Echo

2023 marked a real low point for Marvel Studios with the monumental flop The Marvels as well as the heavily criticised Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, which served as a first real introduction to the next supervillain, Kang the Conqueror. A supervillain, played by Jonathan Majors, who in the same year got into trouble and was convicted in a domestic abuse trial before the last month of the year. In other words, Marvel Studios has an uphill battle ahead of them, but is already starting the year of rather well with their new TV series Echo.

During Halloween 2022, we first saw Marvel do something we can describe as a little more outside the box when they released the short film Werewolf by Night, which unlike other TV series and films, was met with praise. Later, Marvel Studios introduced Marvel Spotlight, of which Werewolf by Night is a part as it is a series that should be able to stand on its own rather than requiring the viewer to follow and watch over 40 other films and TV series. Echo is Spotlight's latest addition and is Marvel Studios' first completely independent TV series where we follow Maya Lopez in a war against the brutal and terrible Kingpin.

Echo, as I mentioned earlier, is great to watch without being familiar with the rest of the Marvel universe, but at the same time builds on the events of the 2022 TV series Hawkeye. Maya Lopez is trying to fix the world while the Kingpin's illegal activities continue, despite the fact that Lopez shot the Kingpin at the end of the Hawkeye TV series, which is also retold in the first episode of the series. However, Wilson Fisk, better known as the mob boss Kingpin, is unsurprisingly not dead at all. Rather, he has only recovered from his gunshot wound and has now picked up the hatchet again.

Those who followed the TV series Hawkeye know that Maya was born deaf and in the first episode of Echo we also get an explanation behind her amputated leg. In addition, we learn that she has a particularly strong bond with her Choctaw ancestors who even gave her special powers, which we have never seen before. However, these powers are not explored much and only appear a few times in the course of the series. Where and how they work remains very unclear which left me disappointed. One thing that is certain is that they do not work in the same way as they do for the comic book version of the character.

To some extent, Echo suffers from a very uneven pace and an occasionally uninteresting story. There's a lot that feels rushed and I would have liked Marvel to explore Echo's relationships with her grandmother and Kingpin even more. The show's minor characters also remain fairly uninteresting for the most part (with the exception of a phenomenal Graham Greene as Maya's ever-so-happy grandfather). Initially, there's a lot of talk about how Maya's relationship with her childhood friend Bonnie has been damaged by Maya's escapades in New York, but this relationship never blossoms, and they never even get to talk properly. Of course, this could be due to the fact that in the post-production of the TV show, an entire episode of the five-episode series was cut (making it Marvel's shortest TV show to date). A probably wise decision, but it also makes the characters and Maya's relationship with them even more tenuous.

However, fans of the Netflix series Daredevil will be pleased to know that the show serves as a major source of inspiration for Echo. Just like Daredevil, Echo offers magnificent fight sequences where there is no shortage of blood. Already one episode in, it can be said that Marvel Studios has never made a TV series or film as brutal as Echo. Charlie Cox also makes a solid guest appearance as Daredevil - unlike his appearance in She-Hulk. The guest appearance may be brief, but it's welcome. Cox is also brilliant as Maya Lopez, and her scenes with D'Onofrio's Kingpin are some of the show's best moments, allowing their characters and acting to really shine. D'Onofrio once again feels nasty and unpredictable, rather than the light version we saw at the end of Hawkeye.

Echo is an okay TV show that leaves a lot to be desired. However, with the exception of the second season of Loki, it is one of the better things Marvel has produced in recent times. By today's standards, that may not be saying much, but it's at least a step in the right direction and certainly makes me a little more optimistic about the future of Marvel Studios. Whether you've kept up with all the films and TV shows or not, you can now stream all the episodes on Disney+.