Richard Fisk
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Richard Fisk is an anti-hero from the fictional Marvel Universe. He has adopted several identities over the years. Although his goals are noble ones, the methods he uses have caused more harm than good.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
Richard grew up in New York as a child of privilege, believing that his father Wilson was a respectable and honorable businessman. Fisk was sometimes abusive to Richard, but Richard still loved him. At one point he and his childhood friend, Sammy Silke saw Wilson roughing up someone. Richard probably knew that his father had mob connections, but not the extent that he really did.
It was when he was attending a prestigious college in Switzerland that he discovered that his father was, in reality, the Kingpin. Realizing the luxuries of his youth had been financed by a criminal empire, Richard was distraught and vowed to make atonement for his father's crimes. When his parents received word that Richard had perished in a skiing accident, they suspected that it was really a suicide after Richard learned the truth of his father's identity. Heartbroken and furious that his son could have acted so spinelessly, the Kingpin sunk into a spell of depression.
[edit] The Schemer
Not long afterward, a new gang emerged in New York, lead by a mysterious figure calling himself the Schemer. Unlike most gangs in New York, the Schemer's organization seemed bent solely on dismantling the Kingpin's empire. After a series of confrontations, the Kingpin and the Schemer finally met face to face. It was then that the Schemer revealed that his face was really a mask, and that his true face was that of Richard Fisk. Richard explained that he had faked his death in the Alps and was striking back at his father using his own money. This final shock was too much for the Kingpin to bear, and he collapsed into catatonia.
This finally made Richard realize how much he had hurt his father, and he set off to find a way to cure his comatose state. Richard joined the international terrorist group HYDRA, eventually rising to the rank of Supreme Hydra. Now with HYDRA's expansive medical resources at his disposal, Richard was able to return his father to full health. The Kingpin seemingly proved that he was back to normal by clandestinely taking over as ruler of HYDRA. However, it was soon revealed that the true leader of HYDRA was the Nazi supervillain the Red Skull, and the Fisks had to team up with Captain America and the Falcon to stop the mad dictator. Richard was critically wounded in the final battle, and the Kingpin had his son placed in suspended animation, finally curing him by siphoning some life force from Spider-Man. After this, father and son seemed to be reconciled.
[edit] The Rose and the Blood Rose
Several years later, Richard joined his father's organization, calling himself the Rose, a well-dressed crimelord who always wore a leather mask. However, this was all a ruse to undermine the Kingpin's empire from within. Aiding Richard in this scheme were his good friend Alfredo Morelli and Ned Leeds, who was brainwashed to act as the supervillain the Hobgoblin. However, the Rose's subterfuge resulted in an explosive gang war that tore New York City apart. During a shoot-out Richard shot and killed a police officer, an act that became a turning point for him - no longer could he consider himself morally superior to his father. After Leeds' death and the end of the gang war, Richard resigned himself to his birthright and rejoined the Kingpin's organization as himself.
However, the desire to overthrow his father once again arose, and Richard and Alfredo plotted to make the Kingpin think that Richard was ready to inherit his father's position. Alfredo had plastic surgery to make himself look just like Richard (since he had more combat experience), and slowly began climbing the ladder of power. However, when the Kingpin was overthrown by the combined forces of Daredevil and HYDRA, Alfredo betrayed his old friend by maintaining that he was truly Richard, and took over as the new Kingpin. Richard then became the Blood Rose, a Punisher-like vigilante, and began gunning down criminals in a bloody purge of the city. The Blood Rose even shot and wounded Alfredo, who later returned under the alias of Gauntlet, although he was ultimately defeated by NightWatch and incarcerated. Finally caught by Spider-Man and arrested, Richard entered the Witness Protection Program.
[edit] Final Coup
Years later, Wilson Fisk once again regained the mantle of the Kingpin, and Richard re-emerged to public life and rejoined the Kingpin's organization, once again vowing to never again attempt to overthrow his father. However, upon meeting his old childhood friend, the ambitious enforcer Silke, Richard thought that he at last had found the perfect way to make his father pay for his crimes. Silke's assassination attempt nearly did succeed, stabbing and seriously wounding the Kingpin (already blinded from an earlier attempt on his life). However, Richard did not count on the tenacity of his mother, Vanessa. Vanessa quickly made a startling counter-strike, eliminating the rebellion and selling her husband's territory so he could travel to Europe and recover. Richard cornered her, insisting that by getting rid of the Kingpin they could be free to have a new life, but Vanessa coldly shot her son dead, eliminating him as a threat for once and for all.
[edit] Other Roses
After Richard abandoned the Rose identity, two other men later wore the mask.
The second Rose was Sergeant Blume (first name unrevealed), a police officer seeking revenge on the Kingpin for the death of his brother, another policeman. While Blume allied himself with Richard in hopes of doing good by breaking the Kingpin's hold on the city, he ended up implicated in several crimes while in the Kingpin's service. He ultimately was shot and killed in a confrontation with Richard's men in the Catskills after he had kidnapped Peter Parker (Spider-Man)'s Aunt May and wife Mary Jane Watson, mistakenly thinking that Peter had discovered information that would blow the lid off of the Kingpin's organization, thus revealing Blume as a double agent.
The third Rose was Jacob Conover, a reporter at the Daily Bugle, who took up the identity as payment for saving the life of crime-lord Don Fortunato many years earlier. This Rose was loyal solely to Fortunato, as at the time the Kingpin had not returned to power, and his principal enforcer was the cyborg powerhouse known as Delilah. Conover faced a repeated threat to his territory from the Brazillian crime-lord known as the Black Tarantula, eventually being present without his Rose disguise when the Tarantula launched a direct assault on Fortunato's home. Preparing to gun down the Tarantula and a roomful of witnesses, Conover was stopped by Spider-Man and carted off to jail.
[edit] Other media
Richard Fisk appears in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, played by Nick Jameson. In this continuity, Richard is loyal to his father and heads a front company called Fisktronics. In a two-part episode, Richard frames Peter Parker for selling government secrets, with the help of the Chameleon. Spider-Man teams with Daredevil in an attempt to clear his name. They capture Richard, and he is sent to prison for his figured crimes and after Peter was cleared of all charges.
Later on, Richard teams up with Tombstone (who was incarcerated in the same prison two episodes after Richard) and agrees to frame Joseph Robbie Robertson in the Season 4 opening to the series. They have him kidnapped, put a gun in his hand while he was unconscious and was sent to trial for a crime he didn't mean to commit. He was originally supposed to go to New York State Pen. but with the help of Richard's father, the Kingpin, Robbie was reassigned to Rooker's Island where Richard and Tombstone laid incarcerated and would be there for the next fifteen years. But Spider-Man apparently figured out about Richard and Tombstone's plan and busted into Rooker's Island to save Robbie. And just when Richard and Tombstone would take off with their valuable cellmate in a helicopter, Spider-Man accidentally has the copter crash but not before saving Robbie (and the pilot) and have Richard and Tombstone fall back to Rooker's Island ironically.
