Vanessa Fisk

CREATORS: Stan Lee, John Romita Sr.

FIRST APPEARANCE (CAMEO): Amazing Spider-Man #70 (March, 1969)
FIRST (FULL) APPEARANCE: Amazing Spider-Man #84 (May, 1970)
APPEARANCE OF DEATH: Amazing Spider-Man Vol 4 #19 (December, 2016)

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THE KINGPIN

At some point during the pregnancy she once took a sewing needle and pressed it against her belly in fear of bringing her baby into a world of violence and crime. When their son was older they sent him away to Switzerland for his education.

Richard came back at one stage wanting to take over his father's empire as the Schemer and faced both his mother and father.

The Kingpin was quite possessive of his wife; however, she was lost in the sewers of New York and believed dead for some time. Daredevil rescued her from "The King" of the sewers and returned her to her husband for a price. The price was that the Kingpin had to remove his corrupt candidate, Randolph Cherryh from the ballot. Fisk readily agreed.

Perhaps as a result of this and other perceived threats, the Kingpin hired a minor actress to impersonate Vanessa so that she would not fall victim to kidnapping or future extortion from his adversaries. One particular impersonator, Heidi Devoto, died after she was kidnapped by Micah Synn.

Vanessa once split up with Wilson Fisk, but she returned to New York when she found out her son had tried to kill her husband. Richard had teamed up with an old friend of his Sammy Silke and others in order to assassinate his father Wilson. Furious, she started cleaning up the underworld, starting with the murder of a small time hood named Falzone. Then eventually she confronted her son Richard who, after an exchange of words, she promptly killed.

After this she took her husband away to recuperate. Vanessa knew Wilson would not forgive her for killing Richard, however, and so she parted with him before he recovered to avoid his wrath.

Vanessa eventually contracted a terminal illness and decided to resolve all her outstanding "debts". From afar, Vanessa was the ringleader of the operation relating to Murdock's and her husband's arrest by the F.B.I., as well as faking Foggy Nelson's murder, and hiring Iron Fist to pose as Daredevil in Hell's Kitchen and using Tombstone and Lily Lucca to lead Murdock on a journey throughout Europe. She did this out of revenge, blaming both Daredevil and Wilson for her current situation. She confronted Daredevil briefly before she finally passed with the details of her efforts. Sometime after her death, Murdock would honor her last wish and get the charges against the Kingpin dropped, on the condition that Wilson give up his U.S. citizenship.

RESURRECTION(S)

Years later her body was recovered by the Hand and she was brought back to life with the purpose of killing her husband, in order to test if he was still a worthy leader for the Hand. The two battled, but Wilson didn't want to kill his wife and tried to reason with her, asking her if there was any trace of her once old self to show it to him so that he could see to it that she was not harmed by anyone, and when it seemed that there was no hope the Kingpin broke her back in order to kill her. However, much to his horror he discovered, too late, that she was aiming for an attacker behind him to save his life. Vanessa died her second death in the arms of her devastated husband who buried himself deeper in crime.

Later Ben Reilly (under the guise of The Jackal) revived Vanessa again, albeit as a clone, in an attempt and convince Fisk Enterprises to fund New U Technologies. However, Wilson snapped Vanessa's neck, denouncing her as a worthless clone and claiming that whatever the Jackal did tainted his last memories of her.