The question how Echo fits in Daredevil continuity is alive and well. As the series gears up for a simultaneous premiere on Disney Plus for all ages And the more mature Hulu, along with Charlie Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio reprising their roles as Matt Murdock and the Kingpin Wilson Fisk, some kind of continuation is expected.
But at the same time, Marvel Studio has tagged Echo as the first part of its own Marvel Spotlight umbrella, created for shows that don’t require you to have watched previous episodes. And the MCU’s Netflix spinoffs — which were must-see TV in their day — have barely been mentioned since their summary cancellations at the end of the last decade.
To Executive Producer Richie Palmer, EchoMarvel’s relationship with its hit Netflix predecessor and with Marvel’s new Marvel Spotlight designation both come from the same source: in honor of the extraordinary Daredevil and Echo stories that came before them. In Palmer’s eyes, there is a direct lineage from David Mack and Joe Quesada’s run in the late 1990s Daredevil (who introduced Maya Lopez as Echo in the first place) under the Marvel’s Spotlight moniker.
“The things Matt Murdock was dealing with in those comics were so dark and violent, and they didn’t necessarily fit into what was happening in the larger comics canon at the time,” Palmer told Polygon. “We wanted to figure out, when we brought Maya Lopez to life, how do we honor that aspect of the comics? How do we keep it dark and gritty and separate from everything else that was going on?
“And then Kevin (Feige) came in, while we were editing the show, and we saw how dark we were pushing it. And he said: Don’t hold back on the violence, don’t hold back on the guts and grounded tone, that’s what makes this show so unique and special. So Marvel Spotlight actually came from Kevin.”
Photo: Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel
The original “Marvel Spotlight” was a 1971 anthology comic designed to spotlight a new, original Marvel hero as often as possible; a testing ground for characters to find an audience without risking launching an entire series. And it’s a series with a history of being different from the usual Marvel fare. With the restrictive Comics Code finally being loosened the same year as its debut, Spotlight became a place for Marvel to try its hand at the kind of dark supernatural stories that had been verboten in American comics for more than a decade. And thus, Wonder SpotlightIndeed, the biggest success stories include Spider-Woman, but also Ghost Rider, Werewolf by Night and Daimon Hellstrom, the son of Satan.
But Marvel Studios’ Spotlight was created because Echo looks more like the Netflix shows than the core MCU fare? Or was Echo just the right show at the right time for a plan already in the works?
“It was a little bit of both,” Palmer quickly replied. ‘I think it was us who said: You know what? Echo wants to be its own thing. So let’s leave it be.”
“I think (Marvel Spotlight is) our way of taking these relatively obscure characters from the comics and telling real character-driven stories about them,” Palmer said, “and honoring the world they came from, and helping them find their own find character. place in the larger MCU.”
For Palmer, the world they come from is big, including the original comics like Mack and Quesada. Daredevil run and the Marvel Knights imprint, Marvel’s Netflix originals, and even films like the 2003 one Daredevil And Punisher: war zone. The goal, according to Palmer, was to honor the tone of the Netflix shows and make the Maya of 2024 feel like she could have belonged in the world of the Netflix shows. Daredevil performance of 2015.
But it is from 2015 Daredevil still MCU canon? Palmer puts it in comic terms.
“When different teams of writers and artists picked up different characters from one to another, it definitely honored what came before, and just helped move it forward. And I think going from the Netflix series, which we all really loved, and our fans really loved, we wanted to honor that but subtly nod that these characters are now in the MCU. But actually it is all one universe.”
This also applies to Netflix Daredevil the same Daredevil that will appear Echo? Yes. Will he possibly be slightly different because he’s now in the MCU? Yes. As with most continuity issues, perhaps the best advice is to paraphrase the theme song Mystery Science Theater 3000: You’ll enjoy it more if you don’t think about it too much.