Echo Star Secretly Broke Marvel Rules After Getting Her Hawkeye Spinoff

Echo star Alaqua Cox disclosed a Marvel secret. Cox made her MCU debut with the Disney+ series Hawkeye, where her character Maya Lopez/ Echo serves as a foil to Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), believing him to be responsible for her father’s death during Clint’s time as a vigilante during The Blip. Maya leads the Tracksuit Mafia against Clint and is mentored by her adoptive uncle Wilson Fisk/ Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio). But toward the end of the series, Maya realizes that Kingpin was directly involved in the brutal murder of her father, leading her to seek revenge from the crime lord.

Cox’s Maya broke into the scene in Hawkeye. Fans loved her performance and showered her with praises and admiration. Luckily for them, it was confirmed even ahead of Hawkeye’s premiere that Cox would return to reprise her role in her spin-off series, Echo. At that time, Marvel provided no other details for the off-shoot. But later, information on the project began to emerge. Reports confirmed that Echo would include Matt Murdock/Daredevil and Kingpin, with Charlie Cox and D’Onofrio returning to reprise their original show. Marvel confirmed further details on the series during the San Diego Comic-Con 2022, where Marvel revealed that Cox’s Maya Lopez would play an important role heading into MCU’s Phase 5, with her show Echo getting a summer 2023 release window.

Now in a conversation with Collider, Cox reveals her exhilarating reaction when she first received the news that she was getting her show. As the star recalls, she learned that Echo was happening midway through filming Hawkeye. She was on cloud nine, and although Marvel instructed her not to tell anyone about Echo, she couldn’t keep herself from sharing the fantastic news with her family. Read what Cox said below.

“I found out in the middle of filming Hawkeye. I was like, “What?!” Hawkeye was my first role, ever. I was like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I wish that they had told me after filming. I had barely figured out was going on. I was trying to get into the acting world. And then, in the middle of filming, I was like, “Oh, my gosh!” My mind was blown. I texted my family immediately. They told me to keep it a secret, but I couldn’t do that because I had to tell my family. Of course, I never told Marvel. But I was so excited. It was really a mix. I was overwhelmed, at the time. I was like, “Oh, my gosh, my own show? Why me?” But now it’s here and I’m really happy to have this opportunity.”

Clearly, Cox revealing the development of her show to her family was an innocent mistake, and a warranted reaction on the part of the actress, for whom getting her own show was the highlight of her career. While Marvel is extremely protective of its plans and scripts and has instituted strict secrecy controls, slips have occurred deliberately and inadvertently, with Mark Ruffalo and Tom Holland being two off-the-top-of-the-head examples of MCU actors who have spilled the beans on crucial projects. Fortunately, the “leaks” only worked in favor of the studio, drumming up extra publicity for the projects they spoiled and earning amity from fans. Thus, Cox telling her family about the spin-off isn’t a big deal, after all, rumblings of Echo had already begun to swirl while Hawkeye was in production, and the sources obviously had nothing to do with Cox.

Cox’s reaction to getting her own show is undoubtedly one of the purest and highly justified, considering how well-received her character was in Hawkeye. Cox has trained hard for her role as Echo, and she is determined to push for a better and more authentic representation of Native American people with her solo outing. Considering her enthusiasm and sublime intentions, it is hard to imagine the show being a miss. In fact, the anticipation for Echo is increasing daily, with early images also teasing that the series will be a phenomenon when it comes out.