The trailer for Disney+’s Echo dropped today and gave us our first look at the Marvel series that focuses on Maya Lopez/Echo. Introduced in Hawkeye, Maya was raised under the watchful eye of none other than Kingpin, the unofficial lord of Hell’s Kitchen.
Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) raised Maya (Alaqua Cox) to be one of the deadliest fighters, with her style mirroring his own. But what is so fascinating about this glimpse into the world of Echo, as both a character and the series of the same name, is that we get to see how much of her is led by her connection to Kingpin. The trailer has a voiceover from D’Onofrio’s Fisk, talking about Maya and her connection to him, but one quote in particular really caught my attention.
“You and I are the same,” Fisk says after talking about the rage that fills Maya. Throughout the trailer, we see how she fights, how she adapts her style to whatever situation she finds herself in, and while it is all underscored by how Fisk sees her, it is still an important thing to note: She is fueled by what Fisk has given her. That line in particular really is reflected in the teaser trailer in a way that shows how much Kingpin has influenced Maya, whether she wants to embrace that part of herself or not.
It sets the tone for the series as a whole for me and has me excited to see how Maya is going to separate herself from the hold that Fisk has over her, and I hope that the show gives her the time to sort out her rage to make her powerful outside of it in a way that Fisk never quite can do. Still, seeing her fight with that rage in a side by side with Fisk? That’s pretty epic.
The same fighting style, driven by rage
The trailer cuts back and forth between Maya and Fisk as he talks about her rage, showing the parallels in their fighting styles. The two let their rage fuel them in a way that is often seen when you are driven by the same desires and needs as those who helped guide you as a child. It isn’t surprising that Maya fights in a similar way to Fisk or that she lets her anger take over, but what I love about it is seeing how the show is leaning into that connection.
Watching Maya let that rage consume her in the way that Fisk does shows that the two are connected despite Maya trying to be separate from him in Hawkeye. What I hope her own show does is let her find her own path away from him in the future.
The street-level Marvel characters are always fascinating to explore because they’re grounded in real-world problems. Maya Lopez has issues that all of us can understand, and dealing with her complicated feelings about Fisk definitely seems to be a theme of Echo. The fighting style of both Maya and Fisk is, hopefully, just the beginning, but it was still so cool to watch it happen in the trailer.
(featured image: Disney+)
