Warning: Spoilers for Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell #1!A newDaredevilstory has introduced a world without theKingpin, and the arch-villain’s epitaph is the perfect three-word sendoff to the character. It’s hard to boil down the entirety of someone’s life into a short phrase, but Kingpin’s grave has so much meaning and irony packed into so little.
InDaredevil: Cold Day in Hell#1by Charles Soule and Steve McNiven, a future Matt Murdock visits the Kingpin’s grave, andthe villain’s epitaph, which reads “Husband, Father, King,” is both fitting and a darkly ironic sendoff.
Set in a bleak alternate future where the remaining superheroes are fighting a war against a yet-unseen threat, Daredevil is retired without powers (at least until this issue), but Kingpin’s done him one better by not surviving. Matt’s life isn’t particularly great in this timeline and consists of him running a soup kitchen and visiting Wilson Fisk’s grave.
Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell#1 by Charles Soule, Steve McNiven, and Clayton Cowles
Kingpin’s relationship with his family is core to the character, but his epitaph also hides bitter ironies. WhileKingpinwas always obsessed with his wife Vanessa, the two were almost as often estranged as they were close. Eventually, the two split for good after Vanessa murdered their son, Richard, and died herself shortly thereafter, losing the will to live after what she’d done. Various villains have since tried to use the promise of resurrecting Vanessa as leverage against Kingpin, but when he himself had the chance, he realized that it’s not what she would have wanted.
Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell #1 Is a Gruesome Reimagining That Should Disturb You
Cold Day in Hell is a depressingly horrific yet hopeful story that pits an elderly Matt Murdock against a weakened and slowly dying future reality.
Kingpin’s relationship with his son, Richard, is even more complicated. When Richard learned who his father was, he too became a crime lord, the Rose, obsessed with taking down Kingpin. The following years saw Richard join Kingpin’s organization, only to attempt to betray his father again and again. All this finally came to a head with Vanessa killing Richard after Richard almost succeeded in assassinating his father. However, in Nick Spencer and Roge Antonio’sGiant-Size Amazing Spider-Man: King’s Ransom#1, Wilson revived Richard,who is now once again the Rose, working tenuously with his father.
Kingpin Lost his Family Because of Who He Was and What He Did
Is the Future Daredevil Going Down That Same Path?
That Kingpin’s epitaph emphasizes his family really doesn’t tell the whole story. Kingpin’s life of crime put his family in constant danger and, in the case of Richard, pushed them away, eventually leading to tragedy. In the end, Kingpin was left with nothing. Unfortunately, the irony of this version of Daredevil is that he too seems to be alone in this world, reduced to gloating at Fisk’s grave in lieu of any real personal connections. In a sad state of affairs, theDaredevilof this timeline and his enemy,Kingpin,ended up more alike than ever.
