Why Take A Step Down On The Ladder

Why did Wilson Fisk become Mayor of New York? I know he had a groundswell of popular support because he did. . . something when the city was stuck in the Darkforce Dimension during Secret Empire.

That's the "how". I'm not clear what he gains from it. He already had political power, via bribes, threats, extortion, whatever. They guy has had politicians and even generals in his pocket. For the most part, he can get what he wants in those avenues, without exposing himself to the public.

That's what confuses me. Fisk becoming mayor puts him out there on the public stage all the time. When he was just a successful "import-export businessman", he could pick and choose his spots. A charity fundraiser. Some gala for the upper crust of New York society. Places where could spin that philanthropic image of himself, before receding into the shadows where he resumes having people murdered for one reason of another. Even in today's world, there are a lot of successful businessmen who could walk around unrecognized by the general public. Perhaps a bit trickier in Fisk's case, being an enormous fellow who favors canes with giant diamonds on the end, but he also lives in a city with a big orange rock monster. The bar for being notable is a little higher there.

As a politician, he's theoretically beholden to the populace he allegedly serves. In practice, Fisk is beholden to no one but himself, but since there supposedly rules he has to follow to get things done now, he has to be aware of public opinion. More people are going to recognize Mayor Fisk. More people are going to accost him in public to complain about how he isn't doing more to keep rents from being increased unfairly, how lousy the garbage collectors are, or the general disaster that is the subway system (I'm assuming Marvel NYC's subway isn't any better than ours is, based on what I read online).

Fisk can't simply take them into a nearby alley and break their necks. He can have someone do it later, I guess, but even that might be a little dicey, and if he has every New Yorker that yells at him killed, he'll be mayor of a ghost town before long. He's in a position where he has to make public appearances whether he wants to or not, and with the cameras on him, can be put in awkward positions he doesn't want to deal with. Fisk didn't care about those Under Yorkers planning to abduct a mother and her kids, he would have been fine with letting it happen and maintaining the status quo. But he had to make an appearance, and that left him open to manipulation by Spider-Man.

I understood Jonah Jameson becoming mayor, because it was an ego trip for him. Like Doom, Jameson really thinks he's hot stuff and was going to show everybody. I'm not going to argue Fisk doesn't have an ego, he calls himself The Kingpin, but I always figured what the larger populace thought of him was irrelevant. He didn't need their respect or adoration because to him, they don't matter. They're insignificant. That he can order a general to send an attack helicopter and a pill-popping super-soldier to burn Hell's Kitchen to the ground, and it happens, that matters. That other so-called made men and mobsters come at his beck and call, that mattered. But the kind of people who would discuss whether he was a good mayor or not, who cares about them?

All I can figure is, he wants to burnish his legacy. A bit like Odin in Thor: Ragnarok. They both did a lot of ugly crap in the (not-so) distant past, and now they want to rewrite the record. Portray themselves as some benevolent, kindly leaders