, then proceeds to beat and throttle him while threatening in turn to destroy everything and everyone Matt cares about.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Come Daredevil Season 2, prison has made Fisk more dangerous, and ruthless, even while imprisoned and almost bankrupt, as shown with his interaction with Frank Castle. Season 3 continues this, showing that he has fully grown into the Crazy-Prepared Manipulative Bastard that his comic book counterpart is known for being.
  • By the time of his appearance on Hawkeye he has become a big enough of a threat that an Avenger considers him The Dreaded. His Stout Strength also appears to have increased dramatically, bordering on Super-Strength, as he's now capable of ripping a door off its hinges with his bare hands, which he takes advantage of to get at Eleanor Bishop.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Downplayed in Hawkeye. While he's still a dangerous and formidable crime lord, he's much calmer and more in control of his temper than he did before. He also tries to reason with Eleanor Bishop and gives her chances to reconsider his decision to leave, which is a level of mercy he's never demonstrated before.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Fisk's favorite dessert is zuppa inglese, an Italian custard which his mother made all the time. He jokes that liking it a little too much probably resulted in his weight. He also begins every morning with an omelette for breakfast.
• Tragic Keepsake:
  • He wears his father's cuff-links, specifically the ones he wore the night Wilson killed him, as a reminder that he is not his father, and not cruel for the sake of cruelty. Vanessa encourages him to consider alternative pairs of cuff-links.
  • Echo reveals he hung onto the hammer he killed Bill Fisk with as well, keeping it in an intricate box and personally offering it to Maya, as he compares their situation to he and his own fathers.
• Tragic Villain:
  • Despite being a hardened mob boss, Fisk has an internal conflict, as Madame Gao notices, and despite his awful actions, he's aware of this and is not something that makes him proud. It certainly doesn't help that he is vulnerable, childish, and has had a violent upbringing from his horrible father. Actually, he wants to be a better person than his father, and is willing to take Vanessa away from the mob. Furthermore, his opposition to Daredevil comes from both having different ideas of how to improve Hell's Kitchen. Fisk does monstrous things, but ultimately believes he is working for the greater good, with this belief inspiring several fiercely loyal associates. Introspective and emotionally complicated, his success as Matt's nemesis is due in large part to the fact that both of them are working to fix the city, but both also worry that they might be monsters.
  • Echo (2024) also further emphasises this in the finale, where rather than fight Kingpin, Maya chooses to try and help him heal his pain by peering into his mind. In it, he is trapped in that same white room, the walls shaking and the sounds of his father beating his mother ringing so loudly the walls are cracking. Though he despairingly rejects her offer of peace, he is so affected by the experience he leaves Tamaha with his men and leaves Maya and everyone else unharmed, desperate to escape, proving that at his core, Fisk is still that traumatized twelve-year-old who was never able to overcome his own grief and pain.
• Tranquil Fury: By Daredevil season 3, Fisk has almost conquered his notoriously uncontrollable temper, turning his moments of rage into this. When Karen taunts him about killing Wesley, it's almost shocking to see that he manages to keep a lid on his homicidal fury for even a few seconds whereas before he would have lunged at her immediately. Of course, in that case he might have been simply too paralyzed by rage to do anything. It's played straighter three episodes later, when he receives news from Agent Waller that Nadeem has aided in helping Karen escape Dex's assassination attempt in the church and is now in the wind; Fisk absorbs this and then calmly, even casually, asks Waller for his jacket. He waits patiently as Waller removes the jacket and hands it over. Fisk proceeds to wrap said jacket around Waller's head and beats him to death.
• Uncertain Doom: In Hawkeye, Maya points a gun towards his chest and we hear her fire it, although we don't definitively see where she shot him. Echo shows that he was shot in the eye, but survived.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Unlike his comic book counterpart, Fisk has zero formal martial arts training and his climactic fight against Matt consists of throws, charges, and wild hay-makers. He's still a huge Lightning Bruiser, but he struggles to even land a punch on his opponent at the beginning of the fight. But once he gets his hands on you... SNAP!
• Unstoppable Rage: While it actually either takes a lot of aggravation or the right triggers to set him off, once made angry he won't stop until the person who pissed him off is brutally killed, often by his own hand.
• Use Your Head: Headbutting seems to be one of his favorite moves.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them: During their final fight in Season 1, he picks up Matt's billy clubs and hits him repeatedly with it before Matt turns the tide of battle and takes him down.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He was a shy kid who hated violence until his father's abuse of him and his mother drove him to commit patricide.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: He wants to make Hell's Kitchen a beautiful, modern place. Unfortunately, his way to achieve that goal is not the cleanest way. Fisk believes his vision for the city is a good one, even though it displaces lots of poor people and he's making allies with powerful criminal organizations such as the Hand.
• Villain in a White Suit:
  • He wears a white jumpsuit as a newcomer upon his arrival in prison, as new arrivals get.
  • Midway through Daredevil season 3, after some heavy negotiating between his lawyers and the FBI to get his possessions returned, he starts wearing his trademark white business suits from the comics.
• Villain with Good Publicity:
  • After spending half the season in the shadows, Fisk stops the heroes' attempts to expose him cold by going public as a generous philanthropist. This ruins their attempts to expose him, since now he has a sparkling image that's stronger than the secrets they were planning to tell. It lasts until the first season finale when Hoffman confesses and rats everyone out, exposing him and his crime organization.
  • In Season 3, after using Dex to orchestrate a successful smear campaign against Daredevil, Fisk is able to get himself back into the public's good graces by pretending that everything that happened to him was a mere Frame-Up by the corrupt vigilante. It works so well that even the throngs of protesters who spend days outside his hotel demanding him to be send back to jail end up being swayed to his side. Fortunately, his stint as a beloved celebrity doesn't last long before he is exposed again and ends up back in jail.
