Marvel’s latest TV show Echo on Disney+ comes hot on the heels of a troubled year for MCU Towers. In December, Jonathan Majors – the franchise’s new big bad guy Kang – was found guilty of assaulting and harassing a former girlfriend. Loki Season 2 and Secret Invasion vanished with barely a ripple; She-Hulk was a bit of a mess.
So after that annus horribilis, does 2024 spell better times ahead for Marvel? With the arrival of Echo, the answer is... kind of.
On paper, Echo sounds like it should be good. Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) last appeared in 2021’s Hawkeye, having killed her former mentor Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) in revenge for the death of her father. These days, she’s living on the run, trying to dismantle Kingpin’s old empire – until a job gone wrong blows her back into her old hometown.
Echo is also the first MCU show with a Native American main character, as well as a Deaf one, and it embraces both of these elements from the start, opening with a Native American myth.
The first episode then does a lot of narrative heavy lifting in establishing who Maya is: in addition to reminding audiences what exactly went down in Hawkeye (three whole years ago) it quickly delves into the traumatic origin story that is obligatory for any self-respecting superhero.
In Maya’s case, that means revisiting the moment when, as a child, she is involved in the car crash that kills her mother. She is then ripped away from her loving family in Omaha to go and live with her father in New York. No wonder she turns to Kingpin for guidance, and in return he trains her to be the leader of his gang of thugs – a role she’s very good at.
By the end of the first episode, Maya has exhibited an alarming capacity for violence (including an ability to mimic the fighting moves of others… is it supernatural? Well, duh, it's Marvel) and has set out to eat some miles on her massive black motorbike.
The problem is, it all feels a little bit… disjointed. In addition to the mega-lore dump from episode one, we’re also treated to lengthy introductory sequences for the episodes, which are intended to explain the maybe-superpower Maya has inherited from her ancestors.
Fascinating they may be (anybody for a game of Native American stickball, set 500 years in the past?), but they clash with the gritty, lived-in feel of Maya’s world. It's almost as though the show doesn’t quite know what it wants to be – gritty and realistic or supernatural? – which makes it feel uneven.
Which is a shame, because Cox really is great as Maya. The resentment practically burns off her: one glint from her eyes conveys a world of sullenness. Her Deafness is never commented on, and it's never portrayed as a drawback: instead, Sign language (both American and Plains Indian) is used plentifully by both hearing and non-hearing throughout the series, which is great, as is the sound editing which periodically brings us into and out of Maya's world.
Led by Cox, the rest of the cast also gives it their all with the material that they have. Chaske Spencer, so good in BBC show The English, exudes gravitas but again feels underused as Maya’s uncle Henry, who is still connected to Kingpin’s empire; the same applies for Tantoo Cardinal, who plays her estranged grandmother Chula. Hampered by these issues, Echo is still compelling, a testament to the acting - it just feels like it could have been better.
