DEEP DISH THEMES:

KINGPIN

ORIGIN: Wilson Grant Fisk never had a normal childhood because of his overweight appearance and was known to be unpopular among other children. Fisk quickly became nothing more than a mere target for bullies and pity because of his pathetic status. Fisk would live his young life in reclusive who was forced into witnessing the normal lives of others, because of this Fisk would develop a unique perspective by using others to meet his own needs. This was the very first step towards Fisk’s criminal career that followed him throughout his entire life. Dedicated to be the best there was, Fisk would find himself committing his first murder at the age twelve and strongly believed that brute strength was the only way to become successful within the criminal underworld. Instantly Fisk trained himself in body-building and sumo to build his body and strength that eventually turned the young Fisk into a massive force of brute strength for his young age. Fisk would also build his education by learning from various stolen books and taking a strong interest within Political Science. With the combined strength and knowledge, Fisk quickly became a dominating force over the local gangs who intimidated other unwilling children and bullies into joining his gang. Displaying uncanny leadership abilities and organization skills has found itself earning Fisk the nickname known as “Kingpin of Crime”, a title that he gained as a teenager.

Fisk’s brutal and successful reputation would finally catch the attention of other well-known crime bosses within New York City. After finding himself impressed with Fisk’s gained reputation, crime boss Don Rigoletto recruited Fisk to serve as his personal right-hand man. But Fisk’s dedication to be the best eventually found Fisk killing Rigoletto and taking over his gang as his own. Fisk now became one of the most feared and successful crime lords within New York City.



PROS: This is an example of a figure that has actually become a little more useful over time than he was when he first came out. Leadership used to not pull tokens off of friendly lower point characters at all and could only ever add one action to your action pool no matter how many characters had the power on your team and successfully rolled it. Granted, it used to also worked successfully on a roll of 4-6 so some things didn't necessarily work for the better, but there is no doubt that the loss of a small percentage of being able to activate it was well worth it. Rookie Fisk isn't likely going to be pulling tokens off of anybody at 24 points, but if he can shift momentum in your favor and add an action to your pool occasionally and/or act as a human shield/Mastermind fodder with his six clicks long dial, you're definitely getting your 24 points worth out of him. As I've said many times, if you work WITH characters and don't try to bend them to make them what you WANT them to be, you'll get a lot more enjoyment out of them and of the game as a whole, and Rookie Kingpin is a good example of this.

CONS: Man! Look at those stats! Top dial he starts out with a grand total of SEVEN ATTACK and it only gets worse from there. On his last click, he has a whopping four movement, four attack, 10 defense, and a one damage. In the early days of the game figures only got worse as their dial got further towards their end (With the exception of a couple of figures) so this wasn't an abnormal thing either. He just wasn't good for pretty much anything other than that Leadership. I know many people that packed him on a team back then, though, because he was a good cheap Leadership piece, but don't expect too much more out of him, because those stats are going to have a hard time hitting even weakened characters made in the last decade of the game. Anybody using this figure to make an attack is either desperate or has extra actions at the end of their turn and "Might as Well" though. I've been there, and I've gotten some good results occasionally out of "Might as Well" shots.

THEME: Back when WizKids handed out the keywords to the golden age characters that didn't previously have them they didn't exactly do a thorough job with some characters. Poor Wilson here should have more to work with than just the Martial Artist keyword. Some would argue that this is the rookie version and he hadn't ascended the criminal empire ladder yet, but if he has the name of "Kingpin" attached to him, I would think he would at least have Ruler or something. They probably figured that this old version of Fisk wasn't exactly high up on people's "To Play With" lists, though, and honestly I wouldn't have put a ton of effort in that job either if it was me combing through hundreds of figures at the time either knowing that it would have gone largely unnoticed on some of the entries. So, he's only got Martial Artist so you might as well do what you can with that. At least he'll be there to add some actions to your action pool.



PROS: For a point investment of five more points, the Experienced Kingpin added a few stat bonuses here and there, but nothing that is really worth noting beyond this sentence. He did add another click of Leadership onto a dial that is already pretty packed with it and there is one more click of Toughness, I suppose. He's still six clicks long so much of what I said about the Rookie version also applies to this one in all categories. He did see some improvement in the amount of keywords available to him, but I'll get more into that in the "Keywords" section.

