Does Echo have powers?

Marvel Studios has finally released Echo, and the heroine’s abilities are definitely intriguing.  Since her 1999 debut, Echo has become a popular comic-book character, showing in multiple Daredevil and Avengers stories, so fans were excited to see what her standalone show would bring to the table.

Fans were particularly eager to see how her unique powers would be adapted. Alaqua Cox debuted the character in 2021’s Hawkeye, but there was no sign of her signature mimicry abilities from the comics. Moreover, the intrigue around her powers grew when it was confirmed that the MCU would be changing her powers for her show. 

Executive producer and director of Echo, Sydney Freeland, shared in an interview with Variety that she wasn’t pleased with the heroine’s “lame” MCU powers and had plans to shake things up. So, how exactly did the MCU change her powers?

What are Echo’s powers in the comics?

As a member of Marvel’s ‘street-level’ heroes, she doesn’t have superpowers like heroes. Instead, through her diligent training and unique perspective as a deaf person, she developed the ability to mimic the fighting style of any opponent she faced. Uniquely, this ability is also applicable to other skills such as dancing and playing musical instruments.

Echo’s MCU powers, explained

The five-episode miniseries showed Maya Lopez returning to her home in Oklahoma after a long absence. Throughout the season, Maya’s reunion with her old friends and family is interspersed with strange visions of women from the past and a mysterious glow on her hands.

Maya’s grandmother eventually reveals the truth behind what’s going on The women that she had been seeing in her visions were her ancestors who had passed down the power of the first Choctaw, Chahta, through the generations. 

Echo’s return to her home and reconnection to her roots, awakens the power that women in her lineage have always possessed. So instead of Maya echoing the powers of others around her, the MCU takes the route of having her echo the powers of her ancestors. As her grandmother Chula tells her, “Generations are echoing, reaching out to us at a time when we need them most.”

When Echo’s powers are activated, she sees her ancestors around her and they give her strength. In one scene, she passes this strength on to her grandmother and cousin, helping them escape a tight spot but only in the season finale do we see the full extent of what she can do.

The show established that Maya’s mother could heal people of their physical wounds and Maya inherits this power in the finale. In a powerful scene, she uses her mother’s powers to heal Wilson Fisk, not of his physical wounds but the emotional burdens he has been carrying since childhood. Altogether, Echo’s powers in the MCU are a deep reflection on the importance of family and the power of spiritual connection to your history and heritage.