Fans have seen recently that Marvel’s latest films and shows have been shown to lack all maturity and violence in favor of comedy. A lead example is “Thor: Love and Thunder,” one the worst movies Marvel has put out in the last few years.
With “Echo,” Marvel dipped into a mature and violent tone in their Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). “Echo” is the first project to be rated TV-MA, the next one being “Deadpool 3” in July of this year. The big problem with the show is that it felt forced to be two different things: mature while continuing the traditional Marvel formula.
“Echo” follows Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) five months after the events of “Hawkeye” where she is still on the run from the Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio). Throughout the show, she struggles with wanting to take control of the criminal underworld that Kingpin had and the unresolved conflict with her family from the past. The show also focuses heavily on her Native American background, which ties into the abilities she has.
The more mature tone of the show helped it stand out from prior Marvel shows, as well as the way the show gave more character development to a small part of “Hawkeye.” Then, the show ties together Maya more with Kingpin. It explores more of her early childhood and how she came to be a part of his criminal enterprise, which was one of my favorite parts of the show. Most of Kingpin’s scenes usually led to the more interesting and gruesome parts of the show.
Sadly, most of what was new felt bland, such as the side plot around Maya and her cousin. It felt undeveloped, especially due to the pacing, as the whole show was split between five episodes. These few issues have been a continuous problem with most of the Marvel shows, and this show is no exception to that.
This was Marvel’s first try with the TV-MA rating in the MCU, and it severely disappointed me. The scenes that gave hand to the more mature tone came and went, and were overshadowed by a lack of scenes that felt worthy of the rating. That is not to say there were no scenes showing off Marvel’s first mature show in the MCU, as there were a few scenes that felt like the old Netflix Marvel shows such as “Daredevil” and “Punisher.”
Overall, I think the show failed to deliver on its main selling point, which was its mature rating. It continued to follow the traditional Marvel formula and held back from embracing the darker side of Marvel that we as fans were promised.
Hopefully, Marvel will continue to up the ante as upcoming films “Deadpool 3” and “Daredevil: Born Again” are also just as hyped due to them pushing that R and TV-MA rating. I have hope, from the few scenes in “Echo,” there is much potential for the film company to improve on from this project.
