Are you tired of having to do endless homework before watching the latest Marvel movie or show? You’re not the only one. Viewers seem to be exhausting of the comic movie line’s whole “cinematic universe” thing, as witness such underperformers as Ant-Man 3 and The Marvels. (Meanwhile, the DCEU has recently come to an ignominious end with Aquaman 2.) Luckily Marvel has noticed and have decided to launch a wing, called Marvel Spotlight, that doesn’t require bingeing multiple hours of ephemera just to understand the plot.
The first out of the gate? Echo, which follows Alaqua Cox’s Maya Lopez, aka Echo, a deaf Native American Choctaw and former criminal gang leader. She was introduced in the show Hawkeye. Did you not watch Hawkeye? Allegedly it doesn’t matter. Echo has her own contained storyline, in which she seeks to avenge her father’s murder after learning the culprit is her former mentor, Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio).
But when does Echo come out? Very, very soon.
The show is set to hit both Disney+ and Hulu on Tuesday, January 9. What’s more, they’re not doing a traditional staggered release, as they’ve done with other shows. All five episodes, each about 45 minutes long, are set to drop on the same day.
Yes, there’s some overlap with the greater MCU. D’Onofrio’s Kingpin was originally seen in the Netflix iteration of Daredevil, whose star, Charlie Cox, also makes an appearance, at least. But Marvel swears you don’t have to bone up beforehand. Instead you can just watch Echo kick some butt.
Echo hits Hulu and Disney+ on January 9.