The head of Marvel Studios Echo has defended the decision to alter the antihero’s origin story for his standalone television series.
Speaking to TechRadar before EchoFollowing the release, Sydney Freeland revealed that the backstory of Maya López, the protagonist of the Disney Plus show, was altered from that of her comic book counterpart. It was a decision that Freeland said was made “to be more authentic” to the indigenous people of the United States.
In the comics, Lopez is a Native American originally from the Cheyenne Nation. However, the character’s heritage has become somewhat murky since his initial December 1999 debut in Marvel literature, and Lopez’s background also includes elements of the Blackfeet Nation and other indigenous tribes.
To that end, Freeland and the Marvel Phase 5 series creative team opted to rework Lopez’s origin story for their Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) miniseries. In fact, in the television show, it is revealed that Lopez is a descendant of the Choctaw Nation, rather than Cheyenne and/or Blackfoot. However, Freeland, who is a Navajo native, insists that the decision to alter Lopez’s backstory was made to show the differences between individual Native American tribes, which have been incorrectly viewed as one and the same throughout of the centuries.
No bad action goes unpunished. Art by @NickyBarkla. All episodes of Marvel Studios’ #Echo will air January 9 on @DisneyPlus and @Hulu. Set your Disney+ profile to TV-MA to stream. pic.twitter.com/DlBTqs3HGJJanuary 4, 2024
“When I learned about Maya, I read her first appearances in the Daredevil comic series,” Freeland said. “And it was interesting to see this beautifully illustrated literature showcased like Cheyenne and Blackfeet. As I was developing the series with my colleagues at Marvel and we started doing more research, we discovered that there was a lot of Native American iconography that had been chosen because they are great images.
“Because I’m Indigenous, I could look at every visual symbol or image and say ‘Oh, that’s Inuit’ and ‘That’s Ancestral Peoples’ and ‘Here are Six Nations of Upstate New York.’ There was no rhyme or reason to their use or being grouped [to represent Indigenous people]. To be more authentic to López’s story and character, we leaned into the specificity that she belongs to a single tribe. “To give her a fresh start, and since we had Choctaw writers in the writers’ room, that meant she became Choctaw instead of Blackfeet or Cheyenne.”
Echo is the first of three confirmed Marvel TV shows set to debut on Disney Plus (it will also be available on Hulu in the US) in 2024. In addition to its authentic representation of indigenous peoples, culture and traditions, it also marks a series. of firsts for Marvel, with Echo being the first R-rated MCU TV show, launching on two of the world’s best streaming services simultaneously and falling under the new Marvel Spotlights banner.
For more exclusive Echo coverage, find out how Freeland responded to fans who compared the upcoming show to hit crime shows, including Breaking Badand ultraviolent film series such as John Wick.
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