comics, TV

Review: Disney+/Marvel’s Echo

Echo is a short series focusing on Maya Lopez, featuring five episodes that follows the events of Hawkeye.

After turning against former boss Wilson Fisk in the Hawkeye finale, this show is built around Lopez’ return to her hometown, and ultimately her Native American roots, while taking on Fisk’s empire.

Spoiler alert: Fisk did not die, which leads to Lopez ultimately having to make a choice on where she wants her life to go.

Lopez is not an easy role to portray, as a deaf amputee who still manages to be a badass, but Alaqua Cox does a superb job making the role hers in the short time we have seen her do such between the two shows. The Indian mythology stuff, while not developed deeply, was a nice tough to add to the Marvel world and one I hope can be explored more going forward. Greek and Norse mythology has been played out much more on screens, including Marvel-based ones, so the Native myths should have their place.

But the star of this world continues to be Vincent D’Onofrio’s Fisk, who continues to chew up every scene he is in. A lot of people point to Downey Jr’s portrayal of Tony Stark as the only possible choice. It now feels like D’Onofrio has made anyone else playing Fisk in the future a very tough task. He owns the role now.

The first entry from the new Marvel Spotlight division, this show was hyped early as a hard-hitting, violent version of Marvel. It did not quite live up to that, although there was a roller rink fight scene that was incredibly fun. Not Daredevil hallway of, well, anything Banshee level, fun, but still fun nevertheless.

This was a miniseries, but I would continue to watch this character’s story develop if they made more.

Post end-game Marvel has been widely panned in the comic book groups, but I feel like that is mostly just us being spoiled after a decade-plus of abundant comic book-related material. People whine of overkill. I say, go for it. There is plenty of IP here.

The below was posted in one of my nerd groups, asking to rank them:

So, here goes with my rankings:

  1. Hawkeye
  2. Loki
  3. Ms. Marvel
  4. What If? (i have only seen season 1 so far)
  5. Moon Knight
  6. Wandavision
  7. TFATWS
  8. Secret Invasion
  9. Echo
  10. She-Hulk

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the critic order is:

  1. Ms. Marvel
  2. Hawkeye
  3. Wandavision
  4. What If?
  5. Loki
  6. Moon Knight
  7. TFATWS
  8. She-Hulk
  9. Echo
  10. Secret Invasion

Now, who do I talk to about getting my Alpha Flight series off the ground?

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