SPOILER WARNING

Jan. 16, 2024 — The new “Echo” series on Disney+ is great. Alaqua Cox was incredible. Vincent D’Onofrio was incredible. All the acting, frankly, was wonderful, especially in a show where viewers rely so much on facial expressions over words to convey emotion and tell the story.

The one thing about this series that I did not like was the invented-for-purposes-of-the-show superpower. It weakens Echo as a character. Now, it’s not, “she kicked that guy’s ass with her martial arts skills,” it’s, “she kicked that guys ass with the power of love.”

Big whoop, Huey Lewis can do that.

Don’t get me wrong — superpowers have been invented for the purpose of story in films before — there was even a debate on Twitter recently about the power of Magneto’s helmet in the comics vs. the first X-Men movie.

The problem I have isn’t with the power itself, but with what it does to the integrity of Maya’s character.

Additionally, so much of the season was just explaining the backstory of the new healing superpower.

You can invoke Maya Lopez’s indigenous heritage without needing to make up a glowy hand thing — the woodpecker and what it symbolizes is a great example of this show doing that.

Overall, I think the pacing was a bit slow at times and the violence was not nearly as physically brutal as the trailer would have you believe. Not that it needed to be that brutal, it just shouldn’t have advertised it as such.

On the topic of trailer sincerity, the show also used “Daredevil” as cross-promotion. Even to the point of officially making the infallible Netflix show and its cohort (“Jessica Jones,” “Luke Cage,” “Iron Fist,” “Defenders,” “Punisher”) canon to the Marvel Cinematic Universe just prior to the release of “Echo.”

Yes, the Man Without Fear appears in “Echo” and Kingpin is the villain in both shows, but a large portion of the audience was hoping for more Daredevil and did not receive it.

I think particularly when you are talking about a show starring a woman, there is a percentage of the male viewing population that is going to hope for the advertised male hero to have a larger role because they are incapable of appreciating a female superhero.

Personally, I believe Daredevil was in the show the perfect amount — enough to kick a little ass, further connect the hero to the MCU at large, and have him cross paths with Maya for future stories. However, it was a mistake relying on him so heavily in the show’s promotion.

Marvel did the same thing with the trailer for “The Marvels,” using a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it X-Men teaser to try to drive audiences to the theatres for what amounted to a 10-second cameo in the film from Kelsey Grammer’s Beast.

According to Small Screen, Daredevil was supposed to have a larger role in the show, but other scenes featuring the hero were cut.

Most of my beef with “Echo” is with the new superpower, but again, the actors really killed it with their performances, especially with it being Alaqua Cox’s second professional acting gig and her first lead role.

And I am very much looking forward to seeing Kingpin’s platform in the next race for NYC mayor in the upcoming “Daredevil: Born Again” series (hopefully he nixes that stupid pool they’re building in the East River), as well as how they will tie Echo in to the main storyline (and hopefully into Spider-Man 4, too).