Echo Review

When the news dropped back in 2023 that Echo, the limited series starring Alaqua Cox as the title character – reprising the role she briefly played in 2021’s limited series Hawkeye – would be dropped in a single batch of five episodes (a first for a Disney+ MCU series), rumors started swirling that the series was a mess and this was Marvel’s attempt to sweep it under the rug. And, considering the slump the studio has found itself in over the last couple of years, it wasn’t that hard to imagine a series, starring a relatively unknown comic character, would have gone off the rails and need to be released in such a manner as to get it out of the zeitgeist as fast as possible, lest more think pieces come out asking if the MCU is dead. I certainly started buying into the rumors. After all, why change things up after conditioning your audience to expect a certain means of delivery for its content? But, having watched all five episodes of the series, I’m happy to report that the rumors were unfounded, and that Echo is one of the best MCU installments in a long time.

Echo is a unique Disney+ release in more ways than simply its release style. For one, it’s the first TV-MA series created directly for Disney+*. And it’s also the first of the Marvel Spotlight imprint, a new type of series that Marvel is testing out wherein the audience doesn’t have to come into the series with a host of outside knowledge regarding the character and the MCU as a whole. The series will provide the necessary information – in the case of Echo, that included about twenty minutes of the premiere wherein we got a truncated version of Maya Lopez’s MCU history, from her tragic childhood, her connection of Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk, her clash with Hawkeye when he was a vigilante during the Blip, and her ultimate decision to attempt to murder her former mentor upon discovering he ordered the hit that killed her father – so that viewers are able to simply focus on the story being told rather than wondering how much other homework they need to complete. This generally seemed to work – as someone who watched and reviewed Hawkeye, I understood that there was a bit more to Maya’s story than we saw in the recap – and it definitely allowed you to get a feel for the character, her backstory, and what was happening in the present. However, as always, watching the other series (and perhaps even the Netflix Daredevil series) would allow you to enjoy Echo with the deepest sense of all the key players.

*Now that the Netflix Marvel series – Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage (we don’t speak of Iron Fist or The Defenders, thank you very much) – are available on Disney+, Echo isn’t the only TV-MA Marvel series on offer. However, it’s the first original Disney+ series in the MCU to have that rating. And boy does it earn its stripes.

But all of the technicalities about the series aside, how does it stack up? Well, it’s really great. Does it have some of the same pitfalls as nearly every MCU title that came before it? Sure. There’s a clear predictability to some to of the storyline. The CGI is shaky – and this is a series with minimal CGI. But it has something that has been missing from so many MCU stories of late: a hero’s journey that is imbued with so much heart and character development that it’s nearly impossible not to become fully swept up in the story being told. As Maya, Cox is mesmerizing. Yes, she, like Maya, is deaf. And yes, she is an amputee. And yes, she’s Indigenous. And all three of those pieces of Maya are absolutely central to her character and her journey in this series. But Echo is telling so much more than just the tale of how Maya becomes the hero Echo who will – one assumes, although there’s no official “Echo will return” stinger at the end of the credits – become a key part of the NYC Hell’s Kitchen gang in future MCU titles. It’s telling a story about the power of family – blood and found – and how understanding who you are and what you stand for is just as important as being a hero for those in your life. Maya’s journey is so deeply entrenched in her understanding of her own personal roots – the girl who left her family to walk in the world of the big city wherein she lost sight of where she came from – that it’s unique within the MCU’s other American-born hero line-up.

And, from a storytelling perspective, there’s a heck of a lot to like about Echo. There’s the grounding in Indigenous traditions – Maya is American Choctaw, and the writers received input from the Choctaw Nation on elements of the story. There’s the sensational fight sequences – how cool was that fight with Daredevil (Charlie Cox, once again reprising his role as Matt Murdock)? There’s the complex relationship between Maya and Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio, reprising the character brilliantly once more), allowing us to see a more human side to Fisk, albeit one that remains tinged with his continued desire to collect and control those closest to him (and yes, the white colonizer comparisons in this piece of the story are certainly apt). And there’s the plethora of exceptional Indigenous actors – including a bunch from Reservation Dogs* – who get the chance to shine.

*Of particular note out of the several Reservation Dogs cast members appearing in the series is Devery Jacobs, who plays Maya’s beloved cousin Bonnie. Jacobs is taking on her second MCU role, having lent her voice to the character of Kahhori – a crucial new edition to the animated MCU – in season two of What If?

If I have a critique of the series, however, it’s that the five-episode length doesn’t allow for key aspects of the story to breathe enough. Much of Maya’s emotional journey hinges on her coming to terms with her loss of community and her belief that her grandmother, Chula (an incredible Tantoo Cardinal), was instrumental in essentially blacklisting her in her community after she left as a small child. This is a particular hurt that needed more than a single confrontation to begin healing, and something we needed to see Maya really wrestle with in the aftermath of her conversation with Chula. Like many heroes, Maya is convinced that she needs to work alone in order to protect those around her and succeed. However, it’s clear the series wants her to learn that she is stronger as part of a family, not alone and isolated. We needed a bit more between Maya and her family (especially Bonnie) to see her learn this particular lesson. Similarly, the reveal of the mystical powers that stem from Maya’s maternal family tree needed more time to be fully explored. The story at their center – that her maternal line stems from the first Choctaw leader – makes perfect sense, but just where the powers come from needed a tad more explanation*. But, even with feeling shortchanged in time – something rare for any TV series in this day and age, much less an MCU series – there’s still much more to appreciate and love about this series than things to cite as disappointments.

*In the comics, Maya has the ability to instantly mimic the fighting style and ability of any adversary – hence her name, Echo. Here, the origin of that moniker has been changed and it appears her mystical powers are also a new addition to make up for the lack of echoing ability (probably because Taskmaster, who you might recall from Black Widow, remains in the MCU and will be in the Thunderbolts film with that same set of powers). I’ve seen some positing that perhaps Maya’s powers are meant as a stand-in for Iron Fist, seeing as he also has mystical strength that manifest in glowing hands and he was . . . problematic in his past television incarnation. Either way, we need more information on just what those powers are and when she can use them. Limiting them to life or death moments would mean things would have to get pretty dicey for her powers to manifest, but she does have a pretty solid set of fighting skills to fall back on, so I don’t necessarily need her to be a fully powered superhero.

Echo isn’t a sign that the MCU has righted the ship – or that there’s even a ship worth righting at this stage of the game. But it is a sign that when the large Marvel machine allows for a chance to tell a smaller story, it can still resonate beyond the desire for crazy CGI fights that have taken hold of so many MCU stories. Echo is a small piece of the larger MCU, but it’s a necessary one. It may be a hero origin story, but it’s also a story of the power of history in shaping the present. How the scars of the past and the trauma they wrought don’t have to continue to dominate the present. And how family is defined as the people who love us and accept us regardless of the years and potential bad blood between us. It might not be a battle for the fate of the multiverse, but Echo is an incredibly effective series.