KINGPIN

Friday, October 30, 2026Earth-616 canonDevil's Reign Vol. 1 #1 (2021)

Today's Fact

Checked against independent sources — the issues are cited below.

THE KINGPIN BECAME MAYOR OF NEW YORK — AND USED CITY HALL TO OUTLAW EVERY SUPERHERO IN TOWN!
The Featured Fact

Wilson Fisk spent decades trying to own New York from underneath it. In 2017 he simply bought the top floor instead: running on an anti-vigilante platform in the chaos after a citywide crisis, the former Kingpin of Crime was elected Mayor of New York City — in Daredevil Vol. 5 #28 — and took office with his criminal record rebranded as executive experience.

The office came with levers his empire never had: budgets, police, and the law itself. Fisk governed as a respectable reformer for years of story time, appointing none other than Matt Murdock as a deputy mayor — never knowing his own appointee was Daredevil, because the memory of that identity had been wiped from his mind by the Purple Man's children.

The wipe is what ended him. Finding physical proof that he had once known Daredevil's name, and feeling the hole where the knowledge used to be, Fisk turned his grievance into legislation: the Powers Act, outlawing all unsanctioned superhero activity in the city. In Devil's Reign (2021–2022) his Thunderbolts units arrested heroes in the streets, seized the Baxter Building, and jailed members of the Fantastic Four and Moon Knight under colour of law.

The reign broke on the oldest Fisk weakness — his own hands. Caught using mind-control to rig his re-election and seen murdering the man he believed was Murdock, the mayor was arrested, and New York elected Luke Cage to replace him. The Kingpin had finally run the city legally, and discovered the one thing a crime empire never faces: voters, cameras, and a paper trail.

Why It's Obscure

A crime boss wins an election, misplaces one memory, and criminalises the Avengers' entire profession.

2017
The election — Daredevil Vol. 5 #28 puts Wilson Fisk in Gracie Mansion; the most wanted man in the city's underworld becomes its chief executive without changing his tailor.
The gap
The missing name — Fisk knew his enemy's identity for years, until the Purple Man's children erased it from everyone's memory; governing a city while sensing the hole in his own head is what radicalised the mayor.
The Act
Law as a weapon — the Powers Act banned vigilantism and superhuman activity inside city limits, letting Fisk hunt heroes with warrants and Thunderbolts units instead of hitmen.
2021
Devil's Reign — the six-issue event (2021–2022) is the mayoralty's endgame: heroes imprisoned in the Myrmidon, the Baxter Building seized, and an election stolen by mind control.
Succession
Replaced by a hero — after Fisk's arrest, Luke Cage — a man Fisk's law had made a fugitive — won the mayor's office, completing the city's most ironic transfer of power.

Sources

Every claim above is verified against at least two of these independent sources.

Bullpen Bulletins

  1. Devil's Reign — WikipediaEvent overview confirming that Mayor Wilson Fisk outlawed all superheroes in New York City to increase his power, deployed Thunderbolts units, imprisoned heroes, and fell after the mind-control re-election scheme, leaving Luke Cage as mayor.
  2. How Mayor Kingpin ends in the comics — PolygonRecounts Fisk's election in Daredevil Vol. 5 #28 (2017), his appointment of Matt Murdock, the erased memory of Daredevil's identity, and the Powers Act banning vigilantism that drives Devil's Reign.
  3. Devil's Reign: A Clash for New York's Soul — The Cosmic CircusAnalysis of Fisk using his mayoral authority to outlaw superheroes, driven by fury that his knowledge of Daredevil's identity was taken from him by the Purple Man's powers.