Appearing in 1st story
Featured Characters:
- Daredevil (Samuel Fisk) (First appearance) (also as Kingpin)
Supporting Characters:
- Elaine Fisk (First appearance)
- Sebastian Fisk (Mentioned)
Antagonists:
Other Characters:
- Kingpin (Wilson Fisk) (First appearance) (Picture)
- Daredevil (Matthew Murdock) (Mentioned) (First appearance)
- Blood Rose (Richard Fisk) (Mentioned) (First appearance)
- Two assailants
- A female victim
- Two police officers
- A bartender
- Elaine Fisk's lover (Death)
Locations:
Items:
Vehicles:
Synopsis for 1st story
"In the end, he won." That's what Samuel Fisk was always told about his crime-lord grandfather and his rivalry with the costumed crime-fighter, Daredevil. Currently, Samuel Fisk sits in his car in Hell's Kitchen, sipping coffee and listening to a police scanner. His thoughts are interrupted by a report of a "401" in progress at Lexington and 32nd. Not worth his time, he again focuses inward, think about his grandfather. Wilson Fisk had personally ended his rival's life after nearly two decades of conflict. That victory in turn became the defining point in Samuel's father's life: knowing that his father had achieved such greatness. Samuel recalls when he was ten years old, and the way his father's eyes would light up as he again told the tale of the "Fisk Family Triumph". The memory sickens Samuel now as much as the story did then.
Again Samuel's thoughts are broken, this time by a call to respond to an alley-way disturbance on Broome Street, between Wooster and Greene. The closest police unit is halfway across town, and dispatch insists they need flesh-and-blood, not sentinels. It looks like Sam's finally up. He punches an arcane sequence of keys on his car's suspiciously high-tech interior. He crosses his arms as his seat reclines, robotic arms dressing him in armor as recalls how his family's bloody history has haunted him. He spent a good portion of the family fortune on the state-of-the-art equipment, all so he could go out and redeem the family name. He is a crime-fighter. His car's roof slides open, and he is launched to rooftops like a rocket. Nor is he just any crime-fighter: he has taken up the mantle of his grandfather's greatest enemy, a testament to his guilt.
He is Daredevil. And as much as he would like to pretend to be a Man Without Fear, this part scares him every single time. Landing on the rooftop, he's thankful that the launcher seems to have finally be calibrated correctly. (He's not hanging from a window ledge or splashing down in the Hudson.) He could have spent months training, getting his body into peak physical condition. Instead, Samuel Fisk admits he's never been one to turn his back on the easy way out. The original Daredevil had "magic powers", extra senses... Sam just has an enormous bank account. His armor boosts his strength, his speed, his agility, it even hides how flabby he is. half the time he doesn't even move; his body suggests a movement, and the suit follows through for him. Right now, his suit helps him drop down from rooftop to the alley, landing on his feet beside two armed men and their female victim.
"Daredevil!" cries the one -- a black man with a sub-machine gun -- while his knife-wielding, mohawk-wearing counterpart secures the woman as a hostage.
"I see I'm finally getting a reputation," Fisk remarks, reaching for the billy club that emerges from a small compartment on his thigh. He throws his club just before the mugger can fire. Unfortunately, he misses by a wide margin, and the club hits a brick wall, falling to the ground with a light "klink." As he's being shot repeatedly in the chest, Fisk wonders. First, why he always tries to use that thing, and second how on Earth Murdock ever used it in the first place. Luckily, he keeps a back up handy. While the assailant loads another clip, Fisk's armor opens to reveal his own pistols. The assailant with the knife tries to flee, throwing the woman to the ground. The suit does all the aiming, helping Fisk hit the two squarely in the chest and back. The bullets are a solid sedative that dissolves when it his the blood (non-lethal, but still painful). Daredevil has time to make sure their victim is alright before the police (finally) arrive. Small jets power his jump back up to the fire escape before the police see him.
By this time it's getting late, so Samuel decides to retire home. He pulls up past the large fountain (complete with statue of his grandfather) to his large mansion (complete with numerous paintings of his grandfather). His wife gives him the usual "warm reception."
