‘Hawkeye’ producer tightlipped on Kingpin’s triumphant return

Hawkeye finally lands on Disney Plus tomorrow, with the opening two episodes putting Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton in pride of place, introducing us to both Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop and, of course, Lucky the Pizza Dog. But beyond that, there’s a whole other new character making their debut we still don’t know much about.

Alaqua Cox’s Echo/Maria Lopez, who has the Taskmaster-like ability of photographic reflexes, will likely be a key antagonist. She’s been both hero and villain in the comics, as well as being Kingpin’s adopted daughter. This has led many to theorize that Marvel Studios is ready to start incorporating characters from the Netflix shows, with fans desperate to see more of Charlie Cox’s Matt Murdock and Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin.

In a new interview, Hawkeye producer Trinh Tran was grilled on Kingpin’s return, but refused to be drawn:

“Well, Maya Lopez is cool, like I said, she’s such a badass in the comics and we wanted to make sure that that was, you know, portrayed as well. I can’t go into details in terms of like how she’s integrated into, you know, the story. I don’t wanna spoil anything.”

That’s not exactly a denial. Adding fuel to the fire is D’Onofrio recently causing a storm of speculation by retweeting a Hawkeye promo and simply commenting, “This is going to be fun. I love these @Marvel series.”

Bringing back Kingpin really should be a no-brainer for Marvel. It was a tragedy that one of the most interesting MCU stories was cut short when Daredevil was canceled, and enough time has now passed for Marvel to begin using the Netflix characters as they see fit.

So, here’s hoping that tomorrow we find out one way or another when the first two episodes of Hawkeye air on Disney Plus.