CONS: Due to there being at least three versions of every figure in the sets due to the old REV system, it created some very stagnant and downright pointless dials. Unless you needed that fifth click of Leadership or nearly pointless stat increases, there was absolutely no reason to play this version over the rookie or Veteran dials when it came out. Now you at least have a few new keyword options, but keywords weren't a thing when the game debuted, so this figure serves as one of those major reminders why the REV system is not missed even a little by at least THIS HeroClix player. (Which is funny to say now because MAN did I make a fuss when it first went away).

THEME: Like I've said several times at this point, this version did add some more options for Keywords. He now has Ruler and Celebrity added to his repertoire of available keywords. I've never really been a fan of the Celebrity keyword, but Ruler definitely intrigues me as a use for this figure. While not in the same league as somebody like a Kang the Conqueror or Darkseid, Kingpin is as ruthless and cunning as they come, and his place on a Ruler team would never questioned by me. He does make good Mastermind fodder at his low point cost and long dial length and the Ruler keyword has NO shortage of characters with Mastermind so this might be a nice little space for him to fit into the game in the modern age.



PROS: This version is looking at a 14 point increase from the Experienced to the Veteran version, but he's picked up some new and interesting tricks. Primarily among them is the addition of the Sinister Syndicate team ability. The other Kingpins were never really capable of making successful attacks, but borrowing upon the strength of his allies, this Kingpin's limits are only measured by the prowess of his hired goons. Depending on his target, he may need some Perplex or Empower to raise up his damage to bust heavy damage reducers, but he's now more capable than he once was. Am I going to be setting up the field so Fisk can take his shot?...Not at all, but I just want to point out that it can now be a thing that he's capable of. He is now also alive for SEVEN clicks which is just crazy when you compare him to the much shorter dials of today. His defense value has improved slightly at the top of his dial, but I still wouldn't rely on it to keep him safe. He is still primarily going to be a damage sponge and Leadership piece despite anything else he has going on, but there's enough value here that I may still include him in a build from time to time.

CONS: Rarely do you see this much Leadership on any figure in the game, but the fact of the matter is that he is still only a 43 point character and there isn't much in the game that is REALLY worth pulling tokens off of that costs less than that. That isn't to say that such pieces DON'T exist...please don't flood the comments section with pieces that are worth it, but on the whole your main or even secondary attackers aren't going to be getting one of the primary benefits that this power offers. Extra actions are nice...especially in the new era of smaller point values where action totals actually get regularly met, but I am likely going to be able to come up with a piece that can do more for me than this one. Am I going to do something unexpected and include him on a build every once in a while just to be weird and unexpected? Sure...that's just the kind of player I am, though. Your mileage is likely to vary greatly.

THEME: This almost made it in the "Cons" section, but it's not necessarily a deal breaker. He has the Sinister Syndicate team ability but he doesn't have the keyword to go with it. The reason it isn't a deal breaker is that not every character with that team ability is going to actually be a Syndicate member and there are ALWAYS wildcard figures to play him with and in that case, it's great that he'll bring a team ability to the table for those characters. Still, I would probably have gotten more use out of him over the years if he would have had that going for him. Barring that, I would most likely use him on a Ruler team. As I said, there is no shortage of Mastermind on those teams, and he has enough Leadership that he can soak up some of their damage and STILL have Leadership left to spare. Any Wildcards would likely benefit from his team ability too.



PROS: This figure has always intrigued me as it really isn't all that different from the Veteran version. From what I can tell, it really only added yet another click of Toughness and now has a full seven click dial of Leadership. One of it's primary and most important differences (Though added much later than it's release) is the addition of it's Hydra keyword. That in and of itself would be enough to make me consider adding him to a team someday. There are PLENTY of Hydra pieces under his point total and his ability to pull tokens off of them could actually be a boon for your team. Mastermind is also bountiful on a Hydra team so that option is there still and he now has that extra click of Toughness so he can soak up even more damage while never fearing losing that Leadership option.

