Warning! Spoilers for Heroes Reborn: Squadron Savage #1
The Marvel Universe is home to so many diabolical villains that it can be hard to keep track of them all - and even harder to rank them. However, Heroes Reborn just proved that Kingpin just might be one of the worst villains Marvel has to offer.
Marvel’s ongoing Heroes Reborn event is set in an alternate reality where the Avengers have been replaced by the Squadron Supreme, who are essentially Marvel’s Justice League. While the members of the Squadron are incredibly brutal by typical superhero standards, the people pulling their strings behind the scenes are even worse. Phil Coulson, who has taken on a much more evil role in the comics, is the President of the United States and working directly with Mephisto. Additionally, a new comic set in this alternate reality just revealed that Wilson Fisk has a major role in Coulson’s cabinet.
Heroes Reborn: Squadron Savage #1 by Ethan Sacks and Luca Pizzari unveils what is essentially Marvel’s equivalent of DC’s Suicide Squad. Led by Elektra, the Squadron Savage operates under the radar and goes where the Squadron Supreme can’t. This team of assassins essentially does the US government’s dirty work under direct supervision of the Secretary of Defense, whose face is obscured for most of the issue. However, the end of the story reveals that the Secretary is none other than Kingpin himself, who has the entire unit’s mind wiped before their next mission.
Seeing as Mephisto has made himself God in the world of Heroes Reborn, its safe to assume he selected Kingpin as the Secretary of Defense in his reshaped reality, which speaks volumes about Fisk’s villainy. Kingpin may not be a conqueror of worlds like Thanos or Kang, but he has done some truly awful things in his day. As one of New York's most infamous crime bosses in Marvel's main reality, Fisk has wreaked havoc on the city countless times, often restoring to torturing and murdering those who oppose him. He's even gone after those closest to Spider-Man and Daredevil, the two heroes who he most often clashes with, in an effort to get back at them for meddling with his affairs. However, its Kingpins’s lust for power that likely made him so appealing to Mephisto and earned him the role of Secretary of Defense.
Had Coulson not been literally resurrected as Mephisto’s thrall, it’s possible Fisk would have been made president in his stead. Still, the underhanded work of the Secretary of Defense fits well with Kingpin as a character, and he will surely have more of a part to play going forward.