'Echo' Takes Marvel Into New Territory In Its First TV-MA Series

Marvel Studios trades superhero excess for quiet grit in its decidedly dark new miniseries, “Echo,” out now on Disney+ and Hulu.

Picking up where 2021′s “Hawkeye” ended, “Echo” follows Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez, an Indigenous, deaf amputee who was once the leader of the brutal Tracksuit Mafia.

The five-part series unfolds as Maya retreats home to Oklahoma’s Choctaw Nation after shooting her surrogate uncle and New York crime boss, Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk (played by an imposing Vincent D’Onofrio).

Back home, Cox’s character must contend with her past trauma and face fraught relationships with her grandma and cousin, Chula (Tantoo Cardinal) and Bonnie (Devery Jacobs), respectively.

“Echo” is an edgy but imperfect outing for Marvel, which has been trying to find footing in its post-“Avengers” era. Last year, the studio had multiple box-office blunders; the November release of “The Marvels” ended up as its lowest-grossing movie of all time.

As Marvel’s first TV-MA release, “Echo” delivers the right dose of dark, violent action, which is a welcome break from the glossy world of the MCU films. Still, the bloody fight scenes are inconsistent when it comes to choreography, and some special effects also fall flat.

While the pacing of its first few episodes seems to weigh it down, “Echo’s” attention to Maya’s internal life pays off as the stakes rise in the second half of the series.

(Critics were only given the first three episodes to preview and it’s hard to imagine this choice didn’t skew some of the more middling reviews.)

Choctaw culture is ripe throughout “Echo” but the series still flirts with tropes that feel stale, especially given the vibrant state of Native American storytelling in the industry right now.

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