Where Have We Seen the Groundbreaking Star of ‘Echo’ Before?

Disney+’s latest Marvel outing is Echo, which follows Maya Lopez, a.k.a. the titular Echo. This is a character who has already appeared on our screens, so let’s look at where we first met her and what we already know.

Where have we seen her before?

Echo (Alaqua Cox) made her first appearance in Hawkeye, which premiered on Disney+ in 2021. We were introduced to Maya and her vendetta against the aging hero Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) in the miniseries, in which she was the acting leader of the Tracksuit Mafia, a role she inherited from her father.

How she came to inherit the gang is very much tied up in her beef with Ronin, a persona Hawkeye took on during the Blip to go after criminal gangs that he felt had unjustly escaped the event, whilst his own family had not. Ronin was responsible for her father’s death, and Maya has sworn to avenge him. Knowing that Clint and his new sidekick Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) have a connection to Ronin—without knowing Clint is Ronin—Maya kidnaps and interrogates them.

They manage to escape, leaving Echo to track them down. In the penultimate episode of Hawkeye, Maya finally catches up to Ronin at her father’s old auto shop, where a fight ensues. Upon almost defeating her, Clint reveals his identity, telling Maya it was an informant who set up her father’s death.

We then meet Maya’s uncle and former guardian, who is none other than Wilson Fisk, a.k.a. Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), whose relationship with Maya’s family and gang runs deep. Maya soon discovers that the informant Hawkeye discussed is, in fact, Kingpin, and upon the news of this betrayal, she turns on her uncle. In the final episode, a wounded Kingpin is before her and she shoots him offscreen, leaving his fate decidedly ambiguous.

Finding Echo

Disney and Marvel were praised for the casting of Cox as Maya Lopez. They stayed true to the comic book character’s Native American ethnicity as well as her deafness, with Cox being of Native American descent, being part of the Menominee and Mohican Native American nations, as well as having been born deaf. Cox is also an amputee and wears a prosthetic leg, with many viewing her portrayal as a win for the amputee community.

What is also stunning is that her appearance as Echo in Hawkeye was the first professional role Cox had ever taken on, having only acted in school productions in the past. Cox spoke of her joy at being cast saying, “I never imagined myself being a superhero because I grew up seeing average superheroes, who were not people of color. Being a person of color and with a disability, it is just so crazy to me that I have this opportunity.”

Cox only discovered she was going to star in her own spinoff—the first in Marvel’s new Spotlight series—midway through shooting Hawkeye. Many have praised her performance both in Echo and Hawkeye, believing that she is the perfect fit for the character, even if there are some differences from the comics. Marvel may have disappointed its fans a little over the last few years, but they still rule when it comes to casting, and Cox is a testament to that.

You can watch Cox as Echo in the Marvel series of the same name, now available to watch on Disney+.

(featured image: Disney+)