The third episode of Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye dropped this week and social media channels are abuzz with conversation about a potential villain’s cameo. Ever since the series was announced, many fans had been theorizing that a popular character from the comics would be making an appearance in Hawkeye, and the latest episode might have teased his presence.
Fans have been convinced that Hawkeye will introduce Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin, into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He has previously appeared in Netflix’s Daredevil and was portrayed by Vincent D'Onofrio. While the theory could have seemed far-fetched at first, episode 3 of Hawkeye dropped way too many hints about this particular character for fans to ignore.
Every time a new Marvel project is due to premiere, fan theories seem to take over the internet. Whether it’s a film or a series, fans continue to analyze trailers, exclusive clips and posters of any upcoming project. Theories related to Hawkeye were not as rampant as those surrounding Spider-Man: No Way Home, but the Disney Plus series has been a topic of conversation for a few weeks at least.
When the first two episodes of Hawkeye premiered last week, fans looked for hints of Kingpin’s arrival. While it is already known that Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova will be a part of the series, Kingpin’s possible appearance is being kept under wraps. But, fans still managed to find a big connection in episode 2 of Hawkeye with Alaqua Cox’s Maya Lopez, aka Echo, being introduced.
In the comics, Lopez is a character who was born deaf. Her father works for Kingpin and is a mob enforcer, but is later murdered under Kingpin’s orders. When Lopez discovers him, he leaves a bloody handprint on her face. Kingpin, who is quite impressed by Lopez’s talents, then becomes her caretaker and sends her to expensive schools to pick up more skills. In Hawkeye’s third episode, Lopez’s backstory is narrated, but slightly modified. She is on a mission to kill Ronin, because he kills her father during a raid at the mob’s office.
The slight change in Lopez’s backstory has left fans unfazed, because in one scene, her father refers to her uncle taking her home. A man’s hand caresses Lopez’s cheek and his laughter is heard in the background. Fans are convinced that this is Marvel’s way of introducing Kingpin into the MCU, and the mysterious character is none other than Fisk himself.
Later on the latest Hawkeye episode, Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton is heard telling Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop that Lopez is not the one in charge of the Tracksuit Mafia, and there is someone else on top, “someone you don’t wanna mess with.” Who else could potentially be on the throne than Lopez’s adoptive father, Fisk? The hint seems too obvious for fans to ignore, and once again, the theories are running strong.
The fan theories related to Marvel series began when WandaVision first aired and viewers were certain that Mephisto would be making an appearance, and would potentially become the next big villain in the MCU. When Evan Peters’ Pietro Maximoff showed up in the series, many fans believed that he was in fact Mephisto in disguise. Unfortunately, he just turned out to be Ralph Bohner, a resident of Westview who was being controlled by Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness, the actual villain in disguise.
With Harkness revealed as the villain in WandaVision, fans’ hopes of seeing the live-action version of Mephisto were shattered. Despite that, they didn’t learn to back off, and instead continued theorizing when more Marvel series premiered on Disney Plus. The one time they did get a victory, albeit partially, was when Loki’s final episode introduced He Who Remains.
When Phase 4 of the MCU began, many fans believed that Kang The Conqueror would finally make his live-action appearance. While their counterparts were getting upset over the big WandaVision reveal, which was quite epic but did not prove their Mephisto theory correct, many other fans were hopeful that Kang would be introduced in Loki as one of the most powerful entities in the universe.
The Loki season finale did bring forward a new villain, but he was a version of the popular comics character that fans did not see coming. He Who Remains, played wonderfully by Jonathan Majors, was a variant that first discovered the alternate universes, or Multiverse. When a Multiversal War broke out, he weaponized the entity Alioth to end it. He then set up the Time Variance Authority to watch over the Sacred Timeline, in order to avoid the rise of other Variants, including Kang.
The episode does end with Sylvie, a Loki variant, killing He Who Remains. By that point, though, the Multiverse has already been activated. Fans last saw Loki in one version of the TVA where Kang is evidently in charge. With a second season of the series confirmed, and Kang’s involvement in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania revealed, it is only inevitable that the villain will be playing a large role in Phase 4 of the MCU moving forward. This essentially means that fan theories about Kang in Loki were proven correct, and so it gave them hope to theorize about future Marvel shows.
This brings them to Hawkeye and a potential appearance from Kingpin. While fans got burned by the Mephisto theory in WandaVision, they did get Kang at the end of Loki. So it’s a 50-50 scenario at this point, and it remains to be seen whether fans will win again. In Netflix’s Daredevil, D'Onofrio’s performance as Kingpin received a lot of praise from fans and so they expect him to return to reprise the role in Hawkeye.
If Kingpin does in fact show up, Barton and Bishop will have to go up against a much larger threat than a bunch of goons wearing tracksuits. Fisk is known to have multiple contacts in the underworld and is probably even in charge of the mysterious Sloan Ltd. that Bishop finds while using her mother’s security clearance in episode 3 of Hawkeye. The question remains, will the series deliver on this much-awaited introduction?
Hawkeye is streaming on Disney Plus.