"Where have you been?!" she demands, rushing down the stairs. Fisk claims that he had late work, and that it couldn't be helped. "What do you have to do that's so important?!" By this time she's screaming. Head hung low, Fisk tries to calm her, telling her she'll wake their son Sebastian. "Then at least you'd get to see him -- maybe even say two words to him. That's more than he's gotten out of you in the last three months!" Samuel finally loses his composure.
"It's something I have to do, Elaine." It's then that she realizes where he's been. That he's been doing it again. She asks him about when he quit, but he claims that he simply can't. "They'll kill you if they find out! Do you realize that?! You'll make a widow out of me!" Again, he says that they'll never find out, and that it's just something he has to do. She leaves the house in a huff, saying that she can't stand to see him destroy himself. As she drives off, Samuel is confident she'll be back by morning with an insincere apology.
"She could never settle for just half of my money."
The next morning, Samuel sits in on a particularly boring board meeting at Fisk Tower. Elaine never did come home. Between worrying about where she is and the lack of sleep, he isn't listening to a word the men in front of him are saying. He just keeps looking out the window, and thinking about being out the window.
That night, Fisk is in costume and vaulting across the rooftops. The sentinel program has done it's job well. Aside from the rare occurrence like last night, they've almost entirely eliminated the need for traditional law enforcement. While not quite redundant, the current Daredevil realizes he's not needed nearly as much as his predecessor. Case in point: it's a slow night, so he finally has a chance to track down his wife. He spies her through a window kissing another man. He's prepared to see it, but it doesn't make it any easier. He needs to hit something.
He crashes into the alley below, cracking the pavement and landing within 50 feet of a patrolling sentinel. "You are not authorized to be in this alley. Your identity is not on file. State the nature of your business, or allow yourself to be brought in for questioning." Yeah, this'll do. Sam rushes the sentinel, it's blasts grazing off the armor. He can't decide whether to picture his wife or the guy she was with. In the end, he just takes turns as he punches the sentinel into a pile of scrap clogging the streets. He never was able to overcome that Fisk temper. It's only after two more sentinels arrive to take him in (for violating ordinance 7918: vandalizing of a Sentinel Unit), that he realizes what he's gotten into. He jets up to the rooftops, and away from the Sentinels.
Fisk broke his hand demolishing the sentinel, so he decides to drown his sorrows. He's barely opened the door of the dock-side bar before the cry of "salut!" goes up from everyone inside. After all these years, he's still not sure if the good cheer is actually for him, or out of respect for his bloodline. He tells the bartender to bring back his usual -- but double. In the empty backroom, the bar tender asks Sam if everything is alright, and is asked to sit. Fisk is direct. Elaine is cheating on him, he caught her in a hotel room with another man. The thing is, Fisk is more upset with himself than her: he saw it coming, maybe even sooner. The bartender's best advice is not to dwell on it, just go onward and upward. "If it really bothers you... you could always have her killed." Fisk grows indignant, stating he could never do that, and it's not a very good joke either. He says he's made some calls, and they'll handle the situation like civilized people.
The bartender wishes him luck and returns to work just as Fisk's cell phone goes off. The news is good; they found him. Fisk finishes his drink and goes to meet them at Fisk Tower. As he makes his way to his office, he reflects on the path he has chosen. Haunted by guilt over his family's crimes he has taken the mantle of their most hated enemy. Though the course is dangerous for him and his family, he continues, and ends up driving his wife into the arms of another man. "If only she could understand. All the pain I have to live with. All the sorrow in my life. I must redeem myself for all the pain and sorrow my family has brought to this world."
As he enters the office, he takes a pistol from a very serious-looking man with a crew cut. The man his wife had been with is sitting in chair with his hands tied behind him. His nose is red and broken, his shirt bloody, and tears have been streaming down his face. So this is him? "Yes sir, mister Kingpin." In the end, he has two legacies to continue.
"It's just Kingpin. No 'mister'." The man in the chair can only sob as Samuel Fisk pulls the trigger.
Notes
- The Marvel Knights 2099 series of one-shots were released to commemorate the fifth (technically sixth) anniversary of the successful Marvel Knights imprint.
- This cover intentionally emulates the "alternative" cover of Marvel Knights' Daredevil issue No. 1 (November 1998)
