Marvel's Echo Star Alaqua Cox Explains Maya's New Powers

Echo marks the first Marvel Studios project to be released in 2024, and it's heading to both Disney+ and Hulu next week. The new show sees the return of Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez/Echo, the character who was first introduced in the MCU in Hawkeye back in 2021. Echo's director and executive producer Sydney Freeland previously confirmed the titular character won't have the same powers from the comics. In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Cox talked more about her character's new powers.

"Obviously, this is different from the comic books," Cox began. "And I'm just really proud to have an indigenous director and indigenous people behind the camera as well, to be able to help make that cultural superhero power accurate and represented, and it's a definite different superpower than we're used to seeing. So I'm proud of that and I think it'll be very unique and special for the audience to see." 

You can watch our interview with Cox in the video above.

Is Echo a Villain?

ComicBook.com recently attended a trailer event for Echo, and Freeland confirmed that Maya is a villain.

"We wanted something that, again, if you're coming off of Hawkeye, and you have to keep in mind she's a villain," Freeland explained. "She's a villain. And so tonally, we wanted to lean into that. I think in talking with the executives and our approach, and when building visual style, it was sort of like, 'Oh yeah, lean into that, lean into that.'" 

Freeland added, "Yeah, so her power in the comic books is that she can copy anything, any movement, any whatever. It's kind of lame, I will say that is not her power [in the show] and I'll just kind of leave it at that."

Is Daredevil in Echo?

In 2021, Hawkeye focused on Maya's relationship with her "uncle," Wilson Fisk/Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio). D'Onofrio's Kingpin was first introduced in Netflix's Daredevil series alongside Charlie Cox's Matt Murdock/Daredevil. It's been confirmed that both actors will appear in Echo ahead of their own reboot, Daredevil: Born Again, which recently had some shakeups. During the trailer event for Echo, Freeland teased a showdown with Daredevil.

"I dunno if I can say this, but I love the Netflix Daredevil, it's great," Freeland shared when asked if the intent of Echo was to follow the Defenderverse. "And so we certainly took, obviously the Daredevil fight, it was a little bit of a nod to that series ... But then also we wanted very adamantly to show that these are people in our show. They bleed, they die, they get killed, and there are real-world consequences. And again, talking, it's not the fate of the universe at stake because I think once you go that broad, you can sort of lose sight a little bit. And so that kind of dictated the tone a little bit. So I guess to answer your question, it was a conversation, but it wasn't that reason." 

Echo is being released on Disney+ and Hulu on January 9th. The show will leave Hulu on April 9th.