No MCU Couple Matches Each Other’s Freak Like Daredevil: Born Again’s Wilson and Vanessa Fisk
Photo: Courtesy of Disney+
Daredevil has always been known for its brutal fight scenes, gritty street-level storytelling, and complicated moral questions about the darkness inherent in human nature. And though the first season of the Disney+ revival Daredevil: Born Again was more than a bit uneven—this tends to happen when your entire production essentially resets itself halfway through—it more than lived up to that tradition, with everything from serial killers to corrupt cops, all portrayed in excruciating, often breathtaking violence. (RIP, Commissioner Gallo, I guess.) The series’ return also featured a surprisingly nuanced relationship drama at its center. Just not one that involved its hero. Instead, Born Again gave us an unexpected deep dive into the marriage of Wilson and Vanessa Fisk—and it turned out to be one of the highlights of the season.
Look, none of us probably expected to spend half of the season watching Kingpin in marriage counseling. But in a genre where villains tend to be almost painfully one-note at the best of times, an entire subplot based on the idea that the worst person in Daredevil’s world is also the franchise’s most dedicated spouse is… well, it’s fairly unconventional, to say the least. But that’s not actually all that unusual for this show.
The relationship between the villainous Kingpin and his art dealer turned crime boss wife was a highlight of the series during its Netflix run, a surprisingly sweet romance that helped humanize him for viewers, and firmly established him as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s #1 Wife Guy. The series also smartly refuses to cast Vanessa as a traditional comic book love interest who suddenly discovers a man she trusted had lied to her constantly about his secret and/or dangerous double life. Instead, the show gives her the chance to choose for herself, and she decides to love Fisk back, armed with full knowledge of precisely who and what he is—and the level of violence he’s capable of. Their subsequent relationship was fascinating to watch, grounded in their obvious love for one another and a shared understanding of each other’s worst impulses.
Their bond has only grown more complex and complicated in the intervening years, and a major plot of Born Again is the Fisks’ attempt to put their marriage back together after Wilson decides to vanish from Vanessa’s life for several years. Some of this subplot is for exposition’s sake. Their conversations offer an easy way to speed through details about what Wilson’s been up to since the last time we saw him onscreen, establish Vanessa as a competent head of their underground criminal enterprise, and illustrate that no matter what the new Mayor Fisk might claim, he’s never all that far from his Kingpin roots. But it’s also incredibly genuine, as it’s apparent throughout that both Fisks are still devoted to one another despite their suddenly competing business and political interests.
Their slow reconciliation is conveyed quietly: through subtext-filled conversations in front of their therapist, subtle changes in physical position in relation to one another (they steadily sit closer together in every scene they share), and a painfully blunt sort of honesty that helps illustrate just how alike (and dark) these two have become in the years since we last saw them. In the Marvel comics, Vanessa Fisk is famously disapproving of her husband’s criminal lifestyle; in this version of their story, she’s revelling in it. She not only took over Fisk’s business empire during his extended absence, but she excelled at running it. She managed to talk Bullseye out of prison, coordinated the hit that killed Foggy, and has seemingly carved out a lawless city-state for herself in the free port of Red Hook, where she and her husband are free to do pretty much whatever they want, legally speaking. Vanessa may be a better supervillain than the man she married is at this point, and it’s delightful to watch her come into her own this way on a series that’s so overtly masculine-coded. But, much like Fisk’s, her primary motivations remain grounded in emotion (and her seemingly bottomless urge to protect her marriage).
Born Again’s first season focused on drawing not-so-subtle parallels between the stories of its hero and its villain. Both men struggle to accept seemingly essential parts of their nature, and the show hasn’t been subtle about the ways their arcs are meant to serve as mirrors for one another. And these parallels even extend to the major relationship in their lives. But where Matt determinedly keeps girlfriend Heather in the dark about both his extracurricular activities and past, going so far as to outright lie to her face about everything from his whereabouts to the strange bruising he suddenly starts coming home with, Fisk seems determined to tell Vanessa the truth, even when it would likely benefit him more to lie to her.