The son of the Kingpin of Crime, Richard Fisk has much to live up to, and though he tries, both his parents often stand in his way.
A Brutal Beginning
Richard is the only son of Vanessa Fisk and Wilson Fisk, AKA Kingpin, born just a year after the couple married. Though they try to shelter him from Wilson’s criminal activities, as a boy Richard witnesses his father perform some brutal acts. Wilson is abusive and demeaning to Richard, calling his son a pathetic embarrassment, yet Richard idolizes his father, striving to earn the respect and love of the notable Wilson Fisk, publicly viewed as a successful and respected citizen.
As a young man, Richard, a diligent student and athlete, attends an exclusive school in the Swiss Alps. When Richard discovers the truth in a newspaper that his father was New York’s top mob boss, the Kingpin of Crime, his world is torn apart. Disillusioned with his father and embarrassed that his wealth comes from crime, he fakes his own death, leading his parents to suspect that shame drove him to suicide.
Criminal Operations Officer
Richard Fisk is an expert in criminal organization, specializing in processing of stolen property and gambling operations. He is also a weapons expert and is skilled in hand-to-hand combat. He uses yoga techniques for controlling pain.
As the Rose and the Blood Rose, he wears a durable suit, resistant to gunfire and coated to deflect Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man’s webbing.
Rivals
Richard’s foremost rival is his own father, who thinks of his son as an embarrassment. But Richard sets out to prove that he’s better than his father by attempting to take over his role as the Kingpin of Crime. While Richard fails many times, nothing stops him from trying.
Spider-Man proves to be a pesky, repeat obstacle to Richard’s plans to become a successful crime lord. He hires assassins to take down the wall-crawler, and goes up against Spider-Man’s allies, and often loses.
Richard also faces other crime lords vying for Kingpin’s throne, such as Ned Leeds, who for a time thinks he is the Super Villain Hobgoblin, Lonnie Lincoln, AKA Tombstone and the gangster’s daughter.
Tenuous Allies
Richard works closely with his college friend Alfredo Morelli to take down the Kingpin and his empire. Alfredo even undergoes surgery to look like Richard and pose as him for a time. But he starts to believe he’s the son of the Kingpin, until Richard apparently kills him for not letting go of the ruse. But Alfredo survives and attempts to take revenge upon his former friend.
Sammy Silke, Richard’s childhood friend, grows up to lead the Chicago Ripa crime syndicate and inspires Richard to attack the Kingpin directly, which leads to Richard’s death at the hands of his mother.
A History of Scheming
Secretly returning to New York, Richard adopted the identity of the Schemer, a scowling middle-aged crime lord in a green and yellow costume wearing a realistic mask. Using the money his father had given him, he funded his own criminal organization, pitting his own gang against the Kingpin’s. While the Schemer’s men openly attacked the Kingpin’s forces, Spider-Man joined the fight to prevent casualties and halt the hostilities. In the final showdown, when the Schemer unmasked his father, the Kingpin was so shocked by the depth of his son’s hatred that he fell into a catatonic state. Realizing that he never meant to hurt his father, a repentant Richard joined the Las Vegas faction of the terrorist organization Hydra, rising to the rank of Supreme Hydra with his dedication and talent. Richard then used Hydra’s resources to cure his father’s illness. With the Kingpin recovered, Richard turned over control of the organization to him. However, the true leader of the Hydra faction was revealed as Johann Shmidt, AKA Red Skull, and the Fisks decided to help Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, and Sam Wilson, AKA Falcon, defeat the Red Skull’s Nazi ambitions. In the resulting clash, Richard was almost fatally wounded. The Kingpin kept him in cryogenic suspended animation, subsequently stealing some of Spider-Man’s life force to restore his son.
Daily Bugle reporter Ned Leeds, researching an investigative report on the Kingpin, visited Richard at his summer home after college. Richard declined to help, but the obsessed Leeds tailed Richard and his college friend Alfredo Morelli, following their playboy lives.
