Marvel’s Echo is definitely not for kids — it’s the first Disney+ show to have a TV-MA rating.
The first trailer for Echo was released on Friday, November 3, and the bloody fight scenes hinted that this isn’t exactly family-friendly. The violent teaser then confirmed suspicions when it ended with a title card that read, “Set your Disney+ profile to TV-MA to stream.”
While the now-defunct Marvel Television produced several adult superhero series for Netflix which are now available on Disney+, such as Daredevil and The Punisher, Echo marks the first time a show produced specifically for the Mouse House’s streaming platform has been labeled TV-MA, which denotes content designed for adults.
That’s not the only way Echo is different from other Marvel TV shows. All five episodes of Echo will debut on Wednesday, January 10, moving away from the weekly format of most Disney+ shows. The drama will also stream simultaneously on Hulu.
Echo follows Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) after the events of Hawkeye, where she was first introduced. The 2021 show followed Maya as she turned her back on infamous mob boss Kingpin/Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio). She shot Kingpin after learning he was responsible for her father’s death, but the trailer for Echo makes it clear that the villain isn’t dead.
As Maya tries to escape Kingpin’s criminal empire, she returns home to Oklahoma to face consequences and reconnect with her Native American roots.
“We’re going to delve further into the drama of this family and how they’ve all dealt with [situations] over the past 20 years,” director Sydney Freeland told Marvel.com in an interview published on Friday.
“We have this sort of two-pronged approach, there’s this family drama sort of driving everything. But then there’s this undercurrent of this fantastical side, which is that we are going to be visiting Maya’s matrilineal ancestors, going quite a bit backward in time,” Freeland added. “Those two things, this family drama and these ancestral stories that we’re going to see, are going to come head-to-head.”
In another first for Marvel, the titular character — who is deaf and an amputee — is being portrayed by an actress that is deaf and has a prosthetic lower right leg.
“I believe kids deserve to see inclusivity and accurate representation,” Cox told The Hollywood Reporter in November 2021. “It will make kids with all types of cultures and disabilities feel like our dreams can break free from limitations.”
