Summary

Marvel’s Echo series brings back the gritty style and action scenes reminiscent of the beloved Netflix shows like Daredevil and The Punisher. The return of Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin in Echo signals a departure from the comedic portrayal seen in Hawkeye and brings back the menacing villain fans loved. Echo marks Marvel’s first venture into Mature-rated storytelling, showcasing graphic violence on-screen and potentially ushering in a new era for the superhero genre in TV.

Far from the hay days of the mid-2010s, Marvel Studios and the superhero genre are in somewhat of a lull at the moment – especially in the TV department. However, Marvel’s already written-off Echo series might not be the dud fans prejudicially thought it would be. Echo sees Alaqua Cox return as Maya Cox from 2021’s Hawkeye and take center stage as the hearing-impaired anti-hero.

Echo outlines the origins of the fan-favorite Daredevil character, establishing and exploring her relationship with her adoptive father, Kingpin – played by the excellent Vincent D’Onofrio. As well as its intrigue-filled plot, the trailers for Echo tease some of the best action scenes in the modern MCU, featuring bloody, hard-hitting fights reminiscent of Marvel’s Netflix days. For fans of shows like Daredevil and The Punisher, Echo could be a must-watch.

Echo Is Similar to Marvel’s Netflix Shows

There aren’t a lot of things Marvel fans can unanimously agree on. Everyone has their favorite hero, their favorite film in the franchise, and their own strong opinions about which film is the worst. But one thing many fans agree with is that Marvel’s Netflix shows are the best.

Most of Marvel Studio’s newer Disney+ series, while entertaining, haven’t reached the same levels of narrative depth or fleshed out their characters anywhere near as well as the Netflix shows have, not to mention their Mature ratings meant the violence, crimes, and romance, didn’t have to be watered down, and enhanced the stories. Echo appears to emulate this formula, and the results look incredible.

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From the get-go, the newest trailer for Echo features some of the heaviest on-screen violence in the MCU, as Kingpin brutally and bloodily beats a man to a pulp in a New York alley. This moment is the catalyst of the trailer and the story and kickstarts Kingpin and Maya’s complicated relationship. The trailer then instantly jumps into another fight scene, set a few years in the future, as Maya is viscously fighting a room full of henchmen, with the camera refusing to cut away.

Saying that Echo emulates Netflix’s style isn’t a reductionist comparison; it is literally the words of the series director. In an interview with ComicBook.com, Sydney Freeland expressed her love for Netflix’s Daredevil and said that Echo’s style – especially its fight scenes – was heavily inspired by Daredevil. Daredevil instantly won over fans with its beautiful, realistic, and gritty fight choreography and wowed the world with its amazing one-take fight scenes. The action scenes shown in Echo’s trailer feel beautifully reminiscent of Daredevil’s gritty style, featuring various long takes, exemplifying the fight choreography.

It’s not just the action style that harkens back to Marvel’s Netflix days. The re-appearance of Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin is another major callback to Netflix’s acclaimed Marvel series. While Kingpin did make a few small appearances in Disney+’s Hawkeye series, many fans were upset that the character felt like a shell of his former self, used more as a comedic punching bag than the menacing villain fans were introduced to in Daredevil. The aforementioned opening scene of the trailer instantly teaches the audience that Echo will see the legendary villain back to his true, bloody self in the new series.

Echo Is Moving Marvel Into New Ground

A lot of excitement surrounding Echo involves Marvel Studios looking to the past for inspiration. However, Echo also sees the studio moving into new territory and could kickstart a renaissance of the superhero genre in TV.

If you’ve watched the trailer for Echo and thought, “That looks very violent for a Marvel show,” you’d be right. Echo will be the studio’s first foray into Mature-rated storytelling as the first MCU series with a TV-MA rating. The rating obviously comes with a few drawbacks, the main one being that Echo will alienate the younger demographic of Marvel’s fan base. However, the rating also allows the creators to take more liberties with the show’s development, especially in the action department.

Echo makes a point of flaunting its TV-MA rating in the trailer, featuring numerous savage action scenes, which include bloody faces, broken bones, and people being shot at point-blank range, all shown on-screen. Marvel has slowly moved towards bloodier violence in recent years, with Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness being the best example. However, due to the younger age rating, the violence had to be inferred rather than shown, dampening the intended effect.

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Echo also sees Marvel Studio’s beginning a new narrative continuity, sort of. Labeled as ‘Marvel Spotlight,’ the new line was created to act as standalone stories within the wider continuity of the MCU. The Marvel Cinematic Universe currently features 32 films, with the 33rd being released very soon, as well as 10 full-length series. Overall, that’s around 117 hours of content to chew through before the next series comes out.

Marvel Spotlight looks to eliminate this problem, promising that the stories told under the label won’t require any previous knowledge of the MCU timeline. Although this is certainly a great idea, it is hard to see how Echo will fit under this label, considering both Maya Cox and Kingpin have been featured in other MCU shows.

Echo will stream on Disney+ sometime in January 2024.

Stream on Disney+