Spider-Man General Discussion

Fisk has been doing a lot to rehabilitate his image in the eyes of the people, starting with an autobiography called The Life and Times of Wilson Fisk. He even hired a trusted sports journalist to co-write it with him — it was all detailed in the short-lived Kingpin series (titled "Born Against"). (The sports journalist ended up regretting her part in the book and later dies to due Bullseye in Old Man Logan.)

And then Secret Empire happened and he helped maintain order and get food and medicine to people who needed it. This wasn't for any humanitarian reasons, however, only so that people would remember who helped them in their time of need. After Secret Empire, he campaigned and quickly became Mayor...and ended up asking ADA Matt Murdock to be his Deputy Mayor. For a while, Daredevil thought that Fisk stole the election, but that ended up not being true.

I thought that bit was a great joke. "When the Kingpin goes vegan, everybody goes vegan."

Edited by alliterator on Jan 20th 2019 at 4:44:33 AM

Ah, I see. So comics logic.

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I mean, really, people are stupid, inside and outside of comics. If you think that a billionaire businessman with secret underworld criminal dealings can't be elected into a position of power...uh, fill in the Trump joke here. (I know Kingpin's underworld dealings were less "secret" than Trump's, but then again, Wilson Fisk is also a much better businessman than Trump ever was.)

Edited by alliterator on Jan 20th 2019 at 4:51:48 AM

Kingpin becoming Mayor of New York feels way more logical than Luthor becoming POTUS. Luthor was imprisoned and exposed as a mass murderer and so on, and was a creep and somehow he got elected because Luthor becoming Prez was a story people wanted to do. And you know Luthor as this businessman was based on Miller's Kingpin so this is Fisk getting his own back. I was never a big fan of Luthor (my favorite Superman bad guys are Mxyzsptlk and Brainiac, and Bizarro and Darkseid of course) and to the extent that I liked him, I prefer him as a Silver Age criminal mastermind and Mad Scientist a la the final seasons of Justice League...and I am not a big fan of the Kingpin either as a villain but him being this untouchable crimelord/businessman and so on makes sense, and in any case after Osborn's time as head of Hammer and so on this doesn't feel that much of a step up.

I mean look at the real Mayors of New York...Rudy Giuliani who had a hero's reputation after 9/11 which overshadowed his involvement with gentrification adn then he's become this Fox News clown since 2016. Then you have Michael Bloomberg, who is his own bag of tricks. Then you had Bill de Blasio who is controversial among police but some on the left feel he's not liberal enough but others see him as a second Laguardia. Laguardia is New York's greatest mayor and so on, but even that guy has issues with the blank check he gave Robert Moses who inspired Kingpin's portrayal in the Netflix show. You also had other controversial mayors like Ed Koch.

Fisk is sadly, not entirely out of place there. Though him becoming Mayor does open a can of worms if he's supposed to be Giuliani, Bloomberg, or de Blasio. It's the first time Marvel have stepped in DC Territory and inserting fictional characters into real history.

Honestly some people would probably vote for a proven serial killer if he was the only candidate from their party.

There was even one political hopeful, Byron Looper, who straight-up personally murdered his opponent. He lost, though; his opponent's widow decided to run in his place and crushed him.

Edited by HamburgerTime on Jan 20th 2019 at 7:43:47 AM

The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: "You are Hagrid now."

Can't wait for that President Osborn arc. Paint the White House Green? Air Glider One

We did that already, it was called Dark Reign. Many people thought it was pretty good.

The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: "You are Hagrid now."

Yeah, President Osborn has happened at least twice IIRC, though mostly in Alternate Universes.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Jan 20th 2019 at 6:19:47 AM

We are going to build a bridge and make The Avengers pay for it. Also will Norman serve KFC during cabal meetings?

Look if the Kingpin has the voice of his 90s incarnation, I'd vote for him.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.

What about the Vincent D'Onofrio Kingpin? Would you vote for him? Because he's pretty awesome.

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Haven't seen Daredevil Netflix.

But you gotta admit 90s Kingpin is damn charismatic.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.

Couldn't remember what he sounded like, so I checked a video. And, meh, didn't work for me. A little more hammy than I would've preferred. I also always imagine the character with a deeper voice.

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D'Onofrio's Kingpin is quite good. But Kingpin will never be President. He's more a New Yorker than an American, just like Spider-man in that respect. That's what that big prison scene in Season 2 is all about.

Making Fisk the head of the Legion of Doom in Spider-Verse was pretty interesting, though not bad.

The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: "You are Hagrid now."

See one of my problems with Kingpin is that I can't buy him as a Spider-Man villain. I didn't like it in USM when Bendis did it, and i could never take Fisk seriously after Back in Black. That story killed Kingpin as a Spidey villain for good. Him being in Daredevil was the best for him but taken out of that he looks silly.

Still in ITSV he was done well. I mean a Black Latino kid beating up a rich white New York businessman who lives in a tower...yeah on the nose but totally worth it.

He’s more a New Yorker than an American??

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Most New Yorkers are Americans...

Where there's life, there's hope.

Again, see Donald Trump. And Luthor's a lot smarter than the World's Most Obnoxious Orange.

Think he means Kingpins power base and character is mostly in New York.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.

