Long ago comic book / Marvel fanboy here; gave up regular reading of comic book about the time I turned 30 (not gonna say how long ago that was, but a while ago), though I still try to check in with Comic Book Resources every now and again.
Anyway, IIRC the character Kingpin was originally a Spider-Man villain. In fact, he was one of the big ‘heavies’ (no pun intended) of the series - one of Spidey’s chief nemeses up there with Doc Ock and the Green Goblin.
I never followed the Daredevil comic book series - I don’t know why I never warmed up to the character (apart from the fact that I disliked 80s style “grim & gritty” superheroes, which Daredevil is so associated with), but somewhere along the way, Kingpin started appeariong regularly there and has since become his arch-nemesis, to the point that you couldn’t possibly have a Daredevil movie or TV show without him (It’d be like making a Superman movie/show without Lex Luthor ever showing up.) As for Spider-Man, it’s as if the two characters have never associated.
Of course, Marvel’s shared universe policy means that characters can easily cross-over to other series. For example, EVERY superhero who’s ever held a title for a substantial amount of time has fought Dr. Doom evenutally. But I don’t recall another instance in which a villain character primarily created to be an antagonist for one character/series (Spider-Man) winds up being more closely associated with another (Daredevil) , much less become the Big Bad of another series.
So when and how did Kingpin switch allegiances so to speak? And can anybody think of a similar example?
Kind of off topic, but oh how I wish we COULD have a Superman show without Lex Luthor. I hate him as a villain and every imagining of him so far has been fairly lame.
Slightly-related, Captain Marvel/Shazam also has a colorful rogue’s gallery, none of whom (that I can recall) were even lightly adapted for the mid-1970s TV series, though in fairness that show was clearly about teaching moral lessons rather than presenting adventures.
They missed a bet there. There were a lot of Mad Scientist stories that they ran that could have easily been Luthor stories. I have always wondered why they didn’t go there.
Nice article. A curious omission: Frank Miller gave the Kingpin the name “Wilson Fisk.” He was never given a name in his early appearances.
He’s also a frequent adversary of the Punisher and in fact was killed by him right before Marvel hit its “reset” button, so some version of the character is likely to pop up again soon.
