Vanessa Fisk

Vanessa Fisk (née Marianna) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She is married to the crime boss the Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) and is the mother of Richard Fisk, although she herself is not portrayed as a villain, and does not approve of her husband's criminal activities. Vanessa has been featured in a number of stories about the Kingpin, usually in those revolving around the superheroes Daredevil and Spider-Man.

Vanessa Fisk has been adapted in other media, such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) television series '' Daredevil'' (2015–2018) and '' Daredevil: Born Again'' (2025), portrayed by Ayelet Zurer.

Publication history

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

Fictional character biography

Little is known about Fisk's personal life and early years other than her maiden name "Marianna". 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.

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.

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.

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. As planned, this drove Kingpin back into the world of crime, although he found out Lynch was behind the explosion, partially due to a headache he gained, and took revenge by murdering him. He then forced the remaining mob leaders to confess to hiring the assassin Bullseye to kill several of Kingpin's men.

Weeks later, Matt Murdock's alter ego, Daredevil, found Vanessa in the sewers. Being buried alive had left Vanessa amnesiac and mentally unstable, and she ended up taken in by a mutant who lived in the sewers. Daredevil ultimately used her as leverage to force Kingpin to order his puppet Randolph Cherryh, newly elected to the office of Mayor, to resign and to confirm to the media that he was indeed a mob puppet. After reuniting with her Kingpin had Vanessa, now-catatonic, sent to a sanitarium in Europe to have her regain her sanity. This would take years, and Kingpin's organized crime empire would fall and be rebuilt during the period that Vanessa was institutionalized.

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.

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 Iron Fist into posing as Daredevil, which ultimately drove Murdock to break out of prison to find Foggy's murderer and the identity of the man impersonating him, culminating in her confronting Murdock with an offer to clear his name in exchange for him clearing Kingpin, so they would be free to try and kill each other anew.

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.

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.

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. 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.

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".

After Mayor Fisk starts planning to have Peter Parker killed, as he is the roommate of Fred Myers who is blackmailing him, the mysterious undead entity Kindred appears in his cabinet. He kills Fisk's associates using supernatural abilities and forces him to back off Parker after revealing he is in possession of Vanessa's soul.

Mayor Fisk planned to revive Vanessa by obtaining the Tablet of Life and Destiny and its sister counterpart the Tablet of Death and Entropy. 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.

Other versions

* An alternate universe variant of Vanessa Fisk appears in ''Batman & Spider-Man: New Age Dawning'' #1.
* An alternate universe variant of Vanessa Fisk appears in ''Marvel Zombies 3'' #2. This version was secretly kept alive by a zombified Kingpin, who is initially able to control his hunger for human flesh in her presence. After Machine Man and Jocasta destroy his clone factory however, the Kingpin consumes Vanessa.
* An alternate universe variant of Vanessa Fisk from Earth-1610 appears in ''Ultimate Spider-Man''. This version was rendered comatose.
* An alternate universe variant of Vanessa Fisk appears in '' Punisher Max''. This version's marriage with Wilson Fisk collapsed after his takeover of the mob results in their eight-year-old son Richard being killed. Blaming Wilson for not saving him, she mounts an unsuccessful assassination attempt, only to be evicted for it. Sometime later, she falls in love with Elektra and hires her to infiltrate Wilson's operations. Following Wilson's death, Vanessa has him cremated, flushes his ashes down a toilet, and takes over his criminal empire before she is killed by Nick Fury.

In other media

Television

* Vanessa Fisk appears in ''Spider-Man'' (1994), voiced by Caroline Goodall. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its credits or other reliable sources of information. This version goes on to divorce Wilson Fisk; unable to tolerate his criminal lifestyle.
* Vanessa Marianna, later Vanessa Marianna-Fisk, appears in television series set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), portrayed by Ayelet Zurer. Introduced in '' Daredevil'' (2015–2018), she returns in the first season of '' Daredevil: Born Again'' (2025). When ''Born Again'' was announced in March 2023, Sandrine Holt was originally cast to replace Zurer in the role due to scheduling conflicts. However, Zurer returned following a creative overhaul of the series in late 2023.

Film

Vanessa Fisk appears in '' Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse'' (2018), voiced by Lake Bell. This version was unaware of her husband's criminal activities until she and Richard Fisk witnessed him fighting Spider-Man. After they flee in horror and are killed in a car accident, Wilson spearheads the creation of the "Super-Collider" to find alternate variants of his family in the multiverse.

Miscellaneous

Vanessa Fisk appears in the novel ''Spider-Man: Forever Young'', written by Stefan Petrucha. Two years after the "Tablet" storyline, Vanessa considers using the Tablet to heal a comatose Kingpin. In return for Peter Parker's help in finding the tablet, she offers to use her family's resources to assist an ailing May Parker. Though Vanessa later abandons the idea of using the tablet after witnessing its effects on Silvermane, she honors her agreement with Peter and pays for May's medical care.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fisk, Vanessa
Characters created by John Romita Sr.
Characters created by Stan Lee
Comics characters introduced in 1969
Daredevil (Marvel Comics) characters
Fictional crime bosses
Fictional female gangsters
Fictional female murderers
Female characters in comics
Marvel Comics female supervillains
Spider-Man characters