The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen went out with a bang in the final season of Daredevil on Netflix, which ended in the fall of 2018. But if you’re game to believe new rumors, you might see this historic stretch of New York City again in the Marvel Cinematic Universe very soon.
What Happened? — On their Patreon, known Marvel leaker Daniel Richtman (@DanielRPK on Twitter) shared a new post detailing information about the upcoming Marvel series Echo.
The series, still in development with actress Alaqua Cox in the title role, will be a spinoff of the upcoming series Hawkeye, which begins streaming on November 24.
On Richtman’s Patreon post dated October 2, Richtman writes the plan for Marvel’s Echo is to serve as “sort of Daredevil Season 4” with “most of the main cast of Daredevil returning.”
Richtman added Echo is still “very much Echo’s show” and that the feel of a Daredevil revival is in that “we’ll get to see all these characters from that show coming back and play big parts in it.”
Furthermore, Richtman said that the characters will be “soft rebooted” into the MCU. “[These characters] will still have a history with one another. So they’ll look somewhat different with a bit of different backgrounds but still played by the same actors.”
Echo of the Past — For fans who may not know anything about Echo, it might be strange to see her series serve as an unofficial revival season of Daredevil. But her comic book origins are strongly rooted in Matt Murdock’s story. Echo made her first comic book appearance in Daredevil #9 by David Mack and Joe Quesada. She made more appearances in Brian Michael Bendis’ famed run on Daredevil throughout the early and mid-2000s.
Her origin story also heavily involves Daredevil’s nemesis, Kingpin. In her origin tale, Maya’s father is murdered by Kingpin, who asks Kingpin to raise his deaf daughter, Maya. Kingpin agrees, training Maya to become a skilled assassin named Echo. During her schooling, it is also discovered that Maya has a gift for music.
When Kingpin sends Maya/Echo to take down Daredevil, she easily overpowers Daredevil but stops herself from murdering him when she learns his identity is Matt Murdock, whom she had met earlier and begun to fall in love with.
The Inverse Analysis — Though the studio has yet to formally announce the series, Marvel and Disney’s Echo will be worth paying attention to as it will spotlight a deaf Native American female superhero within the MCU. The plot of the series is unknown, and Echo hasn’t starred in a comic book of her own. She has instead played a supporting character in titles like New Avengers, Secret Invasion, Moon Knight, and of course, Daredevil.
Getting the Daredevil gang back together is not a terrible way for making sure audiences pay attention to an unknown superhero, like Echo. (It is also not the only show to revive Daredevil if you’re keen to believe rumors that Charlie Cox will return for Spider-Man: No Way Home.)
How the show figures out a story for Echo will be interesting. Probably more than any other Marvel project, Echo will not follow the plot of any single existing comic book storyline but instead tread its own path.
Echo does not have a release date yet for its premiere on Disney+.
