Wilson Fisk first appeared in 2013’s Daredevil seeking to use The Avengers’ Battle of New York to his advantage, using construction companies to not only rebuild Hell’s Kitchen but to also hide his more illicit operations alongside major criminal organizations in the city. Since then, the Kingpin of Crime has continued to hold power in New York as a seemingly unstoppable force who’s currently set to become the next mayor of New York as teased by Echo’s ending. To that end, a recent flashback confirms Kingpin also holds an impressive villain record in the modern MCU.

Kingpin Was Operating In New York Before 2008’s Iron Man

Echo Confirms Fisk Had Power Long Before The First Modern-Day Avenger

Marvel’s Echo features a flashback in which Wilson Fisk’s relationship with Maya Lopez when she was a child is revealed. After Maya is verbally abused by an ice cream vendor, Kingpin steps in as her surrogate uncle. Pulling the man into an alley, Fisk beats the vendor to a bloody pulp, though Maya is not afraid. This cements Fisk’s dark and twisted affection for Maya, setting up their future relationship where Fisk makes her one of his captains following the death of her father William (a murder Fisk orchestrated).

However, the year in which the flashback takes place is just as notable as the sequence itself and how it sets up Fisk and Maya’s relationship. Confirmed to be set in the year 2008, this flashback confirms that Kingpin already had a base of power in New York the same year Tony Stark announced to the world he was Iron Man. As such, it stands to reason that Kingpin had been building his criminal enterprise long before 2008 and the dawn of the modern MCU’s first superhero.

Kingpin Is Secretly The Modern MCU Era’s First Major Villain

Iron Man Was The First Hero, Kingpin Was The First Villain

 

In the present-day MCU, Iron Man is considered to be the world’s first actual superhero, as the few who’d come before were not yet public knowledge such as Captain Marvel, or were believed to have been lost like WWII’s Captain America before his thawing by SHIELD in the present. To that end, The Battle of New York in 2012 and the Avengers’ assembly was essentially the “Dawn of the Superhero” in the modern MCU era.

However, this means that Kingpin was the present-day MCU’s first major villain, having been active and working to control New York’s criminal underworld likely before Tony Stark had even built his first suit. Using Echo’s flashback as confirmation, Kingpin predates all the MCU’s other modern villains as well. It’s even more impressive considering Kingpin is one of the few MCU villains who’s actually stuck around throughout the MCU timeline with multiple appearances, rather than being defeated after a single movie or series.