Vanessa Fisk

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Vanessa Fisk (

Vanessa Fisk has been adapted in other media, including live-action appearances within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), where she is portrayed by Ayelet Zurer in the first and third seasons of the Netflix television series Daredevil (2015–2018), and will reprise the role in the upcoming Disney+ series Daredevil: Born Again (2025).

Publication history

Created by writer Stan Lee and artist John Romita Sr., Fisk first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #70 (March 1969).^[2]

Fictional character biography

Little is known about Fisk's personal life and early years other than her maiden name "Marianna".^[1] Despite being married to Wilson Fisk, the "Kingpin" of New York's criminal underworld, she did not approve of his criminal activities. At one point their son Richard Fisk became involved in a plot to overthrow his father's criminal syndicate after discovering he was the Kingpin.^[3]

After the Kingpin had a near-death experience, Vanessa gave him an ultimatum; he had twenty-four hours to get out of crime, or she would leave him. The Kingpin was about to kill Spider-Man when the deadline passed, and Vanessa forced him to choose between Spider-Man's life or their life together. He chose Vanessa and spared Spider-Man as a result.^[4]

The two went into retirement in Japan. Kingpin prepared to settle his remaining business with his fellow mobsters by cooperating with the authorities and leaving the world of crime forever. This infuriated one of Kingpin's closest advisors, Lynch, who believed that Vanessa was a liability and had turned the once mighty Kingpin into a henpecked husband. When Kingpin's former lieutenants in New York caught wind of his plans to sell them out in exchange for immunity, they kidnapped Vanessa, who was in town to secure the legal services of Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson.^[5]

Kingpin started a gang war against the mob in New York to rescue Vanessa. The mob bosses attempted to ransom Vanessa in exchange for the evidence against them Kingpin had intended to turn over to the authorities, but during the exchange, Kingpin used a sonic device to stop the criminals, and found Vanessa bound and gagged in a building. However, Lynch fired an explosive at Vanessa, in an attempt to deprive Kingpin of the thing that kept him retired and bring him back as the Kingpin of Crime. She was buried alive in the rubble and presumed dead, although she did not actually die.

Ultimately Vanessa recovered, and she remained in Europe. When Kingpin was the victim of an assassination attempt orchestrated by her son, Vanessa arranged for Kingpin to be shipped out of the country to recover from his injuries, and cut a deal with his fellow mob bosses to divide up his recently rebuilt crime syndicate in exchange for a truce. Vanessa then murdered her son, who admitted to Vanessa that his motivation was to rid the family of his father, who he blamed for his family's troubles.^[volume & issue needed]

Murdering her son had a physical toll on Vanessa, causing her to lose the will to live, which along with the injuries she sustained when she was buried alive, resulted in terminal organ failure. Blaming both Kingpin and Murdock, who had recently been revealed to be Daredevil, for the cycle of violence that had consumed her family, Vanessa faked the death of Foggy in an attempt to provoke Murdock into killing Kingpin while they were both in prison. When that failed, she manipulated the superhero

Though Daredevil refused this deal, Vanessa went ahead and arranged for the murder of Leland Drummond, the corrupt FBI director who outed Matt in order to advance his own career within the FBI. To discredit his outing of Daredevil, the murder was made to look like a suicide and a false suicide note was planted at the scene, claiming that Drummond killed himself after it became apparent that his scheme to frame Matt Murdock was about to be exposed. Shortly afterwards, Vanessa died and Murdock was guilted into serving as the Kingpin's lawyer, getting the charges dropped on the grounds that the evidence was too tainted to bring him to court. Daredevil forced the crime boss to renounce his American citizenship and leave the country forever in exchange for his legal services, stating that any attempt to continue their vendetta would be an insult to the memory of Vanessa.^[9]

Kingpin is later seen at her grave where he breaks down emotionally. She has since been talking to him as a ghostly vision taunting him that he will never regain his former glory, an indication that her death still greatly affects him.^{[volume & issue needed]}

The Arbiters bring Vanessa back as a revenant as a part of a test intended to gauge the Kingpin's worth as the head of the Hand.^[10] Reluctant to combat her, Fisk tries to appeal to whatever humanity that she may still have left in her, and kills her when she still flings her weapons at him, unaware that she was aiming at the assassin approaching him from behind.^[11]

The new Jackal "reanimates" Vanessa in an attempt to coerce the Kingpin into allying with him in Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy. While initially receptive, the Kingpin responds by killing Vanessa after she declares their son can be revived as well, while declaring, "That wasn't my wife. That was an abomination".^[12]

After Mayor Fisk starts planning to have Peter Parker killed, as he is the roommate of

Mayor Fisk planned to revive Vanessa by obtaining the Tablet of Life and Destiny and its sister counterpart the Tablet of Death and Entropy.[14] Upon getting his hands on both tablets, Fisk uses its abilities to revive Richard Fisk as Kingpin realized that Vanessa would not be pleased with her resurrection. He did this as an act of redemption for Vanessa and even himself.^[15]

Other versions

In the Marvel/DC crossover book Batman & Spider-Man: New Age Dawning #1, Vanessa is infected with terminal cancer by Ra's al Ghul, who offers the Kingpin the cure for it in exchange for his help in a plot that will destroy New York. Disgruntled under Ra's, the Kingpin forms an alliance with Spider-Man and Batman and succeeds in defeating Ra's, only to be denied the cure for Vanessa's cancer by the beaten eco-terrorist. Vanessa is cured near the end of the storyline by an antidote provided by Ra's al Ghul's daughter Talia al Ghul, who recognizes Vanessa as a kindred spirit, as both of them loved men that society would regard as monsters.

In the alternate universe of Marvel Zombies 3, it is revealed that she was not infected or eaten when the zombies took over the world, but has been secretly kept alive by the zombified Kingpin, who is able to control his hunger for human flesh when she is around. However, when the Kingpin's clone factory is destroyed by Machine Man and Jocasta, he consumes Vanessa, observing that he eats when he's upset.^[16]

Vanessa Fisk appears as an important background character in