CONS: With the bevvy of low cost Hydra pieces introduced in the Nick Fury set, I'm not very likely to grab for this LE figure as there are just better options that do more these days. He still fits that desire that I get from to make my opponent ask "What the heck is THAT piece from" from time to time, but that's about as far as that goes. This figure is essentially a novelty and that's all he's really ever been. There are better options for not just Hydra pieces, but for Kingpin pieces specifically. If you REALLY need to shave points to fit other characters on your team, there is always this one to have in your back pocket, but unless your desperate, he's probably collecting a lot of lint and dust in that pocket.

THEME: This was the first Kingpin figure to also sport the Hydra keyword, and as that is one of my favorite themes to play of all time (Well before there were even keywords in this game) that is the team that I'm most likely to play him on. There aren't many characters to have the keyword and also a Wildcard team ability, so there aren't going to be a great many characters to benefit from his Sinister Syndicate team ability, but there are enough to make me glad that he has it for them to copy. Increasing characters attacks with it while decreasing opposing characters' defense values with the Hydra team ability is a great way to ensure that your dice rolls don't need to be heroic to hit their target.



PROS: I really appreciate what they were going for here. The Hammer of Thor Kingpin starts out his dial working from behind the scenes. He has Mastermind that he can use on friendly characters of 125 points or less and Super Senses. He also sports Outwit and Leadership. He's not set up to get his hands dirty at first, but on the back half of his dial his gloves come off and he gets higher attack values and Close Combat Expert. Should he NEED to get his hands dirty early on and has an underling around that ALSO has the Sinister Syndicate team ability, he has a three printed damage to start out with. Borrow some higher attack values and go to town. Since he has an attack bump on the back half of his dial, he may be an asset to wildcard or Syndicate characters that could use the late game bump in values as well. He's a character that requires knowing when and where to get the most out of him, but he can be very capable if you get the timing right.

CONS: On the obverse, if you CAN'T figure out timing with this figure, you're going to french fry when you should be pizza-ing...you're going to have a bad time. With Outwit's range now being either printed value or a default of six squares, he's not quite as good as when he came out so he's going to have to get a little further into the mix of things to effectively use his Outwit. That may be too much for his Mastermind or Super Senses to handle should he become the focus of your enemy. At that point, 78 points may seem like a tasty morsel that goes a decent way towards a win. If he uses his Mastermind, you're knocking out his teammates, and if you're left with JUST Kingpin he's not a figure that stands on his own very well.

THEME: They took him down to some basics when they gave him keywords...VERY basic. He only has two keywords and they are Martial Artist and Ruler. It's pretty entertaining because his dial portrays both of these concepts at separate times. I don't think he portrays either especially well, though. I would probably be reluctant to play him on either team. Perhaps I'll go "Off the books" and put him on an Assassin's Guild team. There's a lot of them that have Wildcard team abilities so he would provide a good team ability for them to copy and some good support powers to help out his goons and cohorts.



PROS: Though there are some really good newer Kingpin figures...and I mean REALLY good...THIS will always be the Kingiest of Kingpins to me (Unless they somehow make a Kingpin that is even more bonkers). The majority of his dial is pretty much standard fair so let's focus on what isn't standard, and by that I mean his Trait and his two special powers. Firstly, the trait gives him traited Mastermind. That in and of itself is pretty great. Then they added in the fact that once per turn when he uses Mastermind he can choose to use it on any character regardless of adjacency or point value...WHAT?!?!?! That last part is only once per turn, sure, but chances are you aren't going to need it much more than that. His attack special power called "Eyes Everywhere" allows you to use Outwit normally or you can draw line of fire and count range from any friendly character within eight squares of Kingpin. He has this power for FIVE SOLID CLICKS. You could have somebody move in and make an attack, have Kingpin Outwit them from that characters new location and then have another character come in and bat clean-up. It's just so good. Those two things are just the tip of the iceberg, though. To me, his biggest attribute is his damage special power called "I only hire the very best hit-men." It not only allows him to use Enhancement, but If an adjacent friendly character can use at least one of Precision Strike, Ranged Combat Expert, the Sharpshooter ability, or Improved Targeting: Ignores Hindering Terrain, it can use all of them. THAT'S JUST INSANE! If they get Ranged Combat Expert from this power or already have it, they are going to get a bonus to attack, damage, or both, and then get yet another +1 to damage due to Fisk's Enhancement...oh yeah, and did I mention that he ALSO has the Hydra team ability?! He's just sitting there, seeing everything, moving chess pieces around, and making his army of goons that much more dangerous at the same time. He can also handle his own affairs pretty well should push come to shove. His dial may be standard fair, but that doesn't mean it's bad at all. This is the criminal mastermind that you can build an army around and I SERIOUSLY suggest that you do.

