Echo Review: A Hard-Hitting MCU Blast

11.01.2024 - 01:41 / comingsoon.net / Disney Plus / Wilson Fisk / Maya Lopez / Vincent Donofrio

Just over a week after the second season of What If…? concluded on Disney+, we have yet another installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the streamer. is the latest MCU miniseries on Disney+, proudly boasting a brand new Marvel Spotlight banner during the opening logos meant to symbolize how this is a more grounded, character-driven story that does not rely on preexisting knowledge of the larger MCU continuity. I don’t know how true that is since this show is a spin-off of Hawkeye with a villain famously introduced in Daredevil. However, Echo was a delightful watch that explored Maya Lopez and her Native American heritage despite having a few flaws that held it back from meeting its full potential.

There were green flags all over this project. Echo is the first Disney+ MCU show to go for a TV-MA rating, which signaled that this would be a more mature outing for the franchise that has largely thrived in PG-13/TV-14 territory. Having seen the show, I can’t say that it is fully committed to adult content there is little to no language, and the bloodiest moments are in the trailers. Regardless, this show explores a lot of uncharted territory for the MCU. Recent MCU projects have been unafraid to capture minority voices and put them in their popular franchise. The filmmakers behind Echo collaborated with members of the Choctaw Nation to represent them properly in this show.

Ultimately, it works well as the show follows Maya Lopez, portrayed by Alaqua Cox. The first episode shows her character’s emotional backstory, starting with her childhood, tragedies surrounding her parents, and ultimately being taken in by Wilson Fisk/Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio). The show recaps a bit of what we saw from the two of them in Hawkeye when Maya shot Fisk in the eye for killing her father. But if you’ve seen the trailers, you know that Fisk comes back in this show. There’s a layered, complex relationship between the hero and the villain of this show, especially because it isn’t exactly easy to call Maya a hero.

Maya grew up training under Kingpin. Violence was her answer to everything. One of the best scenes in the entire show occurs in the first episode when Maya finds herself in a brawl with several goons and a very good lawyer. The fight choreography and camerawork is outstanding during this whole sequence. Much of the action set piece is filmed to appear as if it is one take, and it gives a grittier type of action than we’re used to seeing in the MCU. Marvel action is typically fun, exciting, and sanitized, but fans of movies like The Raid will have a great time with the stonework, especially in the first and third episodes.

Another shining element of the show is Cox’s portrayal of Maya. It appears as if she is