Part 2/10:
Fans had known for months that Echo was likely to be a risky project—one that might face the same pitfalls as other recent MCU offerings. From the outset, it was clear that Marvel was heavily invested in the series as a vessel for virtue signaling, aiming to showcase diverse representation. The series centered around Maya Lopez, a character embodying multiple progressive identities: she is Indigenous American, deaf, an amputee, and a woman—traits that Marvel emphasized heavily in marketing, perhaps at the expense of storytelling substance.