Wilson Fisk (Earth-701306)

Wilson fisk, a.k.a. "The Kingpin" is a crimelord and central antagonist to Daredevil.

Daredevil
When Wilson Fisk was a young man, he started out his criminal career as an enforcer for a mob boss named Falon, in which capacity he was hired to kill Jack "The Devil" Murdock after he refused to throw a fight. Years later, Fisk became a crime boss in his own right and successfully hid his criminal activities from the public, although the media picked up on reports of a "Kingpin", running all crime in the city. He hired Bullseye to kill Nikolas Natchios (attempting to frame Natchios as the Kingpin in the process). He was successful, but Fisk also wanted Natchios' family killed as well and hired Bullseye to kill Natchios' daughter, Elektra, as well as the troublesome Daredevil. After he supposedly killed Elektra, Bullseye lost to Daredevil, although he revealed that Fisk was really the Kingpin during the fight. Having learned of his assassin's failure, Daredevil and Kingpin confronted each other in a final showdown.

Due mainly to his injured shoulder - stabbed by Elektra when she believed him to be her father's killer- Daredevil was severely beaten by Fisk, who unmasked him, revealing that Daredevil was really "the blind lawyer from Hell's Kitchen", Matt Murdock, who Kingpin met at the party that took place prior to Nicholas Natchios' death. Daredevil nevertheless managed to make a comeback, triggering the sprinkler system in Fisk's office - thus allowing him to better 'see' his opponent while rendering Fisk practically blind- and subsequently paralyzing Fisk by sliding behind him and breaking his kneecaps. Daredevil prepared to kill Fisk to take revenge for his father and for Elektra by impaling him with a steel pike, but let the Kingpin live so as not to stoop to his level.

Instead, Daredevil left Fisk for the police, who had learned of his identity as the Kingpin after one of Fisk's henchmen had been caught by the police. Fisk threatened to tell everyone who Daredevil really was, until Daredevil pointed out that revealing to his prison inmates that he had been beaten by a blind man was the equivalent of suicide. Nevertheless, Kingpin swore that he'd get out of jail soon and that he'd be back to kill Daredevil, who merely said he would be waiting.

Relationships

 * Daredevil - Enemy.
 * Bullseye - Assassin for hire.
 * Wesley Welch - Assistant.

Behind the scenes

 * For the role, Duncan, who already weighed 290 pounds, was asked to gain 40 pounds for the role in order to fit the physique of Kingpin. In order to do this, he would power lift with one or two reps a day, lift weights for 30 minutes a day as well as eating whatever he wanted. Despite this, Duncan's biggest concern was that he is black, whilst Kingpin has always been portrayed as white. He spoke on the fan's loyalty to the source material by saying "they watch movies to say, 'Hey, that's not like the comic book.' But I want them to get past that and just see the movie for what it is and see me for what I am—an actor."

Appearances/Actors

 * Canon (1 film)
 * Daredevil - Michael Clarke Duncan
 * Non-Canon (1 film)
 * The Trial of the Incredible Hulk (First appearance) - John Rhys Davies

Trivia

 * In the comics The Kingpin was originally among Spider-Man's rogue gallery of enemies since the character's introduction in Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 1, No. 50, but sometime in the 1980s he was established as a major enemy for Daredevil, therefore he was included in the film as the main villian.
 * Additionally, due to the fact that films rights to Daredevil and related characters (The Kingpin, Bullseye, Elektra, etc.) belong to 20th Century Fox, Kingpin was unable to crossover to the Spider-Man film franchise since that franchise was a property of Sony Pictures Entertainment/Columbia Pictures. Nevertheless, a version of the Kingpin based on the film incarnation appeared once on the short-lived CGI Spider-Man series for MTV, which was a loose adaptation of the 2002 Spider-Man film. Michael Clarke Duncan even reprised the role.