Classic Spider-Man villain will reportedly appear in Spider-Man 4

The conflicting news coming out of Marvel about Spider-Man 4 has been setting audience heads spinning. We don’t know what to expect from this film, which has been Marvel Studios’s main M.O. for some time now. They expect viewers to go in totally blind, but that won’t stop fans from speculating.

One of the main theories—and one of the most desired outcomes for the film—is that Spider-Man 4 will be a return to basics as a street-level crime story. There have been pleas for the return of The Vulture, for the introduction of classic Marvel gangsters like Tombstone and Hammerhead, and, of course, those of us who want to see Vincent D'Onofrio back on our screens as Kingpin. That last one, at least, seems to be a dream coming to reality, according to this Marvel Update tweet from back in March revealing that both Scorpion and Kingpin will make an appearance in Spider-Man 4 and that Kingpin is set to be the main villain. 

Kingpin as a villain has comic and film ties to both street-level crime and big multiverse events. He was introduced in the comics in 1967 as your kind of standard issue mafia boss—his pseudonym being a typical identifier for a crime lord. In the comics, Wilson Fisk goes on an arc from growing up as a poor child to coming up through the ranks of crime before being crowned Kingpin, and he even has a reformation arc that results in his election as mayor of New York. He’s just a normal, non-super guy—he has above-average strength and constitution, but is still just a crime boss. This is the persona we’ve seen so far in the MCU: in Daredevil, (2015), Hawkeye (2021), and Echo (2024).

However, in 2017’s Spider-Men II, a limited series run and sequel to Spider-Men in 2012, we’re introduced to a Wilson Fisk much like the one we’d known in the main timeline, but from a separate universe where he’s friends with a criminal version of Miles Morales. When trying to comfort Miles over the loss of his lover, Barbara, he introduces this Miles to the idea of a multiverse and how there might be a way to find a universe where Barbara is still alive. You might recognize this as basically Kingpin’s whole deal in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. That’s because it is; they just streamlined the whole thing so we didn’t have to be introduced to two Miles Moraleses at once. So they could save that for Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse.

All this to say, the reveal that Kingpin is set to be the main villain in Spider-Man 4 really doesn’t shed any light on whether we’re going to get another multiverse storyline or if we’re going to keep it to the streets. The man contains multitudes. Fitting since he is extremely large.

If it does end up being another multiverse story—if this is Kingpin looking for Vanessa again and he tried to tempt Peter into finding another world where Aunt May is still alive, that could be interesting. But I’m hoping it’s not. I feel like that’s definitely been done before, and Spider-Verse absolutely did it better. So here’s hoping for more street-level Kingpin: Vincent D'Onofrio really does it very well.

Editor's note: Recently it was revealed by Sony Japan that Venom could appear in Spider-Man 4. However, reliable insider Daniel Richtman stated multiple villains will be in the movie, which is why Kingpin and Scorpion could likely show up as well.