CONS: If (and that's a BIG IF) your opponent manages to separate him from his Mastermind Fodder (Keep in mind that means getting him by himself and not within eight squares of allies), they shouldn't have too much problem taking him down. He's not that much more potent than other characters that are just well trained normal humans. His best defense power at that point would be his average 17 defense and Toughness. MUCH easier said than done, but should your opponent manage, it's 118 fairly easy points to get that is going to be taking out what could potentially be the backbone of your strategy. There's a lot of eggs in this basket, and you there are many ways that it could be done. Also keep in mind how plentiful Precision Strike is these days. There won't be any Mastermind going on if that happens. It's something that you need to keep yourself VERY aware of if playing this piece. Use that Outwit WISELY.

THEME: In my dealings with this character, he is best used with Assassins. Though I prefer the flavor of him with Hydra or with the Hand, Assassins are the figures that tend to bring out the most taste in this big old pork chop. They're the ones that are most likely to have one of the powers or abilities listed in his damage special power, and he will turn them into BEASTS if they aren't already that way. It's still a fairly new keyword, but it's one that has gotten a lot of options in the short time it's been around. It is a generic keyword so it's one that spans multiple HeroClix universes too. It's unfortunate that you won't get Theme Team Probability Control, but I think you'll have enough fun without it.



PROS: Not to make it sound like it's all "Meh" or tired, but the Zombie Infection and Zombie Hunger things that this and all other Z-Virus zombies do is not even the thing to write home about on this figure. When you boil it down, his dial is mostly "Been there, done that" kind of stuff. It's the other things that he does that makes this character shine among the other Zombies. In fact, I TRY not to build a Zombie team without him on it. Let's kick it off by talking about poor, poor Vanessa. For the many of you who are now familiar with who Vanessa is in relation to Kingpin thanks to the Daredevil Netflix show, this vile man has cloned his wife over and over in order to feed his zombie army. It's almost like a zombie insurance policy. He can use her to feed himself and his pals once per turn by taking a power action to fill up one of their (Or his) five available food token spots. You can just keep on doing it so long as he has the ability to take said action. No longer do your Z-Virus pals need to go out and forage for their own food. They can start out with that insurance policy on them. This goes a long way towards making great use out of his other power. With his "Leader of the Undead" special power, he may treat friendly characters with food tokens on them as adjacent and a lower point cost for Leadership. It also gives him Outwit, and he can also count range and draw fire from friendly characters that have food tokens on their card. My favorite thing I've ever done with this is constantly removing tokens from Zombie Juggernaut and then using Outwit through him before he uses Flurry to just wreck my opponent and build up more food tokens. It became a way to TRULY make Juggernaut an unstoppable force.

CONS: He does have his own insurance policy with his Vanessa tokens as he can sit there and build up his own tokens or if he still has Vanessa on his card before he would be KO'd, he can remove the Vanessa token and put three food tokens on his card as a last ditch preservation effort. Other than that, he is pretty easy to take down. Precision Strike completely shuts down his Mastermind and even if you don't have that power on your team, you can always Outwit it or just hit him one or two good times. Any good player is not going to allow their team leader to sit there without any defenses so watch out for swarming. Once the zombies start to infect you, it really starts to steamroll badly. That same good player might be using Kingpin to bait you...

THEME: I'm sure it comes to no surprise to any of you, but I'm going to go with a Z-Virus theme team with this Kingpin. There are a few Z-Virus characters that are must plays for me when I do play them, and it's actually mostly Sinister Syndicate type of characters. Sure, you can play with the power pieces like Gladiator, Doom, or Super Skrull, but I like the more finesse pieces than the overtly powerful pieces in this game and I don't see that ever changing. I saw that there was a realmser once that used to run the Zombie team base using all the Syndicate zombies to make their own Zombie Sinister Six, but they came up one character short so they used the generic Skrull Zombie as Chameleon. It essentially is the same concept so it worked for me!



