A face from the past takes centre stage in the latest from Marvel Studios. Echo leaps onto Disney+ from 10 January, and sees the return of Maya Lopez/Echo (Alaqua Cox) who first appeared in Hawkeye, but takes us back to her origins story.
The first show under the Marvel Spotlight banner, which focusses on character driven stories, it shows Maya discovering that her ruthless behaviour in New York has followed to her home town. She faces numerous challenges, including both her native heritage and her deafness, as well as the consequences of her clash with one of Marvel’s biggest bads – Wilson Fisk/Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio). Cox, herself, is deaf and a member of the Menominee tribe.
Director Sydney Freeland, together with actors Chaske Spencer (The English) and Devery Jacobs (Reservation Dogs), who respectively play Maya’s uncle Henry and her cousin Bonnie, all spoke to us about how the series reflects the viewpoint of both disabled and native communities. Freeland describes the thinking behind the scenes which demonstrate Maya’s silent world and how she feels Native Americans have been mis-represented on screen for some years. Spencer and Jacobs discuss their experience of learning American Sign Language (ASL) for their roles, as well as working alongside legendary indigenous actors Graham Greene and Tantoo Cardinal in the series, both of whom inspired their own acting careers.
Echo is available on Disney+ from 10 January.
