Did the Kingpin just get blown up in Captain America No. 16?

Things are getting deadly serious in this month’s issue of Captain America! Has the Kingpin met his end?

Superstar writer Ta-Nehisi Coates is deep into his latest arc, “The Legend of Steve Rogers”. To recap, Rogers has been in the midst of a long-term battle against a group of deeply entrenched villains within the government and big business called the “Power Elite”. They include Alexa Lukin, the wife of the last Red Skull (who possessed a “Russian oligarch”), and Wilson Fisk, best known as the Kingpin and the freshman mayor of Marvel’s NYC. They have framed him for killing “Thunderbolt” Ross (formerly Red Hulk), and Steve’s since escaped a jail run by Baron Strucker.

Now, Steve is working with a team of patriotic superheroines run by Sharon Carter, “The Daughters of Liberty”, in order to beat the villains and redeem himself to the media (and the law). That’s included missions such as protecting undocumented immigrants from vigilantes like the Watchdogs, who are using hi-tech weaponry from A.I.M. Lately, Cap has become embroiled in a plot involving a new Scourge vigilante who is killing police officers in Manhattan.

Naturally, Manhattan is the territory of the Kingpin. He doesn’t like cops being killed on his watch, because it makes him look incompetent. The Kingpin also knows that after the Secret Empire crossover event, he bolsters the ranks of the police force with ex-Hydra members, or sympathizers. Yet Alex Lukin, who may have enough magical power to impress Doctor Strange, has refused his request for Hydra files to try to find the murder suspect. If anything, Fisk’s attempts to bully her just amused her.

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The issue ends with a masked assassin — not the Scourge, but possibly “a” Scourge — bombing the Kingpin in his private limo with a bazooka. The TV news immediately claims he’s been “killed”, which is witnessed by Steve, Carter, and Misty Knight. But the question is, with the Kingpin being a major villain in current arcs of Amazing Spider-Man and Daredevil, would Marvel Comics “allow” him to die in Captain America? Cap and Fisk have locked horns on brief occasions; once in 1972’s Captain America No. 147 and again in 1990’s Acts of Vengeance crossover. On the other hand, there was no body, and the golden rule of comics is that if there’s no body, there’s no death.

Could this be the end for the Kingpin? The last time he was this close to the brink was during the start of Brian Bendis’ run on Daredevil in 2001, in which mobster Sammy Silke organized an assassination attempt (and wound up blinding him briefly). Readers will have to check out the next issue to see what’s revealed when the smoke clears.