While 2023 has been a mixed year of releases for the MCU, featuring titles that were so extremely poorly received like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and Secret Invasion, that long-time fans of the franchise feel like their interest in it is dwindling, but yet also projects that have been hailed as some of its best, like Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Loki Season 2, reigniting that very same spark that they thought was lost mere months ago. I’m now confident that the first title of 2024, Echo, will start the year off with a bang. Delighting fans and enjoyers of Hawkeye (from which it is a spin-off), the Defenders Saga (including Daredevil and Jessica Jones), and Native American-focused film & TV, like Reservation Dogs and Killers of the Flower Moon, Echo is set to have something for just about everyone. The series is set to explore not only the titular Maya Lopez/Echo’s origin story before the events of her first MCU appearance in Hawkeye but will also follow up on that series’ events, all while reintroducing Daredevil and Wilson Fisk/Kingpin in their most prominent MCU roles since the Marvel Television days, ahead of their appearances in this series’ successor, Daredevil: Born Again. In this article, we will attempt to piece together the origin story of Maya Lopez/Echo as it relates to the MCU timeline.

Spoilers ahead, as we will dive into leaked plot points not yet confirmed by Marvel Studios, and break down the trailer which was released on November 3.

The last we saw Maya in the MCU was during the Hawkeye finale, 1×06 “So This Is Christmas?” on December 24, 2024, when, after she kills her childhood friend and fellow Tracksuit Mafia lieutenant Kazi Kazimierczak in a duel, confronts her adoptive uncle Fisk in an alleyway in New York City, shooting him and blinding him in one eye. Other than that, her picture is on a board in the Department of Damage Control (DODC)’s Field Office during the events of Ms Marvel 1×06 “No Normal” in October 2025, meaning the DODC was at least keeping tabs on her during that period. We also know thanks to Marvel.com, that Echo will follow up on the events of “So This Is Christmas?”, as she returns to her hometown in Oklahoma after her “ruthless behaviour” in NYC, facing her past, reconnecting with her Native American roots and embracing the meaning of family and community. For a long time, we didn’t have any official footage, bar a sneak peek shown exclusively to D23 Expo 2022 attendees which not only revealed Fisk’s bandaged eye but also included a line of dialogue of his telling Maya “It’s been a long time.” I can see it taking place about a year after the events of “So This Is Christmas?”, in November 2025, which not only covers the “a long time” quote but could also let the series fall in line with Native American Heritage Day, which will be on November 28, 2025.

In the newly-released official trailer, we see multiple scenes showing Maya’s personal backstory. We’ll now break down all the flashbacks that we’ll see through the 5-episode run, in as close to chronological order as we can. First, at 1:13 you can see flashbacks to Native American tribe members participating in what seems to be Indigenous North American stickball, the predecessor to what the Europeans would later call lacrosse. The placement doesn’t tell us much, but I’d wager a bet that it’s comfortably before the 1630s, before the French Jesuit missionaries discovered, condemned and adopted lacrosse.

Now on to the titular character’s history, which is focused on various times in the 21st century. First, we’ll see the birth of Maya herself (1:11 – 1:13), with her mother shown having contractions in the rain. Her birth doesn’t have a canonical year as of yet, but it’s widely believed to be between 1999 and 2000. Next, we’ll see one of her most formative experiences, the night she lost both her mother and her right leg in a car accident, which happens from 0:51 – 0:53 in the trailer. This must have occurred sometime between ~2000 and September 2007, when we first see Maya with a prosthetic leg at the karate academy in the prologue of Hawkeye 1×03 “Echoes”.

Continuing on, a scene that was filmed in August 2022 will show Maya walking to an ice cream stand from school, only to be mocked by the vendor for her deafness, leading Fisk to assault him in an alley, which we can see from 0:00 to 0:40, 1:34, 1:36 and from 1:39 to 1:41 in the trailer. As Maya has her prosthetic leg in this scene, and it features Darnell Besaw reprising her role as young Maya, we can chop this scene up to taking place close to September 2007, which also had Maya longing for ice cream as seen in the “Echoes” deleted scene “Ice Cream”.

There seems to be another scene taking place in this period, featuring William Lopez and Maya making shadow puppets like they did in Hawkeye, visible from 1:26 – 1:27 in the trailer. Tying the series into Daredevil: Born Again, we will also get a flashback to the time of Daredevil (Season 2) in October/November 2015, to when Maya first meets Daredevil, where he will be wearing his era-accurate second suit, which could appear as a fight scene in episode 2, which you can briefly see at 1:27. Following William’s death in the prologue of “Echoes”, we’ll see a flashback set in 2019 showing Maya acting wildly and getting arrested, with Fisk coming to her rescue and telling her that he understands her rage as his father was also killed at a young age. This leads nicely into our final flashbacks, which will show Maya’s rise to becoming the new commander of the Tracksuit Mafia, being trained personally by Fisk on Sunday dinners in 2019.

And looking ahead to Daredevil: Born Again, it has been reported that after Kingpin is defeated in Oklahoma, he will fly back to New York City at which point he watches a news broadcast mentioning the upcoming New York mayoral election, which sets up his bid for “Mayor Fisk”, as seen in set photos for Born Again (and as first reported by The Weekly Planet Podcast).

And there you have it! Our proposed timeline placement of Echo is that it will take place primarily in November 2025, with flashbacks set in various time periods, including pre-1630s, 2000, 2007, 2015 and 2019. Do you agree? Have any other thoughts about when this or other upcoming MCU projects could take place? Are you excited for Echo when it finally releases on January 10, 2024? Leave a comment below or tag us on Twitter @Blacklight or @Geekritique with your thoughts.