A few months later, after Vanessa Fisk was injured in an explosion that left her an amnesiac vagrant used as a bartering tool by Matt Murdock, AKA Daredevil, Richard decided to take a stand against his father. Richard and Alfredo secretly returned to New York and met with Leeds to discuss how to end the Kingpin’s reign. Leeds, hypnotized by the criminal Roderick Kingsley, AKA Hobgoblin, into posing as the villain and believing himself to be the true Hobgoblin, offered his services as he used his alter ego to terrorize the underworld and gather critical information.
Richard established a new identity as the Rose, a cultured crime lord in a soft purple leather mask and white suit, assisted by his lieutenants, crooked former cops, detectives Daniel Johnston and Abraham Varley. As with the Schemer, Richard hoped to use the Rose identity to destroy his father’s empire by pretending to be a mobster himself. Richard quickly established a small power-base and became a high level employee for the Kingpin, fixing sports events and trafficking illegal drugs. The Kingpin set up the Rose with a heroin delivery used to attract the attention of the Super Hero Tandy Bown, AKA Dagger. The Rose failed to capture Dagger while facing Spider-Man, Tyrone Johnson, AKA Cloak, and Felicia Hardy, AKA Black Cat. Spider-Man interfered again, discovering one of the Rose’s warehouses used to process stolen goods. Richard, concerned about his lost revenues for the Kingpin, hired the superhuman mercenary Thomas Firehart, AKA Puma, to assassinate Spider-Man. Puma failed twice, and the Kingpin ordered Puma to stand down.
To better undermine the Kingpin, Richard staged a public alliance between the Hobgoblin and the Rose, with the Rose as the brains, Hobgoblin as the brawn, and Alfredo working secretly in the shadows, acquiring information vital to their plans.
Things started to go wrong when the true Hobgoblin’s mental manipulation of Leeds started twisting his mind. Leeds gradually became hungrier for power, aiming to become a crime lord himself, while blinded by his desire for vengeance against Spider-Man. Richard didn’t count on a massive gang war breaking out during a period of absence of the Kingpin, with several forces vying for the Kingpin’s throne. During this time, Richard found love with a woman named Dina, who encouraged Richard not to cross the line while dealing with corrupt forces. A meeting with a rival gang in Jackson Heights, Queens went wrong. Richard was injured by the police, and the Hobgoblin abandoned him. Trapped, Richard shot and killed a rookie transit cop to evade capture. Kingsley, feeling his control over Ned Leeds slipping, outed Leeds as the Hobgoblin in the criminal underworld. Jason Macendale, AKA Jack O’Lantern, seizing an opportunity to remove an enemy and improve his own standing, hired the Foreigner to kill Ned Leeds while he was on a Daily Bugle assignment in Berlin. Soon after, Alfredo seemingly died in a car accident while fleeing from the new Hobgoblin (Macendale). With the gang war raging out of control, the police persuaded the Kingpin to return and restore peace to the city. Desolate and broken, Richard realized that in attempting to bring down his father, he had perhaps become like him. With the Kingpin back in power, Richard surrendered to his father, Rose mask in hand, and pledged to work for him.
Alfredo survived. Inspired by Alfredo’s return, Richard sought once again to destroy the Kingpin’s empire. Since Alfredo had actual combat experience and was presumed to be dead, while Richard didn’t have the heart to openly be his father’s lieutenant, their roles reversed; Alfredo underwent extensive plastic surgery to look like Richard, while Richard worked in the shadows. Alfredo began to climb the ladder of power within the organization. Meanwhile, Alfredo enlisted NYPD Sgt. Blume to be the new Rose. Blume harbored deep resentment towards the Kingpin, due to the murder of his younger brother, a cop who refused a bribe from the Kingpin.
Gradually losing his mind, Alfredo started to really believe he was the son of the Kingpin, and enlisted the Macendale Hobgoblin (at the time possessed by a demon) despite Blume’s strong opposition. Though the Kingpin was brought down by Daredevil and Hydra, Alfredo refused to let go of the ruse, and took over as the new Kingpin. When Blume urged him to stop, Alfredo murdered him. Richard picked up Blume’s fallen mask and adopted the identity of “Blood Rose” (wearing a purple and red kevlar suit), and pursued his former friend. Alfredo, shot by the Blood Rose, fell into the East River, his body unrecovered, leaving the impression that “Richard Fisk” had died while the real Richard Fisk fled the scene.
