There are two character that makes me wanting to like ECHO, this two characters are Dare Devil and Kingpin; there are several reasons for this, first is because I remember Kingpin the most from the Spider Man cartoons so brings back memories from when I was a kid and Dare Devil I have always like the red armor suit, although in this series looks a bit over weight or short I don't know whats the deal, he is one of those super hero who has no powers, yes there is the fact that he train and develop his hearing more than anyone else although she doesn't fly or shoot lasers, we can say he is on the same super hero category as Batman and Iron Man, this two other have no super powers neither its just their brain and training so for this I really like Dare Devil plus all the stunts he pulls on every movie or TV series he is in, remember how he catch that brick on Spider-Man No Way Home?
The first episode of ECHO but it is very evident that they trying to cover a lot of ground and time will be against it, this is the first Marvel show for 2024 and I was expecting it to be good but episode one I could only give it a 7/10 at best, most of the votes on IMDB are the same and Audience acceptance over all on RottenTomatoes is very low on the 65%, I only hope that this series is not that bad, 7/10 is an OK score.
Episode one try to resume how Maya Lopez lost her leg as a kid, her family from his father side was not the most straight, it looks like her fathers last name meant trouble everywhere they go, Maya and her mother got into a bad car wreck because some one cut the breaks out of their truck trying to hurt her father or family, her uncle is The Kingpin and runs New York who stop her before she became a trouble for him and gave her a job as part of his mafia but things didn't go that well between them.
From previous videos and the trailer across episodes we are going to get more information about Maya Lopez roots, the story of how the first Choctaw people came to earth, from where she gets her power, part of their narrative on how things became to exist and their culture, that is something production and the Choctaw themself have try to communicate through this TV Series, make more people aware of their culture.
As a kid Maya had a very happy life living with her parents and having her cousin Bonnie coming home, although I wonder who is Bonnie's father? things go so fast during the episode that Bonnie arrive with her grand parents to Maya's house, I did look up online and I believe Bonnie's father is Henry Lopez, I would also assume this because latter on when Maya comes back home she look for him and had a quick talk about her plans, Maya and Bonnie were very close and they consider themself as sisters.
When Maya and her mom got into the accident this was devastate for the family, Maya lost her leg but the worst part is that she feels its her fault her mom is dead, took some time for her father to let her know what happen, Maya thinks its her fault she is dead because she wanted hot chocolate and they had to go to the store. Her father was offered a job in New York, far away from Maya's home town, the Lopez last name is means trouble and her grand mother Chula knew this, she never approve Maya's father.
Maya had it rough growing up with this minor disability at first but she figure it out to overcome it although most people underestimate her and that's part of her super power, Maya was full of anger, causing troubles left and right, she became really good fighter but her father was still dealing and making business most likely with the wrong people and that got both into deep trouble, the episode happens as the very same pace as I'm describing it, it felt like the story got really rush during the entire episode.
One night Maya comes back to the shop and finds someone inside killing every one on the shop, if you saw the Avenger movies and Dr. Strange you will recognize him right away, besides the first time ECHO shows up on the screen was on Hawkeye's series, so cat is out of the bag, after the blip Hawkeye went rouge and start going after every possible criminal he knew, no matter the reason he wanted to kill them all, the more dangerous the mission the better, he lost his family during the blip so he was blind by rage, this most likely lead him to work with other criminals, he was not an Avenger anymore, he was an assassin, Maya goes into the shop and found her father dying after Hawkeye stab him.
After loosing her father Maya became double the trouble so Kingpin got her something to do, a purpose as he describe it, a place and a reason to keep going, she was a great fighter although was not a murder yet so at her first mission when things got rowdy she froze, didn't know what to do looking at all this guys fighting and shooting, people dying on the spot, until one of them attack her and became her first victim. During this scene Dare Devil shows up although it was nothing special about it, they had a short fight that was not impressive at all, not saying it was bad but it was not the climax of the episode.
Hawkeye and Kingpin were the climax of the episode but things start to get rush, cut, slice, the damn episode became just this scenes after scene of nothing, just indicators of what was going on so for a first episode NO BUENO, I'm not the type of guy who gives up on a series that easy but I hope this gets better, at least Maya figure out who kill her father when she finds Hawkeye and he confess it was Kingpin who gave the order.
Again, scene after scene with not much context, some how Kingpin got hurt badly and Maya was there but this time she was different and capitalize on the opportunity to put a bullet on his head or at least that is what she thought, Kingpin was not dead and now there was a bounty on her head, she goes back home and asks her uncle Henry for help but not exactly to get out of the family business but to control it, sending a message to those who work for Kingpin, she thinks its time for a Queen, she is that queen.
I think its very evident that I didn't like the first episode that much and it has nothing to do the the characters but with the story, there were events happening one after another like it was an entire flash back scene without much explanation of why some things were happening, if it wasn't for the fight scenes it would be bad, in fact even the fight scenes themself were too short, I kept wanting to see Maya fight for longer, the Dare Devil scene was also short but I cant understand it was a teaser for whats coming up and that is what I hope that once The Kingpin gets on his foot again, probably on episode three thinks start to pick up the pace and we get some context of the things that had happen so far, after all this is only a five episode mini series and I know this have been mention before on my posts but I don't want this to be another Secret Invasion event where the last episode is so crunch that send everything to shit. Event when I was going through the images and trying to build up the story it feels like there is no context to it, very little dialog with just the obvious so I didn't enjoy as much as I wanted, I wanted to have some nice looking takes from the fights scene but there were very little that I could use.
