Okay, perhaps Marvel Studios’ past year wasn’t quite the fall of Rome as some folks have made it out to be. Nevertheless, 2023 was an undeniably rough period for the House of Ideas — one that saw several MCU releases misfire in some manner while Marvel Studios itself paid the price for prioritizing quantity over quality since 2020 (leading the studio to dramatically overhaul its deeply flawed approach to making Disney+ series in particular). The hope is that it will course-correct in 2024, potentially making “Echo” the perfect flagship to lead the MCU into the future.
Winderbaum is certainly doing his job as a hype-man, calling “Echo” a “real renegade within the MCU” and “a bit of a punch in the face.” It’s also a show that marks a lot of “firsts” for the MCU, like all its episodes dropping at once on both Disney+ and Hulu. That and the TV-MA series — a first for MCU Disney+ shows — will be released under Marvel Spotlight, a banner that will focus on stories that don’t require an in-depth knowledge of the greater MCU to understand (although they will still connect to other MCU titles, so we’ll see how that goes).
Continuing, Winderbaum teased the show’s “aggressive storytelling,” which he said “makes the binge model feel appropriate.” That goes double for the TV-MA rating, which he argued feels right for Maya (“She’s a martial artist on a motorcycle who kicks a ton of ass!”) and the criminal world she grew up in. Winderbaum also emphasized the idea of Maya being more complicated than other MCU heroes. “[Director and executive producer Sydney Freeland’s] vision was to create an unapologetic character who has a lot to learn — and in the course of the story, she certainly does,” he added.