  • Averted in Hawkeye and Echo, where virtually everyone in New York is fully aware of his criminal activities to the point he's considered The Dreaded, and even Maya Lopez's community in Oklahoma can tell rather quickly that Fisk and his forces are bad news the minute they show up. While Echo shows that he still had power over the authorities during the five-year Snap period, he appears to no longer have them on his payroll by 2024, having to make a run for it when the police arrive at the end of Hawkeye.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • The cool, collected mask starts to crack after he manipulates Matt into taking care of Nobu, and Owlsley and Gao start questioning his conviction. Breaks even further as in the span of a day, Vanessa is poisoned, Wesley is killed, and he discovers his associates were behind the poisoning. By the time Nelson & Murdock succeed in exposing him, he's reduced to a raging, ranting mess striking out at anything and everything — though no less dangerous for the loss of control.
  • When he allows Karen into his penthouse to speak to him, the conversation starts very civil, but he quickly loses his composure as she reveals to him that she murdered Wesley.
• Villainous Friendship:
  • He and James Wesley seem to be genuine friends who care about each other just as Matt and Foggy do, enough that Fisk is willing to put out a hit on Karen as revenge when she taunts him with the details of how she killed him.
  • He and Madame Gao seem to have some sort of friendship as well, albeit one laced with ruthlessness and threats, though that ends on his end when he discovers she and Owlsley betrayed him — ostensibly for his own good.
  • While somewhat downplayed when compared to the above examples given the fact that he was in-debt to him, Fisk was also fond of Derek Bishop, and in a delete scene expresses genuine condolences of his passing after the Battle of New York.
• Villainous Gentrification: His goal is to turn the blocks of Hell's Kitchen he acquires (except for the building given over to the Hand) into luxury condos, which the original tenants can never hope to afford.
• Villain in a White Suit: Once he obtains a new wardrobe midway through Daredevil season 3, the only thing he wears are his comic book counterpart's white suits. He wears this in "Hawkeye" too.
• Villains Out Shopping: In his spare time he's in his own penthouse cooking omelette for breakfast or touring art galleries.
• Visionary Villain: Fisk has grand plans for a new Hell's Kitchen once he and his partners take ownership. He believes he will save the city. Even after he briefly regresses back to simple well-organized crime in Hawkeye and Echo, he is soon inspired to run for mayor of New York.
• Vocal Dissonance: He's a hulking mob boss who kills with his bare hands, but his voice is a lot more higher than one would expect, especially when he shouts.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Fisk honestly and truly believes that him being in control of crime in Hell's Kitchen will ultimately help with its recovery and that he can use his criminal enterprise to help make the city a better place in the long term despite immense damage in the short term. Deconstructed, in that while genuine he eventually loses faith in himself and embraces being a villain (see Tragic Villain).
• White-Collar Crime: Fisk is no stranger to this, as Karen discovers that he has shell companies.
• Wicked Cultured: Played with. Fisk certainly has an eye for the finer things (suits, abstract expressionist art), unlike his comic book counterpart, he's much less of a gourmet; due to his reclusive and orderly nature, he ends up constantly eating the same food rather than developing a more sophisticated palate, and Wesley has to help him before his dinner dates with Vanessa by recommending certain vintages of wine.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He may be a brutal crime lord, but when you learn his backstory and how he became the way he is, you can't help but pity the poor bastard. In every scene where he isn't angry, Fisk looks perpetually sad as if he's filled with extreme remorse over the monster he's become. Although he definitely errs more towards "destroyer of worlds" in season 3.
• Worthy Opponent: Tells both Matt and Ben Urich that he respects the kind of men they are, admires their conviction and goals, and that he regrets having to take action against them. Though the actions he does take are no less ruthless for the respect he gives.
• Would Harm a Senior: He has Elena Cardenas killed for refusing to give up her home that he wanted to gentrify, in order to lure Matt into an ambush.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • Fisk has ordered hits on Karen, Elena, and Julie when they posed threats to him or his goals. When Karen rubs the details of Wesley's death in his face, he stands up and looks prepared to beat her up, but the FBI intervene due to Foggy showing up. As a result, Fisk resorts to hiring Dex to kill her.
  • A hands-on approach happens when he effortlessly slaps and tosses Kate Bishop around. And he'd clearly do something worse to Eleanor if Kate hadn't arrived to save her mom.
• Would Hurt a Child: He's more than willing to threaten peoples' families to get their cooperation. He has one of Tammy Hattley's kids murdered and the death staged to look like a hit-and-run, then blackmails Hattley into working for him by threatening to kill her other daughter. He similarly threatens this on Nadeem's wife and son, sending men to kill them after Nadeem goes rogue. And that's not even getting into his No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Kate Bishop, who's still in college.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: When Frank Castle is imprisoned, Fisk gives him an offer to kill Dutton, only to betray Castle and have all the man's thugs attack him. When Frank survives that, Fisk decides to change his plans, and actually arranges for Frank to be smuggled out of the prison disguised as a guard; figuring Castle will drive away the competition until Fisk inevitably leaves prison.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: It is his standard procedure to discard of people once they serve no further purpose, although he draws lines for it. Small loose ends and associates he thinks are scum are free game after their business is concluded (Rance, Farnum, McClintock, Jasper Evans, etc.), whereas people he actually respects tend to be safe unless they betray him (Owlsley). Even associates as small as an ASL translator for Maya is executed to make sure she will not run to the cops with the information she transferred between Maya and Fisk.

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"The people need to be reminded that the city belongs to me."