Hawkeye Finale: Is [Spoiler] Dead? How It Happened in the Comics

12/22/2021 06:45 am EST

Warning: this story contains spoilers for Marvel's Hawkeye Episode 6. Partners Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) put a bow on their Christmas caper in the season finale of Hawkeye, "So This Is Christmas?" After the penultimate episode revealed who hired black widow Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) to take out Clint, the Hawkeyes take aim at criminal co-conspirators Eleanor Bishop (Vera Farmiga) and the "big guy" in red and white: Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin (Daredevil's Vincent D'Onofrio). But it's the parting gift of Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), who has spent the season gunning for masked ninja Ronin to avenge her slain father (Zahn McClarnon), that proves justice truly is blind. 

Wearing a tailor-made kevlar suit, Fisk shakes off a bullseye bolt fired at center mass, vehicular ramming, and an explosive blast triggered by the "too dangerous" trick arrow that ends a knockdown, drag-out fight with Kate. A beaten and bruised Fisk trudges through a snowy alley when he's intercepted by Maya, who knows "Uncle" Fisk wanted her father dead by Ronin's sword. 

"We're family," Fisk says, staring down the barrel of Maya's gun. "Sometimes family doesn't see eye to eye." The camera lifts away just before Maya pulls the trigger on "Uncle," Fisk's apparent death occurring off-screen with the sound of a single gunshot followed by a thud. 

In the comics, Maya is Fisk's adopted daughter who blames Daredevil for the murder of her mob enforcer father. Unaware he's secretly her lover Matt Murdock, Maya attacks Daredevil until Matt reveals his identity — and Fisk's manipulations. It's at this time that Fisk first survives multiple bullet wounds when he's gunned down at point-blank range by an enemy in Daredevil (Vol. 2) #13. 

The massive, heavily-muscled Fisk wears Kevlar body armor and can go toe-to-toe with super-powered foes like Spider-Man, but the mob boss meets his match in the page that inspires Episode 6 of Hawkeye: 

Daredevil (Vol. 2) #15 ends with Maya confronting Fisk and shooting him in the head for killing her father. Fisk survives but loses his vision for a time. 

After undergoing reconstructive surgery for his blindness overseas, Fisk returns and sets his newly-restored sights on taking back his criminal empire in Daredevil (Vol. 2) #46. It remains to be seen if Fisk follows this same path in the upcoming Hawkeye spinoff series Echo, now in development at Disney+.

All episodes of Marvel's Hawkeye are now streaming on Disney+.

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