Echo Review: Is Marvel's Latest Tame and Lackluster?

As Marvel Studios continues trying to reinvent their franchise after a lacklustre year at the box office and on Disney+, Kevin Feige and his team kick-off 2024 early with many firsts. Echo is the first MCU series to debut simultaneously on Disney+ and Hulu, the first to drop the full season on the same day, the first spin-off of another Disney+ series, the first project under the new Marvel Spotlight banner, the first series featuring an indigenous actress in the lead role (not to mention the first Deaf lead and first lead with a prosthetic limb), and the first MCU series with a TV-MA rating. Echo, starring Alaqua Cox in the title role, is a grittier and more violent take on Marvel Comics than we have seen in the MCU but not quite as brutal as the Netflix series with whom it shares some characters. A five-episode event series, Echo boasts some intriguing mythology centered on Native American fables and a cast full of great actors but does not do much to earn the mature rating that has become a major marketing point for this series.