Warning: This article contains spoilers for Echo.
You can take the Marvel Studios opening fanfare away, but it doesn’t change nothing. Echo may pioneer the Marvel Spotlight banner, for more standalone projects, however the truth is it’s a classic MCU show through and through. And what is an MCU show without a bunch of crossover cameos?
On the one hand, Echo is a very unique entry in the ever-growing cinematic universe, thanks to its committed dedication to exploring its titular character’s Indigenous heritage and her experience as a deaf person, but on the other, it also exists as a bridge from Hawkeye to 2025’s Daredevil: Born Again. Not to mention a backdoor way to make all the Defenders Saga shows 100% canon.
At just five episodes in length, making it the shortest of Marvel’s live-action TV series to date, Echo doesn’t have room to assemble an Avengers Tower full of cameos, but there are certainly some in there. Perhaps even including one of the Avengers…
Kingpin
OK, fine, so Kingpin is such a significant presence in Echo that it’s hard to describe him as a mere cameo, but his greater importance to MCU history means he has to be mentioned.
Following his grand Marvel Studios return at the end of Hawkeye, Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk is much better explored in Echo, in which his twisted father/daughter relationship with Maya is fleshed out and we even get callbacks to his own origins story: the killing of his father when he was a boy, as detailed in Daredevil season 1. Plus, the show’s post-credits scene may just hint at what’s next for “Uncle Fisk” in Born Again.
Overall, Fisk appears through flashbacks in episode 1 (although some of these scenes are simply lifted from Hawkeye), before featuring prominently in episodes 3, 4, and 5.
Daredevil
In the run-up to Echo‘s release, it seemed curious that the marketing was making such a big deal about Kingpin’s appearance and so little about the return of Daredevil. The reason for that becomes obvious, however, when you realize Charlie Cox’s hornhead is only in the show for 98 seconds?!
It’s true. Unlike Kingpin, Matt Murdock’s appearance can very accurately be described as a cameo. He shows up in the premiere episode, for a flashback scene to when Maya took her first life on the orders of Fisk. The sequence culminates with Daredevil crashing the criminal hideout and a nifty one-take fight between the hero and the anti-heroine breaks out, with Echo somewhat getting the better of the Man Without Fear.
It might be short, but at least DD’s cameo goes and answers something that’s been eating at us since Endgame.
Hawkeye
“Don’t give me hope,” diehard Hawkeye fans probably said at the prospect of Jeremy Renner turning up in Echo. The actor did just make his first MCU appearance since his life-threatening accident in a voice role in What If…? season 2, though, so we couldn’t rule the possibility out.
As it happens, Renner does indeed show up in Echo… but only through the use of archival footage. In a curious choice, the first half-hour of the premiere episode is basically one big recap of Echo’s Hawkeye arc. This includes the replaying of one key scene in which Maya learns that, yes, Clint Barton may have killed her father during his emo Ronin phase but it was Kingpin that gave him the tip in the first place.
So, no, we didn’t get any new Renner material. But, on the upside, Hailee Steinfeld’s The Marvels cameo means both Hawkeye leads have just returned to our screens in the last few months.
Pat Kiernan
That’s it when it comes to iconic heroes and villains cameoing in Echo, but there is one more familiar face for those who pay attention hidden in the series’ post-credits scene.
The sequence sees Kingpin, suffering from a lack of purpose, becoming intrigued by an item on the news discussing how the race to become the next Mayor of New York is wide-open — no doubt giving him an idea for his next big scheme in Born Again. And the news anchor on screen during this is none other than real-life NYC anchor Pat Kiernan.
Kiernan has played his own MCU variant in multiple places across the MCU, dating back to The Avengers. In fact, his presence in Echo is more meaningful than it first appears. Kiernan made many cameos in the Defenders Saga alongside the movies, so he was always one thread that tied these two sides of the franchise together. It’s only fitting that he should have a role in Echo, the show that finally confirms the Defenders are part of Marvel Studios canon.
