Echo entered the Marvel universe in 1999’s “Daredevil” Vol. 2 #9, introduced by David Mack and Joe Quesada. Known for her ability to mimic any physical movement she observes, thanks to her photographic reflexes, she quickly became intertwined with characters like Daredevil. Echo’s connections deepened as her storyline evolved, including associations with figures such as Kingpin and the Hand.

Echo Review

After discovering that her adopted uncle Wilson Fisk (aka Kingpin) orchestrated her father’s murder, the one-legged and deaf hundred-and-ten-pound mob enforcer/part-time ninja, Maya Lopez, returns to her small Oklahoma hometown for the first time in 20 years. However, she’s not there for a reunion. Maya has murdered Fisk and now plans on taking over his vast criminal enterprise as Queenpin (I’m not kidding. That’s what the show wants to call her).

Echo is another exquisite example of nu-Disney’s paint-by-numbers predictability. Girl boss with a bad attitude? Check. A story that could (i.e., should) have been tightened up into an hour-and-a-half special but was unnaturally and unsuccessfully stretched out over multiple episodes? Check, and check. Ruined by wokeness? Great big double-check with a cherry on top.

However, Marvel Studios’ Echo fails hardest in three ways. Its main character is an unrepentant criminal and murderer whose ultimate goal isn’t redemption or even revenge. Unlike other criminal leads in cinema, Maya/Echo has no redeeming qualities whatsoever and never has anything resembling a “come to Jesus moment.” Every time Michael Corleone tried to get out of the Family business, they pulled him back in, but Maya voluntarily jumps in with one foot.

When the story arc suddenly changes gears from conquest to survival, it’s too late to build any goodwill for the character, and the writers don’t try anyway. They are content with her as a selfish and mean-spirited user of people, and they substitute personal growth for victimhood. Unfortunately, “she’s had a hard life” doesn’t do much to build sympathy when her following action after being given a life-or-death ultimatum is to abandon everyone she’s ever known and loved to a ruthless monster whom she knows from personal experience will have no problem wiping them all out.

Secondly, and the libs are going to love this, her particular set of handicaps makes her character laughably ridiculous. Daredevil works as a character because he has an extra sense that compensates for his blindness, and while the literal girl power (not hyperbole – she genuinely gets girl power) that is randomly and cartoonishly bestowed to Maya makes her sporadically stronger, faster, and more resilient than normal one-legged women, it does nothing to compensate for her deafness or her MISSING LEG. It certainly doesn’t make her bulletproof. Fortunately, she has double-plated plot armor.

Finally, even though, in her past 20 to 30 years (the show isn’t clear on her age), she’s never had an inkling of being powerful enough to single-handedly and effortlessly dispatch a room full of practiced killers, this series introduces her to her new set of ill-defined powers that will deus ex machina her through whatever trial befalls her, and best of all, she gets these powers from the spirits of her female ancestors for no other reason than she “needs them.” She hasn’t earned them. She doesn’t deserve them. There’s no reason to believe that she will use them to benefit anyone but herself, but she is an American Indian woman, so… you know… stuff.

Alaqua Cox’s single facial expression helps nothing— like she just found out someone drank the last of the orange juice.

Echo is a series in which the lead character can and does make a machine gun out of a roller skate. If you need more reason to skip it than that, the finale is so off-the-charts stupid that I laughed out loud, so much so that I had to pause it to avoid missing anything crucial.

Watch Echo if you’re looking for a way to waste several hours of your life for absolutely no payoff. It gives She-Hulk a run for its money as the worst MsheU series to date.

P.S. These series have consultants, right? Alaqua Cox doesn’t just exhibit horrendous trigger discipline; she’s so many knuckles deep on the trigger that I thought I was watching Orange is the New Black.

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