After making a name for herself and helping the Avengers fight the Hand, a Skrull posing as Elektra kills Maya. However, the real Elektra resurrects Maya using the same magic the Hand once used on her, and Maya is able to continue her heroic journey as Echo, this time without her Ronin identity.
Taking the name Echo because of her natural talent for mimicking the movements of others, Maya adorns her face with a handprint that resembles the bloody print left on her face by her dying father, and sets out to kill Daredevil.
In Marvel Comics, the name Echo comes from the fact that Maya Lopez has photographic reflexes that give her the ability to perfectly copy any movement after witnessing it.
It is implied — and later confirmed in Episode 5 — that coming home and reconnecting with her roots has helped awaken Maya's powers, allowing her to essentially be a literal "echo" of her various ancestors throughout history.
Maya Lopez, also known as Echo, is one of the most skilled hand-to-hand combatants in Marvel Comics. While this is certainly spotlit in the MCU's Echo miniseries on Disney+, Alaqua Cox's character has a brand new set of superpowers.
In Echo, Maya slowly realizes that she possesses superpowers that are directly linked to her Choctaw heritage. She frequently has visions of the first Choctaw woman, who saves her people from a collapsing cave and has glowing, cosmic energy in her palms.
“Maya is an incredible character because she balances good and evil,” Executive Producer Brad Winderbaum explains. “She's not what you think of as a classic Marvel Silver Age hero. She lives in a morally gray area.”
They escape, and she tries to follow them to get answers. In the penultimate episode of Hawkeye, Maya and the Ronin fight at the auto shop where her father was killed, and as he almost defeats her, Clint takes off the mask to reveal that he's her father's killer.
Teased in the finale scene of Hawkeye's second episode, this week's “Echoes” gives the superheroine Echo her full debut. The episode opens by showcasing her backstory, in which she is played by the young actress Darnell Besaw. The daughter of a member of the Tracksuit Mafia, she lost her hearing as a child.
The curse of Echo was to only repeat back the last words spoken by others. This curse was put on her by Hera, Zeus's wife, because Echo distracted Hera from finding out who Zeus was sleeping with.
Echo was a nymph who was destined a fate that she could only repeat the sounds and last words of others. One day she spotted and fell in love with Narcissus. She followed him through the woods but could not speak without repeating his words.
Echo was a beautiful nymph, fond of the woods and hills, where she devoted herself to the forest. She was a favorite of Diana and attended her while hunting. But Echo had one flaw: she was fond of talking, and whether in chat or argument, would have the last word.
As in comic books, Clint's grief and trauma led him to leave behind his Hawkeye identity to become Ronin, though in the MCU this is due to the loss of his family as a result of Thanos' Snap.
Marvel Studios' Echo is set after the events of 2021's Hawkeye, in which Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) exacted her revenge on Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio), thereby putting herself in grave danger.
Echo is the first MCU TV show of 2024, starring Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez. Though a superhero story, Echo has all the hallmarks of prestige television. One of the things that made the live-action Echo stand out was the revelation that she possesses a new ability known as ancestral evocation.
Echo can duplicate any physical action that she sees, ranging from musical performance and ballet to martial arts and weapon usage. She's able to mimic the fighting styles of others much stronger than herself. She's a highly talented pianist, music composer, artist, ballet dancer, boxer, martial artist, and markswoman.
And just to answer the question above: no, Kingpin does not die. In a post-credit scene, New York's own Pat Kiernan tees Wilson up for the idea that — presumably in Daredevil: Born Again — he should run for Mayor of New York.
The show doesn't dwell on the identity of the person who cut the breaks on the Lopez family car, which in turn led to the death of Maya's mother. Maya's father, William Lopez (Zahn McClarnon), simply implies that he killed them in retribution.
The only real standout being Vincent D'Onofrio's excellent portrayal of Kingpin, but even that is tarnished by the writing and a limp wiltering flower of an ending. Echo also suffered from bad editing with the pacing and storyline feeling like they were all over the place.
Maya Lopez. Art by David Mack. Maya Lopez was still a young girl when her father Willie "Crazy Horse" Lincoln was killed by the Kingpin (Wilson Fisk). Crazy Horse dies, leaving a bloody handprint on Maya's face and a last dying wish: that the Kingpin raise Maya well.
Maya Lopez, aka Echo, is an anti-hero. She cannot be considered a classical superhero due to her extreme anger and bloodlust. Superheros aren't conventionally associated with such an extreme desire for vengeance. However, once Maya has made her peace with her family, she can no longer be considered a villain.
Echo concludes with a showdown between Maya and her surrogate father, Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio), and instead of avenging her biological father's (Zahn McClarnon) murder, she used her powers to access the treacherous crime lord's mind in hopes of healing the childhood trauma that made him who he is today ...
