Echo’s Maya Lopez is one of Marvel’s most complicated characters

Echo is right here, and with it: Echo (Alaqua Cox), staking it out on her personal, and discovering out what it means to be a hero.

She was first launched within the second episode of Disney Plus’ Hawkeye, initially an antagonist to Kate Bishop and Clint Barton. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than Cox’s superhero was introduced to have her personal present — which lastly premiered on Disney Plus and Hulu in January.

However is she a very good man? Whereas she spent most of her first action-packed episode chasing our heroes, Marvel Comics readers comprehend it’s a bit extra complicated than that.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Hawkeye through episode 3.]

Teased within the finale scene of Hawkeye’s second episode, this week’s “Echoes” provides the superheroine Echo her full debut. The episode opens by showcasing her backstory, wherein she is performed by the younger actress Darnell Besaw. The daughter of a member of the Tracksuit Mafia, she misplaced her listening to as a toddler. With out the cash to enroll in a college for the Deaf, Maya was compelled to develop her means to lipread so as to work together with the listening to world that wouldn’t accommodate her.

And within the present, identical to in Marvel Comics, it appears that evidently Maya Lopez’s consideration to visible element has developed into one thing of a supernatural energy — studying and copying physique language.

Who is Maya Lopez/Echo in Marvel Comics?

Picture: David Mack, Joe Quesada/Marvel Comics

Echo first appeared within the pages of Daredevil, created by David Mack and Joe Quesada (Mack was writing the collection, and he and Quesada had been each offering artwork), as an antagonist. Within the comics, she was born deaf, and possessed a supernatural means to completely copy the actions of anybody she noticed — just about like Taskmaster, the Avengers villain who debuted within the MCU in Black Widow.

Maya was orphaned when her father died whereas working as an enforcer for Wilson “The Kingpin” Fisk, who you would possibly bear in mind from Netflix’s Daredevil collection or Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Fisk took her below his wing so as to develop her skills, persuade her he was actually a pleasant man, and finally unleashed her in opposition to the “villainous” Daredevil. Her most frequent “superhero” image is a handprint on her face, a tribute to her father’s final moments, simply because it was in Hawkeye’s “Echoes.”

As a minor Marvel Comics character, Maya has been by means of so much of ups and downs. She’s dated Daredevil, grow to be buds with Wolverine, was the primary individual to make use of the Ronin swimsuit/identification in Marvel Comics, tangled with Elektra and the Hand, and hung round with Moon Knight. She’s been a member of the Avengers on a number of events, the place she was usually written with a “supernatural” means to learn lips even when characters (like, say, Spider-Man) had been sporting full masks.

Maya has all the time been a Native American superhero, however lately in comics she was established as a member of the Cheyenne Nation particularly, rejoined the Avengers and — let me verify right here — turned the host of the Phoenix Pressure. That half, a minimum of, is in all probability not going to return up in Hawkeye. However Clint Barton’s present gained’t be the final time we see Echo.

Maya Lopez is getting her personal Disney Plus spinoff present, and followers are crossing their fingers that the Echo collection will reintegrate the world of Netflix’s Daredevil with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However they’ll be ready some time, as Echo doesn’t presently have a launch window.

Hawkeye

Costs taken at time of publishing.

The brand new collection premieres on Disney Plus on Nov. 24