Throughout the years, Marvel comics have built upon their franchise by adding characters who are more diverse and more nuanced than ever before. Captain America and Iron Man are still huge draws, but now we see more inclusion of our heroes (and anti-heroes) and villains alike. From the new Captain America, Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) to Ms. Marvel herself, Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani). Ethnic diversity reigns as well as more women are prevalently represented on screen. Now we’re starting to see more differently abled characters and it’s a welcome addition.
BGN was invited to an edit bay visit to get an inside look at the series’ development and a first look at the trailer.
Many are familiar with Hawkeye, played by Jeremy Renner, as he experiences diminished hearing. Another ally in Hawkeye’s world is Daredevil (Charlie Cox) who is blind and manages to fight the law in addition to bad guys. Coming in 2024, a new villain will make her debut in the form of a prosthetic legged, deaf badass named Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox).
Personally I wasn’t as solid on the Daredevil side of Marvel lore. I didn’t watch the Marvel Netflix series which included Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron First. When Echo popped up on the Hawkeye series along with Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), I knew she was important, but missed a big part of how. The series Echo will explore her origins along with her unique skill and necessary presentation. Alaqua Cox is the first disabled actress to play a titled leading character in a Marvel Studios production and the first Native actress to do so.
The series is primarily directed and led by Sydney Freeland, a Navajo filmmaker who made it a priority to show proper Native representation. When we meet Maya Lopez, she’s living on a reservation in Oklahoma until a tragic accident causes her to move to New York. Part of Maya’s journey will be returning home and reconnecting with her Native American roots and embracing her family and community. It won’t be easy though. In the meantime, she’s become a henchman of Kingpin and carries out his gruesome commands. It’s not exactly the news you want making it back to the family reunion.
Echo fans are in for a treat. The series also marks one of the first Disney+/Marvel collaborations with a TV-MA rating and they truly earn it with blood and violence. It’s not all blood for blood sake though, it’s used to highlight the gritty realness and the danger of Maya’s situation.
In a trailer presentation, Marvel’s Head of Streaming, Brad Winderbaum said that Maya Lopez was “an indigenous, motorcycle riding, gun-toting, deaf woman with a prosthetic leg. She’s an amazing martial artist and she has an incredible history. Our team has brought a lot of depth to her character in this series.” Maya is the epitome of someone with so much potential who was knocked off course by trauma. If it sounds typical for a Marvel villain, it’s because she’s not alone. But who needs therapy when you can break a man’s spine in 27 different ways?
Although Maya’s journey is very connected to her Native heritage, it’s still extremely relatable. Freeland grew up on a reservation in New Mexico and grew up reading Marvel comics. It was mostly X-Men, but once she saw Hawkeye and learned about the Echo project, she read the comics and became a fast fan, already inundated with ideas of how to bring Maya’s story to screen. She especially wanted to show the community building awesomeness of powwows. For Freeland, powwows were like going to Disneyland if you lived in Anaheim. It was a fun spectacle, and common but no less magical. Having grown up attending man, Freeland was excited to integrate these events along with her personality and experience into the series.
Also starring is the always wonderful Zahn McClarnon who has starred in shows like West World and Dark Winds. He’s joined by another recognizable Native actress, Tonto Cardinal (most recently seen in Killers of the Flower Moon) and many other Native actors and filmmakers participate in front of and behind the camera.
Along with Native representation, Freeland really wanted to explore Maya’s trauma. The way she deals or doesn’t deal with her, how she copes or doesn’t cope. Every action she takes has a dramatic effect on whether or not she’ll be able to survive the seismic event that happens to her family. One thing that’s unique about Echo is that it’s not necessarily the fate of the world at stake, nor are there supernatural inclinations at play. The series is about the fate of the family and the fracturing event that puts the family into turmoil.
The series will pick up directly after the events in Hawkeye so if you feel up to it, definitely take time to catch up. However, Freeland’s hope is that you’ll be able to watch the series as a stand alone and still be able to fully understand and enjoy the series. Judging from the exciting and engaging trailer, I think she’s on to something.
In the trailer we get glimpses of Maya’s home life, both on the reservation in Oklahoma and on the mean streets of New York where she only falls back on her wits to help her survive. The juxtaposition of scenes where she’s smiling, in one, and then frowning deeply covered in blood, in others, is both heartbreaking and extremely exciting. It lets you know that you’re not just in for a run of the mill show where fights are the narrative. This is a fully fleshed out show that will take us to the heart of Maya, no matter how broken it is. There’s even a new character introduced that’s not in the comic books. Her name is Bonnie (Devery Jacobs) and she’s a younger cousin who Maya was separated from as a young girl. She acts as sort of a representation of Maya’s lost youth and innocence and their eventual reunion is completely unexpected and nothing like either woman could have imagined.
In the age of Marvel anti heroes like Loki or Nebula, it’s hard to tell whether Maya is headed for a brighter future or doomed to stay on the side of no good forever. It’s a question that runs through the series and one that while it may not be answered by the end of the first season, it’s going to be extremely fun trying to figure her out.
You can now watch the trailer here:
Echo will air on Disney+ as well as Hulu beginning in January 2024.