PROS: When I found out that this set was going to have not one but two new Kingpin figures, I wasn't really into the idea. The Deadpool (Non-zombie) version is just so great that I just couldn't see them outdoing him. I don't think they did, but at the same time, I'm glad we have them now. One of the things I love about this game is the options that you have available to you when building teams. This Kingpin is no exception. If you don't have the 118 points to invest in the Deadpool Kingpin or just don't have that piece, here's a common that has a lot of the same cool abilities or at least something comparable and is only 75 points. He gets a great Leadership ability as a trait (That also grants Mastermind). It works on a 4-6 roll and you can remove tokens from any adjacent friendly character. He also has an Outwit power that works similarly to the Deadpool Kingpin's Outwit power, but this one allows him to Outwit through any friendly character he shares a keyword with REGARDLESS of range where the DP Kingpin needed to be within eight squares...and he has a LOT of keywords to build around with this.

CONS: Eventually your opponent will grow tired of all of the Outwit shenanigans so they will come to look to take out the person causing all the problems. When that time comes, he doesn't have much in the way of stopping them either. He isn't able to Mastermind regardless of point value so he's stuck with needing characters that are 74 points or less to work with. With the trending of dials to be lower points this shouldn't be a huge problem in modern games, but he is a bit squishy when it comes to defense. His stats aren't bad for a powerless human since he has Toughness that gives way to Combat Reflexes, but his stats ARE that of a powerless human. One good shot from a brick and the thorn in their side is now removed and they are 75 points the richer. In a 300 point game he is going to take me a bit of convincing to use when I could include a character like the Fast Forces Doctor Octopus for the same amount of points and is more combat savvy.

THEME: I'm going to take a page out of my old pal Green Man's book and play him on a Maggia team. Marvel's infamous fictional crime family could use a few subtle strategy and board control pieces like this to go along with some of the bruisers they have like Dreadnought's, Count Nefaria, and Hammer Head. Kingpin will sit in the back with the Hood (Unfortunately NOT with the Silvermane that should have been in this set) and control the board while safely behind a wall of killer Dreadnoughts and Maggia goons. Hopefully Green Man reads this...I bow to his knowledge on how to put together a killer Maggia team.



PROS: This is an absolute MUST play with piece if you are using the Sinister Syndicate characters or just somebody with or that can use the team ability. For only 50 points you can circumvent one of the biggest problems that the Syndicate faces. They always have to bunch together to use their team ability making them susceptible to things like Pulse Wave or Energy Explosion. With this Kingpin they can be 8 squares away from Kingpin and they are considered adjacent for the purposes of using the team ability. This is amazing as you can now spread out your offense and not lose any steps in the process. Your opponent will have a much harder time taking out the piece giving out the high attack values if they are nowhere near line of fire or range. Not quite the Outwit that the regular set or Deadpool versions have, but this one still packs some Outwit and a great version of Leadership that allows him to pull tokens off any character that has the Sinister Syndicate keyword regardless of point value...NOTE: Adjacency is STILL required. Not a bad package for 50 points!

CONS: He has a VERY short lived dial and you better BELIEVE that your opponent is going to be painting a giant target on his giant back. That is a center piece for a strategy if I've ever seen one. It's funny that a lot of the newer Kingpins are like that but I can't think of anything more comic accurate than that. Those four clicks aren't going to be hard to get through, though. One good hit by a mildly powerful figure will knock him out and end the reign of terror that he incites. I miss his Mastermind, but then again at 50 points, there isn't a lot of things for him to Mastermind damage to. I suppose they could have let him shift damage to higher point characters, but then again that would make his point value start to climb, and I think that ruins some of the appeal. Overall, this is a figure I can't wait to use even if he does have some shortcomings.

THEME: If you're not using him on a Sinister Syndicate team, I'm not entirely sure why you're using him instead of a different version to begin with. Almost all of his dial points you in that direction. The only reason that I could come up with would be if you needed a lower point Kingpin than others that have been made. Still, no excuses...play him on a Sinister Syndicate team now...I don't care what else you're SUPPOSED to be doing. Leave work...drop that muffin. You can do leg day tomorrow. PLAY SYNDICATE NOW!

