Echo

With Echo now released I thought we should do a little comic book background on her as well as assessing how accurate the show was. Now as always I do not care if story beats are accurate, that is not how comic book adaptations, or any adaptations for that matter should work. I do however expect characterizations to be accurate. The show has actually done a pretty good job but let's go through why and what we might see based on her appearances in the comic books.

Echo came to comics in 1999 making her first appearance in Daredevil #9. She also appeared as Ronin in 2011 in New Avengers #11. At that point fans still didn’t know who Ronin was and their best guess was Matt Murdock so of course there had to be a little bit of a bait and switch. Also perfect because we get an appearance by Hawkeye in the show who is (or was) the MCU’s Ronan.

So in the comics Maya was still really little when her father died and he’s killed by the Kingpin (this part stayed accurate at least). The death scene however with Maya being there when her father dies and him leaving a bloody handprint on her face was all 100% accurate. Kingpin then takes her in and raises her as his own.

In the comics Maya and Matt are actually friends and eventually fall in love. Maya is sent by Kingpin to find and exploit the weaknesses of Daredevil. She goes about her mission as Echo, disguised with a white handprint over her face to remind her of her fathers death. She successfully completes her task and the only thing that spares the red-clad hero's life is the fact that Maya finds out that Matt and Daredevil are the same person. It is Matt who reveals Kingpin’s lies to Maya and in revenge she does in fact shoot him in the face leaving him blind.

The weight of everything she has done causes her to flee from the US to figure out her life. When she comes back, she tries to reunite with Matt but he is in another relationship. Feeling lost she goes to one of her fathers old friends who sends her on a vision quest. This quest eventually leads her to Wolverine who also passes on some wisdom and a new life path for her. After this she does end up taking the Ronin identity full time. She fights with (and against) the Avengers for a time and she’s actually the one that passes the Ronin identity off to Clint. In the following stories she returns to being Echo.

She plays important roles in the World War Hulk, Avengers/Invaders, Secret Invasion, and Enter the Phoenix storylines and appears in the fourth Moonknight series.

Considering her ties to Daredevil in the comics we can only assume he will pop up again in the show OR that she will make an appearance in his once it is released. Her powers in the comics are somewhat augmented in the sense that she can perfectly replicate movements. Similar to Taskmaster, if she sees something then she can do it. Obviously her greatest weaknesses are fighting in the dark and taking verbal commands because she relies heavily on visual cues.

I think the show did an incredible job of adapting this character, perhaps some of the best adaptation work that the MCU has ever done honestly. Echo definitely feels like her comic book counterpart and I think that is really important especially when introducing a new character into the MCU.