Echo: The Saga of Maya Lopez collects Daredevil (1998) #9-15 and #51-55 into a hefty trade paperback. Maya Lopez, aka Echo, is a deaf Native American woman with the ability to reproduce any action she witnesses within the physical limits of her body. So: piano playing and karate are in her wheelhouse. Flight and laser vision? Not so much. Not only is she a badass with a cool logo, but the character is also set to star in her own Disney+ series after first appearing in the MCU as an antagonist in the Hawkeye show from 2021. This new series seems to be the impetus for this collection’s publication as the cover copy states: “The stunning and lushly illustrated debut of Marvel’s next screen sensation.”
And lushly illustrated it is! While the back five issues are a bit more lush than the initial entries, it’s a gorgeous package overall. Joe Quesada’s more traditional contributions in the earlier issues deftly handle the wildly diverse series of challenges thrown his way. Courtroom drama, combat, piano playing, and a play that is acted out entirely in shadow-puppetry and dance are all present within the first five issues of this collection. Then David Mack’s mixed media art is really something special in the last five issues. Mack uses traditional narration boxes and word balloons along with handwritten prose to great effect.
The collection contains two main stories. The first of which introduces the character of Echo as the Kingpin manipulates her into bloody conflict with Daredevil. The second sees her going on a “vision quest” at the suggestion of her “chief.” The scare quotes are here because these are fairly stereotypical aspects of stories about Indigenous cultures and their authenticity is questionable. In one of Maya’s more recent appearances she cringes at the fact that she called this man “chief” as contemporary writers reckon with prior portrayals like this one. There is also a one-shot fill-in between the two arcs. It’s really well done with no dialogue, only narration and communicative acting from artist Rob Haynes’s characters.
While the art is incredible, the writing is less consistently solid. The courtroom drama in the first arc is overwrought and makes Foggy seem like a bad lawyer. Some additional ways the writing works against the overall appeal of this collection are the way the book throws around the word “retard” and Maya referring to Foggy as Matt’s boyfriend. She means this as a joke where the punchline seems to be the very idea of men dating each other. She does theater in New York City! She knows queer people, why would that be the first thing she says to a new acquaintance? Sure, this was originally written in the early 2000s, but it reeks of desperation. Trying to be serious and edgy with language and humor that punches down and has aged very poorly.
Another aspect of these stories that has aged poorly is how Maya is functionally the only woman in this book. Sure, Black Widow technically appears on the page but she quickly gets poisoned and spends the majority of the arc hospitalized off panel. Woman superheroes typically get less page space than the men, so handing the Daredevil book over to Maya for multiple issues is a significant thing to do, but it doesn’t exactly leap over the already low bar set by other comics. For instance, Maya’s story seemingly only exists within the context of the men in the story and she doesn’t have much agency as a result. Even on her journey of self discovery, Maya needs the help of a bunch of men to accomplish her goals. The “Chief,” Wolverine, her father, even the wolf that appears before her on her “vision quest” is noted as lifting it’s leg to pee on a tree. This all happens after her romance with Matt Murdock dies on the vine because she was manipulated by Kingpin.
With all these flaws in mind, there is something to be said about how this collection keeps the stories intact, warts and all. In an age where problematic portrayals of peoples and cultures are sometimes covered up or swept under the rug without grappling with why these portrayals are harmful and wrong and opting instead to just pretend it didn’t happen, it’s nice to see this collection presented uncensored. However, there’s a way to acknowledge these shortcomings and present the material in its original state. The editors took the time to put issue #12 with its one off story between the two five-issue arcs with a note explaining the choice but just left the rest of the contents to show its whole-ass without comment.
This collection is a fairly solid package overall. As advertised, it’s Echo’s debut, which is interesting in and of itself, but you also get David Mack’s incredible art and approach to the medium on top of that. The result is a trade paperback that is double sized, but doesn’t overstay its welcome if one has the patience for the more dated aspects of these Clinton-era stories.
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