KEYS TO THE KINGDOM

Now that we have had a little glimpse into the aspects of all the different Kingpin figures, let's take a quick look at his keywords and I will tell you my number one picks to use for each keyword theme available (Named keywords are bolded):

Martial Artist: dp059 Kingpin
Celebrity: ic044 Kingpin
Ruler: dp059 Kingpin
Hydra: dp059 Kingpin
Assassin: dp059 Kingpin
Politician: dp059 Kingpin
The Hand: dp059 Kingpin
Monster: dp061 Kingpin
Z-Virus: dp061 Kingpin
Emissaries of Evil: sfsm011 Kingpin
Maggia: sfsm011 Kingpin
Sinister Syndicate: ffsfsm005 Kingpin

WHO NEEDS KEYWORDS?!

In this section, I'm going to list some possible theme teams that you could play Kingpin on that are definitely comic accurate but don't require keywords and provides links using Comic Vine and/or Wikipedia to tell you more about them. Unfortunately, using these teams mean you are going to forego keyword bonuses, but every once in a while Judges might let you slip by with one of these teams:

Assassin's Guild
The Cabal
Century Club
Damage Control
Fisk Industries

This wraps it up for Deep Dish Themes: Kingpin edition. Thank you for reading! Feel free to post what you think about the article and feel free to nominate a character for an upcoming edition of Deep Dish Themes. Join me on 9/7 when I fire up the cloning banks and bring you Deep Dish Themes: Scarlet Spider!

Nice article!

IC Fisk never disappointed. An auto-play back in the IC days, providing extra actions and serving as a tough harasser.

FF Kingpin-- "Fast Food" Kingpin, as I affectionately refer to him-- is hands down the best version. I recently used him on a team of wildcard Kryptonians-- thanks to Alura-- all sharing KC Superman's 12 AV. Who needs a theme when you only need to roll a 5 on average to hit (4 in the case of Superman being adjacent to Alura)?

Overall, I like the SFoSM Common Kingpin best. He has a good choice of keywords for his Outwit effect, although Hydra and Maggia benefit the most, imho. KC GL @35 points makes an interesting partner as an Outwit + Perplex turret.

This was a really fun one to see progress through the years. WK didn't really know how to handle tactical master of puppets characters before the last few iterations, and now this guy is a force to be reckoned with. Great writeup!

I'm surprised this was labeled by the slice with that many versions of the Kingpin available. Good stuff as always.

Great & timely article. For such an unpleasant guy, he sure does make a lot of friends- Deadpool SR Kingpin is pleased to hide behind a couple Agent Wards occupying hindering terrain, while FF Kingpin holds Speed Demon even closer than the other Superior Foes.

Great pick for a write up! The two new Kingpins from the Superior Foes set and the SR from Deadpool cover a great range of point values and keywords. Those three should be all the Kingpin I'll ever need. I'm glad Wizkids seems to have really gotten him right lately.

Copy and paste error. Fixed it

Great read! All three of Fisk's most recent versions have been great and I can't wait to try the FF version for some SinSyn fun. The Deadpool figure was one of my happiest pulls and favorite pieces to play for a while.

I'd like to nominate Nova (Richard Rider) for a Deep Dish article, I don't believe he's been done yet and he definitely deserves some spotlight.

Man, I pulled at least 10 or 15 of the Infinity Challenge Kingpin back in the day. Just couldn't get rid of that guy. The latest ones are really good, though.

Added him to my "To Do" list

Nice as always! I've never seen that DP059 in play -- one can imagine many shenanigans with him, despite the high point cost.

I love the sculpt and colors of the IC Kingpin. I used him on many multi-mook-mashup teams back in the day.

Nice write up as always SR4! I find many of these articles remind me of fun clix I have, which I have neglected to involve in some creative team building and game time! Here comes the Kingpin!

From Deadpool: Kingpin, Lady Bullseye, and Typhoid Mary was one of my favorite Hand teams when DP came out. I've played him more than any other piece in the last three years, I think. I love him. I will try the new Kingpins, but it will be grudgingly!

I've been waiting on my Mysterio fig to get here so I can play the new Syndicate figures and especially with the ff Kingpin. He finally arrived today and I got called in to work, of course. Tomorrow morning, Spidey and Friends better be prepared, because these new plastic treats hit the map! Great write-up, by the way. Very thorough examination.