Guide to Echo, Maya Lopez (New for Patrons!)

It’s time for another new Marvel Comics reading order for Patrons of Crushing Krisis, and this one is right on time for a big MCU TV debut! This guide is for a character who has appeared in Marvel Comics for the past 25 years, but has only been truly highlighted for the first time in the past few years. Want to read only her appearances that mattered the most? Then check out my Guide to Echo!

Guide to Echo – Maya Lopez

As someone who has kept up with all of Marvel’s in-continuity comics since 2010, I’ve read many issues with Echo in them. However, as I started putting together this Echo Guide I realized I didn’t really understand her origins – or her abilities!

That’s in part because I had never read David Mack’s pair of arcs that introduced Echo in Daredevil (1998) – in part because they weren’t collected and in print when I did my Daredevil read back in 2014. The issues are just as dense and entertaining now as they were 25 years ago. The first arc closely maps to Echo’s story in the MCU Hawkeye show, and the second delves into her origins in the style of a 1990s Vertigo comic (or, more-accurately, Mack’s own indie book Kabuki).

However, as I assembled this guide I realized my absence of knowledge is also because Echo is so often in the background of the comics where she appears, rather than at the center of a story.

Yes, Brian Bendis famously drafted her into his street-level Avengers, but in re-reading all of her issues in that run I realized that she was only ever in the foreground twice. She got more development in his Moon Knight, but then she was unceremoniously fridged – specifically to fuel Moon Knight’s rage!

Even after her return in Charles Soule’s Daredevil run and broader exposure in Jason Aaron’s Avengers, Maya Lopez often just shows up and fills a spot on a roster without a chance to have any real character beats.

However, that has changed in the past few years – not in the pages of Aaron’s Avengers, but because of it. Due to the major power-up Aaron gave to Echo, she scored her own 2021 solo mini-series by Indigenous American author Rebecca Roanhorse. It’s a real treasure, not only for her character, but for a number of indigenous X-Men concepts that Chris Claremont coined back in the 80s that needed some revisitation.

I reviewed every single appearance Maya Lopez has made for this Guide to Echo. I’ve sorted out the wordless cameos from the brief action from the issues where she’s truly essential to the story. Not only are they all in reading order in this guide, but I highlight all of her greatest hits if you want to only read the stories that have mattered most.

Want a fast track to only the best Echo stories? Here’s the “Greatest Hits” list I share in the guide – where I explain her role in every one of these stories:

Daredevil (1998) #9-15
Daredevil (1998) #51-55
New Avengers (2005) #11-13
New Avengers (2005) #27 & 31
New Avengers (2005) #39
Moon Knight (2011) #2-10
Daredevil (2016) Annual 1
Captain Marvel (2019) #1-5
Marvel’s Voices: Indigenous Voices (2020) #1 (1st story)
Avengers (2018) #40-45
Phoenix Song: Echo (2021) #1-5
Daredevil & Echo (2023) #1-4

Want instant access to this Guide to Echo? Become a Patron of CK for as little as $1 a month or $10.20 a year to gain access to this exclusive guide and over 70 other guides months before the general public gains access. I have launched 35 Guides to Patrons in the past 365 days – 15 Marvel, 2 DC, & 18 Indie! Plus, I’ve also updated 106 of my 200+ guides for both patrons and the general public.

Exclusives for Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 49 Guides!

DC Guides (7): Batman – Index of Ongoing Titles, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Birds of Prey, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: Hal Jordan, Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner, Omega Men