The Disney+ series dedicated to Maya Lopez is now available, in full, since Wednesday, January 10. The urban setting and the brutality ofEcho remind Daredevil.
If Marvel’s Echo reminiscent of the old Netflix series Marvel’s Daredevil, it’s not really because of the presence of Matt Murdock. His appearance in the first episode in no way steals the spotlight from Maya Lopez, who has no need of him to shine: Alaqua Cox is charismatic and the series, available on Disney+ since January 10, is based above all on his shoulders. On the other hand, the work fully takes up the police, dark and brutal codes of fire Daredevil. Something to please those who loved the urban adventures of Matt Murdock.
Via a few flashbacks, the first episode places the context, which started in Hawkeye in 2021: after Maya’s father was murdered, she swears to avenge him, and joins Wilson Fisk’s mafia – whom she considers an “uncle”. But she discovers that he lied to her: at the end of Hawkeyeshe shoots him in the head.
Maya is now hunted by Fisk’s men. But she also wants to take his place. On her journey, she must return to her native village for business. There she reconnects with her indigenous roots, and meets several faces from her childhood — her grandmother, her cousin Bonnie (who was also her best friend) and her cousin Biscuits. There is clearly a dimension of family drama in Echo.
Echo is an action thriller almost independent of the MCU
The first series from the Marvel’s Spotlight label meets the requirement for a series that could be described as “mature”. Where hopes were first turned towards Secret Invasion in this matter, it is ultimately Echo which manages to offer a television work of this type in the MCU. As in Daredevilthe narration takes place at an urban level – industrial warehouses, the streets, the mafia – and on an intimate scale.
The story, as promised by the Spotlight label, is not constantly multi-referenced within cosmic issues. It’s an action thriller that could stand up, even if it wasn’t a Marvel series. The only downside is that the story remains quite thin and is therefore stretched out in length without really trying to push the inventiveness very far. But the series knows its trump card, and that is its staging: the atmosphere is dark, the fights are choreographed to impress. The action results in a sort of controlled chaos, which again recalls Daredevil.
And, if Maya is certainly very taciturn, the actress manages to convey judicious emotions in the situation: we feel her panic, her pain, her anger, her adrenaline peaks, with an interesting physical intensity. Thus, the character is intriguing enough to make you want to know his fate.
Marvel’s Echo nevertheless emancipates itself in part from Daredevil by adding a mystical dimension: since Maya is part of the indigenous people of America, this origin is fully integrated into the narration through hallucinated sepulchral sequences, like bridges between the present and a distant past. Not to mention that his double handicap, deafness and a prosthesis, also make him a deeply resilient character. Sign language is cleverly integrated into the narration and, during many action scenes, the sound is suddenly cut to immerse us in Maya’s skin. We only regret that his other senses are not cinematically highlighted during these moments, even if his combat acuity is supposed to show it for itself.
The interpretation that Vincent D’Onofrio gives us in Echo of course contributes to the series, and to its memorial reminders of Daredevil. The actor is even more disturbing, even more intimidating, in this version of Wilson Fisk.
Without a doubt Echo is it not a series as striking as WandaVisionand she will not benefit from the aura of Loki in the public eye, but it does good and turns out to be quite successful in keeping its promises. The Spotlight label is already showing its interest: focusing on a single character, his story, his dramas, gives a sensible future to an MCU which was drowning in its endless crossovers and multiversal mishmash.
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