Alfredo was in fact saved by some of his men, who took him to the Caribbean islands, where he received medical attention. A shipwreck stranded him on an island where the vigilante known as Nightwatch had exiled himself. Stealing one of Kevin Trench, AKA Nightwatch’s power gloves and his boat, Alfredo returned to New York to get revenge upon Richard and to reassume his role as Kingpin. Meanwhile, as the Blood Rose, Richard kept waging war on the remnants of the Kingpin’s organization. Alfredo returned, calling himself Gauntlet, and attacked the Blood Rose; Spider-Man captured them both, unmasking Blood Rose to discover the face of a second Richard Fisk.
Alfredo went to jail while Richard entered the Witness Protection Program. When Wilson Fisk returned once more to rule his empire, a defeated, purposeless, alcoholic Richard drifted back into the murky world of his father’s criminal organization, where he encountered a childhood friend, the reckless and ambitious Sammy Silke, son of the leader of the Chicago Ripa crime syndicate. With the Kingpin recently blinded, Silke saw his vulnerability as an opportunity for a coup. The charismatic Silke inspired Richard and several of the Kingpin’s lieutenants to seize the moment to attack. Richard shared his knowledge of Daredevil’s secret identity as leverage with the lieutenants. After a severe stabbing, they believed the Kingpin was finally dead; however, the Kingpin barely survived. Richard’s mother Vanessa divided the Kingpin’s Empire, selling it to several underlords, and sent Wilson to Switzerland to heal. She ordered the betrayers slain, but dealt with the punishment of Richard personally, confronting Richard at his home. Richard pleaded with his mother, believing he had saved the family. Unmoved, Vanessa shot her son dead in cold blood.
After Vanessa died of an illness, Richard was resurrected into a cloned body by the Jackal, who at the time was the alias held by Parker’s clone, Ben Reilly who was suffering from some insanity. Though he perished due to decay brought about by Dr. Otto Octavius, AKA Doctor Octopus. Richard spent time in Hell where he rose the ranks, gaining some luxuries in Mephisto’s Hell. When asked by Johnny Blaze, AKA Ghost Rider, to help him take Hell’s throne, Richard declined but drew Blaze a map to the throne.
Brought back from the dead by his father, who was seeking redemption, Richard rejoined the living as the Rose. Still determined to seize power from his father, he attempts to prove he is the superior Fisk by attempting to kill Spider-Man, but little did he know that Ben Reilly was behind the mask, who was atoning for his insanity while Parker was in the hospital. Richard hired contractors who failed him, so taking matters into his own hands, he captured Spider-Man’s colleague from the Beyond Corporation, Marcus Momplaisir, and put him in a Spider-Man suit outfitted with electrodes to attract Spider-Man. When he had Spider-Man (Reilly) by the neck, RIchard was taken down by a brave Marcus, who knocked him out. Richard next woke up in police custody, dressed up as Spider-Man and unmasked, and about to be handed over to the city’s mayor, his father.
Richard eluded jail time and ended up at a meeting with a bunch of gang leaders, including Tombstone, who dismissed him for not actually having a territory. To prove his strength, Richard brought in his latest minion, Digger, the revived gamma-irradiated gangster, who acted as his muscle. Interested in buying weapons from Tombstone, the deal was set to go down but Spider-Man stopped it, drawing Tombstone’s territory into question and making him look weak to the NYC criminal underworld. Tombstone then tricked Spider-Man into taking the Rose off the board, putting him and his gang out of commission for a time.
But when Tombstone was gunned down, despite his bulletproof skin, the ensuing chaos upset the delicate balance of power in NYC’s criminal underworld and led to a gang war. After losing ground, the Rose planned to take back what he was owed by taking down his new competition, Tombstone’s daughter, Janice Lincoln, AKA Beetle, who had stepped up in her father’s place while he was in the hospital. In a bid to take over Willis Stryker, AKA Diamondback’s former territory in Harlem, the Rose faced off with Beetle, shooting her but the bullets had no effect on her armored suit. The Rose lost again and was taken away by his father’s Hellfire Knights, while Digger joined the Beetle’s gang, the Syndicate.
