Warning! Major spoilers for Giant Size Amazing Spider-Man: King’s Ransom ahead!
Spider-Man has unwittingly brought about the return of a violent killer called the Rose who just so happens to be the son of Wilson Fisk, aka the Kingpin. Spidey may not have intended this, and at the moment is unaware of what’s even happened. But it is still his fault, as his ineptitude and trusting nature allowed him to get tricked by a close ally into giving Kingpin exactly what he wanted. This shows that even when Spider-Man has the best intentions, his choices still end up causing untold collateral damage.
In recent issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker has been working with his roommate Fred Myers, aka the “reformed” villain Boomerang, to track down the pieces of the mystical Lifeline Tablet. Against his better judgement, Peter decides to trust Boomerang and help him find the pieces so that the tablet doesn’t fall into the hands of Kingpin, who is also on the hunt for it. Spidey believes that Kingpin wants to use the tablet to bring his wife Vanessa back from the dead, but still doesn’t think that such a powerful object should be in the possession of the corrupt Mayor Fisk. After Fisk sets loose the city’s mobsters and super-criminals to get Boomerang and the tablet, Spider-Man calls in an assist from his friends the Defenders to put a stop to the madness.
This doesn’t exactly go as planned, as seen in Giant Size Amazing Spider-Man: King’s Ransom #1 by Nick Spencer, Rogê Antonio, Carlos Gomez and Zé Carlós. Even after calling in friends like Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Wolverine, Spider-Woman, Iron Fist and Hawkeye, Spidey still ends up getting played. As it turns out, Boomerang was actually working with Fisk the entire time, and his friendship with Peter and apparent rehabilitation was all a ruse to get the pieces of the tablet together. Boomerang is successful in tricking Spider-man and the rest of his friends and manages to get the tablet to Fisk. Even though he’s upset at losing, Spider-Man thinks ultimately it may not be the worst thing in the world. After all, Fisk is just going to use it to bring his wife back, right? Wrong. It turns out he’s actually trying to bring back his son Richard, a deadly foe whom Vanessa had killed.
Richard Fisk is as dangerous a criminal as one would expect the son of the Kingpin to be. Utilizing a number of aliases, he has worked both with and against his father. Richard first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #83 as the mysterious Schemer trying to supplant the Kingpin as the leader of New York’s underworld. He later tried to help his father, even joining HYDRA at one point. He would later adopt the name the Rose and joined his father’s criminal organization, but he fell into old habits and tried to overthrow the Kingpin once again. He would later become a bloodthirsty vigilante called Blood Rose who sought to kill the criminals in New York. In a move that surprised nobody, he again joined the Kingpin’s organization and again tried to overthrow him before he was eventually shot and killed by his own mother.
For the moment Spider-Man is blissfully unaware that this dangerous foe is back. But that doesn’t mean he’s not to blame for what has happened and the inevitable fallout of the Rose’s resurrection. A common theme of Spencer’s run on The Amazing Spider-Man has been Peter’s past sins coming back to haunt him. This has been most prominently represented by Kindred, a villain revealed to be Harry Osborn who wants to punish Spider-Man for all the harm he’s caused. His fight with Kindred and subsequent defeat of his old friend forced Peter to reconcile with his actions and how, even when he tries to do the right thing, his choices end up impacting the people he loves and the entire city.
It’s unknown how the resurrection of Richard Fisk is going to play out, as the Rose has been both an ally and an enemy to the Kingpin. But the one thing that has remained constant is that, where the Rose goes, chaos follows. With Fisk serving as New York’s mayor and the mob’s leadership in flux, it’s inevitable that this will have huge ramifications for the entire city’s crime scene. And like so much of what befalls New York City, it will all be Spider-Man’s fault.
