title: "'Daredevil: Born Again Just Changed Kingpin Forever After Vanessa’s Brutal" Exit' excerpt: "'Ayelet Zurer says Vanessa’s death was designed to push Kingpin over the" edge, and it could reshape Daredevil: Born Again in a big way.' category: esports date: '2026-04-16T02:02:40+08:00' author: Aimirul tags:
- Daredevil Born Again
- Marvel
- Disney Plus
- Kingpin
- TV News featured: false coverImage: /images/esports/daredevil-born-again-just-changed-kingpin-forever-after-vanessa-s-brutal-exit.jpg
If you’ve been following Daredevil: Born Again on Disney+, episode 5 just dropped one of the season’s biggest gut punches, and yeah, it’s a major one for Wilson Fisk.
According to Ayelet Zurer’s interview with Polygon, Vanessa Fisk does not survive the aftermath of Bullseye’s attack in season 2. After Bullseye targets both Vanessa and Fisk during Fisk’s boxing exhibition match, Vanessa is left with a shard of glass lodged in her temple. For most of episode 5, titled “The Grand Design,” it looks like she might pull through, especially if you remember how she survived poisoning back in the earlier Daredevil era. But this time, she dies in her hospital bed.
That alone is already a huge shift, but the real impact is what it does to Kingpin. Zurer said the creative team explained the decision to her before the season began, with showrunner Dario Scardapane and executive producer Sana Amanat both calling to walk her through why Vanessa had to die. She said they were careful to frame it as a story choice, not something personal, and that the logic was clear: if there is one thing that can truly send Fisk into full rage mode, it’s losing Vanessa.
You can already see that spiral starting fast. In the episode, Fisk reacts with extreme violence, even killing a doctor who is only trying to offer condolences. So if you were hoping for a calmer, more controlled Kingpin moving forward, bro, that ship looks gone.
Zurer also made it clear that, as much as Vanessa and Fisk’s relationship has always been one of the most compelling parts of this corner of Marvel, the series is still fundamentally built around the power struggle between Daredevil and Fisk. In her view, everything else in the story, even a relationship as twisted and magnetic as theirs, serves that bigger conflict.
One of the most interesting bits from the interview was how much she wrestled with Vanessa’s Born Again storyline earlier on. Zurer said the hardest thing for her to accept was the idea that Vanessa had taken a lover. For her, Vanessa has always been defined by loyalty and truth, so that choice initially felt off. She discussed it with the showrunner and pushed for the lover to be tied to the art world instead, because that made more sense for Vanessa’s character. That is how Adam became an artist.
Her way into that storyline was seeing Fisk’s earlier departure as a betrayal. In that reading, Vanessa’s own betrayal becomes less about romance and more about striking back. Later, the story bends back toward the loyalty-and-truth dynamic that Zurer sees as the core of their relationship, especially through those strange therapy sessions.
She also gave a nice read on the couple’s power dynamic. In her eyes, Fisk is the more ruthless one. Vanessa can be cold too, but for her, power is more about protection. For Fisk, power is basically fuel for more power. That difference matters, and now that Vanessa is gone, Fisk may lose the one person who grounded that obsession, even in a very messed-up way.
For Malaysian and wider SEA Marvel fans, this is the kind of change that really matters because Born Again streams here on Disney+, and a lot of us are watching it week to week the same way US fans are. If you’re invested in the street-level Marvel side, not the multiverse chaos stuff, this looks like the moment that could define Fisk’s next phase across the series.
Zurer also said coming back to Vanessa years after the Netflix version felt very different. She didn’t want to replay the earlier, more naive version of the character, and instead leaned into a Vanessa who had been shaped by power, manipulation, and experience. That darker version of Vanessa is part of why her death hits so hard now.
So yeah, Daredevil: Born Again didn’t just remove a major character. It may have unlocked the most dangerous version of Kingpin yet.
Source: Polygon
