With the release of the new trailer the director of the Marvel Echo Disney+ series offers the character’s powers are lame and that representation is extremely important.
Regarding Echo’s powers, director and executive producer Sydney Freeland tells Variety, “Her power in the comic books is that she can copy anything, any movement, any whatever. It’s kind of lame,” Freeland said. “I will say, that is not her power. I’ll just kind of leave it at that.”
In the comics, Echo’s powers are similar to Taskmaster, and her use of her powers connects to Daredevil and Daredevil villain, Bullseye. She gained Daredevil’s acrobatic abilities and Bullseye’s uncanny aim after watching tapes of their fights which is why she became a worthy adversary. However, that is apparently not happening in the MCU.
As Echo is deaf, a female, and a Native American, Freeland says representation matters.
“Representation was extremely important to myself and to everyone on the crew,” Freeland said at a press event for the series in October. It’s added representation was important in the show as well as efforts were “made to ensure a high level of authenticity during production.”
What about the plot?
Echo take place following her introduction in the Hawkeye series and will track how a “seismic event” in Maya Lopez’s family, and “per Variety, “the ensuing trauma, leads the character known as Echo on her path toward Wilson Fisk (aka Kingpin, played by Vincent D’Onofrio) and villainy.”
“Maya is in a very vulnerable, emotional place after this,” Freeland said. “She’s got all this bottled-up emotion and rage and feeling inside of her, and she doesn’t know what to do with it. And there’s going to be somebody there to give her a little nudge.”
Echo premiers January 10 on the Disney+ and Hulu streaming services and is rated mature.