Anyone who has read up on New York history and culture, read Jonathan Lethem or Fran Liebovitz, will know that historically New Yorkers had this sense of identity separate from being Americans. There's that famous cartoon, on the page image of Big Applesauce about how Manhattanites see the rest of America. And in the 60s and 70s, The Big Rotten Apple era where New York was told to "Drop dead" during stagflation heightened that. 9/11 changed that for a while but Occupy Wall Street revived that old divide. The fact that the city went overwhelmingly anti-Trump (despite the fact that Trump and his tower is in the city and from the city) is proof of that, but then as per the popular vote, most Americans were, and as per approval.

In the case of Marvel, Spider-Man feels more tied to New York than America as a whole. I can never see him as a Captain America. Spider-Man feels about New York the way T'Challa feels about Wakanda as a whole. Kingpin is much the same. He feels about New York and Hell's Kitchen (and the Marvel version of Hell's Kitchen might as well as be its own Gotham-like fake city), like Dr. Doom feels about the whole of Latveria.

As far as predicting Trump goes, the Simpsons did it first in that future episode. I don't think Luthor works as POTUS the same reason why I never bought him as a Corporate guy. I mean yeah Cut Lex Luthor a Check and so on but this is a guy with a mad-on hatred for Superman. That kind of irrational hatred goes against the stuff that you would need to be a captain of industry and businessman. Luthor being the son of a rich businessman kind of explains that but again it takes away from Luthor's Villainous Underdog stature if he didn't do all his stuff by himself.

Wilson Fisk is a rational operator and pragmatist underneath everything, Luthor has always been a psychopath with Irrational Hatred. Putting Fisk behind a desk and in an office room and so on doesn't diminish him but Luthor behind a desk and in a boardroom makes his conflict with Superman impersonal. Alan Moore in Swamp Thing showed Luthor as a consulting supervillain and freelance mercenary and that to me makes more sense than "skinny Kingpin" (as Neil Gaiman called him).

The Luthor in post crisis is supposed to be very different from the guy in the Silver Age.

Also, Fisk is not without his irrational moments. When a rookie waiter at his favorite restaurant handed him a check (unaware Fisk is never charged for his meals), Fisk told an underling to hunt the guy down and make sure the hand that held the check is wrecked beyond repair. Having an irrational hatred from a person doesn't mean you can't be a captain of industry. It depends on how well you keep it under wraps.

Yeah. In Daredevil #290, Fisk crushes the head of one of his own Lawyers for using big words like Noblesse Oblige is Quid Pro Quo.

It's because it points to the formers uneducated roots and all that.

Fisk is not a classy dude. He just dresses like one.

Edited by HandsomeRob on Jan 20th 2019 at 11:14:03 AM

One Strip! One Strip!

I am aware of that. It's just that I still think that the Silver Age bad guy is more satisfying. Take the DCAU. You had businessman Lex in the Superman cartoons and the Silver Age Mad Scientist in the Justice League after the latter shut down his business empire and bring him to jail. The latter is a more impressive character and villain than the former. But then I really don't think Luthor is as great a supervillain as people think he is. I accept that he's this iconic villain and central to Superman's story but to me Superman's real impressive and interesting villains are Brainiac, Mr. Mxyzsptlk, Darkseid. The whole idea of Luthor as this human opposing this alien Superman misses the point that Superman is human and that when Superman opposes Brainiac and others he is both defending and representing humanity.

And Luthor in the Post-Crisis is still at heart a sadist and psycho, just that he has this Mask of Sanity.

I know Fisk is a thug and gangster with Delusions of Eloquence but he is essentially pragmatic and has self-interest and self-preservation going for him.

In Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, his grand plan is to destroy the world to spite Superman and Spider-Man convinces Dr. Octopus (who is basically a Hero-Worshipper of Luthor) that he won't be able to spend any of his ill-gotten gains in a destroyed world, and that leads him to turn on Lex.

That's who Luthor is.

Edited by Revolutionary_Jack on Jan 20th 2019 at 10:21:14 AM

Good characters have more than one side to them. Luthor can be irrational at times and pragmatic other times. And honestly dismissing him as "skinny Kingpin" is far too simplistic.

Well Lex and Kingpin do have that diabolical mastermind/chessmaster qualities that keep them in business. Let's be honest a lot of super-villains are badly outclassed by the Heroes, it's how smart they are that keep them in business. With Lex, i always liked the evil businessman character because it makes him such a good challenge to Superman, Superman has all this power but this simple bald man is untouchable because of all his wealth, connections, and intelligence so Superman is faced with someone who he cannot stop like he stop all the other villains which sets Lex apart from the usual rogues gallery. He's not insane, he cares deeply about his image, but he's still a psychopath. The worst kind of psychopath: the one that looks like a normal human, and will do anything to achieve what he wants. The Joker destroys, Lex Luthor builds. Both Lex and Supes are basically different interpretations of the American dream.

Now with Kingpin, at least in USM works for me, because that Peter is still getting the hang of super-heroics and has to learn how brutal and unfair adults can be, and that punching people does not get results all the time. Bendis also gave Kingpin some great lines and speeches. With 616 Kingpin while back in black was very humiliating for him, that was a gloves come off pissed off Peter, as long as Marvel doesn't hype up Kingpin as a physical threat and keeps him as a mastermind type character, then he's good.

I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.