The time has finally come for fans of the series Daredevil, as news has broken that Daredevil/Matt Murdock (played by Charlie Cox) and Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk (played by Vincent D’Onofrio) will be returning to the Marvel world for the Disney+ series Echo. The two were previously part of Marvel’s Netflix lineup, and though they’ve both made their Marvel Cinematic Universe debuts recently (in fact, within weeks of each other, with Fisk in Hawkeye and Murdock in Spider-Man: No Way Home), we weren’t sure when we’d be seeing Cox or D’Onofrio again.
According to an unnamed source for The Hollywood Reproter, the two will join Echo, where Matt is rumored to be looking for an old colleague (rumor points to it being Jessica Jones), and we already know that Echo/Maya Lopez is connected to Fisk through her past. While she might think that “Uncle” (as he was known in Hawkeye) is dead, we didn’t see a body, and if there’s one thing you know about Fisk (or anyone in the MCU or comic book-related, really), if you don’t see a body or a funeral, chances are they’ll come back at one point or another.
So it isn’t fully set in stone how much the two will play a part in Echo, but knowing that Matt and Fisk are back in Hell’s Kitchen just feels right.
Marvel fans fell in love with Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) when she made her MCU debut last December in Disney Plus’s Hawkeye, and now we’ll get to see her take center stage in her own 2023 series Echo. Readers of the original comics recognized Maya as a character who originated in Daredevil.
‘Daredevil’ on Netflix
Daredevil, which ran for three seasons on Netflix from 2015 to 2018, focused on Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), a blind lawyer in Hell’s Kitchen who uses his heightened senses to fight crime as the masked superhero Daredevil. The series is known for being much darker than other Marvel properties, with Murdock committing violent acts in his secret life as a vigilante. Although Daredevil was canceled after its third season, the series was praised by critics, receiving an astonishing 99% on Rotten Tomatoes for its first season.
Because it was so much darker and more violent than other Marvel fare, Daredevil avoided any direct connections or references to the MCU. However, in the lead-up to Spider-Man: No Way Home’s release in 2021, rumors began to circulate that Daredevil would be making a cameo appearance in the film. Sure enough, the movie contains a scene in which Peter, May, and Happy consult a lawyer about Mysterio’s accusation that Peter murdered him, and that lawyer is none other than Murdock. Someone throws a brick through Peter’s window during the consultation and Murdock catches it. When Peter asks him how he did it, he replies, “I’m a very good lawyer.”
That scene made it official: Daredevil is in the MCU, and now we know he’s here to stay.
Kingpin Shows Up in Hawkeye
This section contains major spoilers for Hawkeye on Disney Plus.
One of the main antagonists in Daredevil was Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofiro), the crime boss also known as Kingpin. Fisk is a complicated character, having killed his own father after his father abused him as a child, and he grows up wanting to make Hell’s Kitchen a better place. However, he tries to do by becoming a crime boss.
Kingpin also recently made a dramatic entrance into the MCU. At the end of episode 5 of Hawkeye, Kate Bishop gets a text from Yelena Belova saying that she’s tracked down the person who hired her to kill Clint. Kate looks at the picture Yelena has sent and finds her own mother, who’s talking to a bald man in a white suit. When Kate asks Clint who that person is, Clint immediately recognizes him as Kingpin.
In Hawkeye, Wilson oversees the Tracksuit Mafia, which also employs Maya Lopez, AKA Echo. Maya is deaf and has photographic reflexes, the ability to “echo” anyone else’s fighting style. As a boss, Maya reports to Wilson, but their relationship isn’t just professional. Since the death of her father at Ronin’s hands, Maya has come to see Wilson as an uncle figure, and the two share a genuine familial love for each other. However, when Clint tells Maya that her own gang wanted her father dead, Maya comes to suspect that Wilson was behind his murder. At the end of the series, Maya shoots Wilson at point-blank range, seemingly killing him.
However, Hawkeye establishes Wilson as having incredibly strong durability—he survives about a dozen of Clint’s trick arrows, after all—and since the camera pans away as Maya shoots him, the audience is meant to interpret his death as ambiguous. In other words, the door is left wide open for Kingpin to return, and he’s about to walk right through it.
A Leak Previously Revealed Kingpin and Daredevil’s possible return in ‘Echo’
Last month, the resume of costume designer Stacy Caballero surfaced online. The first entry in the resume is Echo, with the names Alaqua Cox, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Charlie Cox all listed beneath it. Sometimes, leaks like this are promptly taken down, but that resume stayed on Cabellero’s website. It looked legit.
So what does all this mean? First off, it means that Fisk is most likely not dead. I mean, we all knew this. But unless Echo will feature some extended flashbacks, Kingpin will still be pulling the strings of New York’s crime world, alive and well, in Echo.
It also means that Matt Murdock’s cameo in No Way Home wasn’t just a fun Easter egg for Daredevil fans. It looks like Marvel is finally integrating Daredevil into the MCU. It’s unlikely that Daredevil will be as violent as he was on Netflix, but Daredevil fans can look forward not just to the continuation of his own story, but whatever relationship he’ll develop with Maya.
Instagram Post Reveals Vincent D’Onofrio On the Set of Echo
In August 2022, a set of two photos purportedly of Vincent D’Onofrio in costume on the set of Echo leaked. The photo was posted by the Instagram account Atlanta_Filming, which tracks filming locations and set leaks for the MCU and other franchises.
The photos show D’Onofrio dressed as Kingpin. In the first photo he has his signature white blazer on; in the second photo, he’s wearing the vest and collared shirt without the blazer. The Instagram account has cropped the headline that originally accompanied the photo, so it’s not 100% certain that these photos are actually from the set of Echo, but the evidence is definitely adding up.
(image: Marvel)
Published: Aug 9, 2022 11:43 pm