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This article, Maya Lopez (Earth-61615), is property of MarvelousMarty. |
Chula Battiest (maternal grandmother),
Skully Redbird (maternal grandfather),
William Lopez (father; deceased),
Taloa Battiest (mother; deceased),
Henry Lopez (paternal uncle);
Wilson Fisk (former guardian);
Biscuits Smallwood (cousin),
Bonnie Buffington (cousin),
Chimalus Buffington (nephew);
Xu Shang-Chi (boyfriend)
Daredevil Vol 3 3
History
The echoes of my past, both good and bad, are what made me into who I am now... Revenge used to be my greatest weapon, but I never knew it could be an instrument that I can balance to keep fighting for those who can't defend themselves.
- — Echo
- — Echo
Early Years
A Native American of the Choctaw Nation, Maya Lopez was born in early 1997 to William Lopez and Taloa Battiest. Born deaf, Maya was supposed to be placed in special education by her parents despite not being able to afford its tuition, but after using her skill to duplicate a song from a recital as well as learn sign language in a faster rate, she was placed in the gifted section, wherein she particularly enjoyed art and dance. Maya's father, William, was secretly an assassin under the once feared and revered alias of Crazy Horse, but he stopped his lone activities and began to work as a respected mob enforcer and a leader of the Tracksuit Mafia, a subsidiary crime syndicate secretly working for Wilson Fisk, the rising Kingpin of Crime, only a few years after his wife and Maya's mother, Enesta, tragically died from a mob-related incident ignited by mafia godfather Don Rigoletto, the main rival of the Kingpin in terms of power struggle in the criminal underworld of New York around the early to mid-2000s. The same tragedy costed Maya her right leg, requiring her to wear a prosthetic leg growing up.
Through the financial assistance of her uncle figure Fisk, who was a good friend of Maya's father, he was able sent Maya to the best schools which money could buy. As a result, she became very talented in many artistic fields. Reaching her late adolescence when she graduated college at an earlier age than most, Lopez remained dedicated to her training in martial arts and joined her father in the Tracksuit Mafia. However, after more than half a decade of operating, he and some of his subordinates were murdered by the assassin Swordsman under the Kingpin's orders around 2015, when Fisk had recently been released from imprisonment through illicit means operated by an unknown sponsor. The Swordsman accomplished his assignment by fatally wounding Maya' father without excessive use of any blade (except giving him one fatal stab), as well as don the old suit of the heroic vigilante Daredevil to frame the latter.
Unbeknownst to Maya, her father was one of the many ringleaders across the east coast of the United States who took the fall for syndicates currently or formerly involved with the Kingpin in the past decade, a series of events that were a part of Fisk's mission to gain traction and support as a public figure who was willing to eliminate crime in the city. A dying William reached out to a mourning Maya, leaving a bloody handprint on her face. Maya was taken in by Wilson as her legal guardian and new father figure for years, having been impressed with her talents of being able to mimic tasks under his wing, trained by Elektra Natchios when the latter worked for Kingpin around the time, starting around 2016.
Dark Reign
The Hunt for Daredevil
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As the commander of the Tracksuit Mafia, Maya hunts for the man who supposedly killed her father, Daredevil
Losing her father supposedly due to Daredevil's vindictive hunt for criminals in the aftermath of Ultimate War, Maya became a new commander of the Tracksuit Mafia, vowing revenge on the Guardian Devil of Hell's Kitchen, whom Fisk had framed to be the murderer of her father. In late 2017, Maya and her Tracksuit henchmen started a hunt for Daredevil, as they could be her chance to find him, however, Daredevil and the Defenders eventually crossed paths with her due to Maya's affiliation with Fisk and Elektra Natchios.
Maya had Daredevil by his throat after overpowering him in a bloody fight, but when she realized through the heroes that Fisk had in fact ordered the assassination of her father through the mercenary and assassin Swordsman, she attacked Fisk in revenge by shooting him almost fatally several times, the most vital parts being his left eye and both his legs (although one was more serious than the other). Knowing she couldn't get him in prison due to his impenetrable economic and iron-willed political influence, Maya ran away from him and his criminal empire in hopes of renewing her life, forcing Fisk to use a special cane in the following years because of the injury Maya had painfully inflicted on him out of raging vengeance.
Disputes with Hawkeye
Ever since breaking free from the deception of her former father figure and mentor, Maya aided the Defenders against Gorgon who was Elektra's biological father and the deadly de-facto leader of the Hand. In the following months since helping out the knights of New York, Maya requested and retrieved information from some of her former Tracksuit subordinates, successfully tracking down the Swordsman due to his recent activities as an undercover agent of H.A.M.M.E.R. (aiming to expose its true grim nature in his secret mission for the E.D.I.), a investigation and subsequent discovery that also got her to cross paths with Hawkeye, who also confronted his former mentor and enemy.
Despite sparing her father's killer due to Hawkeye's last minute advice not to give in to revenge, the Swordsman still met his unfortunate end by the orders of Fisk himself, after the former faced and was fatally wounded by the equally agile and formidable crime lord Madame Masque, who had secretly formed a brief alliance with the Kingpin to gain a fraction of power during Osborn's Dark Reign over the United States which lasted for months, via Kazi Kazimierczak, Maya's old friend who had grown into the eerie assassin known as Clown. With the help of the Hawkeyes: Clint Barton and Kate Bishop, Echo was able to defeat Madame Masque and Clown as well as their minions, subsequently putting most of them behind bars.
From Lone Wolf to Defender
It didn't last long until the few following years that Maya's determination to take down surviving factions of the Hand (notably the faction of Silver Samurai) and Yakuza as well as other rising crime syndicates across the globe, mainly the United States and Japan, led her to secretly operate as the Ronin — a legendary moniker used by different individuals in the past — from late 2018 until 2020, surviving Thanos' snap. Her inability to track down and take out the more cautious activities of the Kingpin in the States only fueled her rage from time to time, since almost every syndicate of his empire had either dissolved or absorbed by more discreet groups without any significant trace.
However, in the aftermath of the Snap and return to normalcy thanks to the heroes' intervention, Maya was given a chance to leave her life of brutality and loneliness as the Ronin and was instead invited to join the Defenders after a compelling offer from Daredevil who, along with some of his teammates, had known her secret life as the vagabond samurai for a while. Unfortunately, Maya rejected the Guardian Devil's offer when Fisk's associates and equal rivals began allying themselves with each other in pursuit of hunting her down due to her threatening reputation as the Ronin, believing that she wouldn't want to risk endangering the Defenders' loved ones and passionate supporters if she would be found working alongside the heroes for hire.
Maya fled New York to escape Fisk's wrath and her growing criminal rivals as circumstances had brought her back to hometown in Tamaha, Oklahoma, where most of her estranged family and relatives reside. Her stay at her hometown was originally meant to be temporary, but after finding out that her paternal uncle Henry Lopez was also threatened and blackmailed into working for Fisk not long after her father's death, Maya stayed longer to protect her family and friends and drive out the Kingpin's criminal influence on her hometown. Her reunion with her uncle Henry and maternal cousin Biscuits inevitably led to her being reunited with her cousin Bonnie, whom she had thought of as a sister before Maya and her parents moved to New York City in hopes of far better opportunities of livelihood, and her grandparents. Although Maya had kept a grudge towards her grandmother Chula after they've drifted apart due to her mother's death, their rift was slowly closed and healed when Maya began to learn the truth of her powers and how they are mystically connected to her maternal ancestors as a member of the Choctaw people, "echoing" to her their knowledge and gifted abilities which Maya taps into whenever she senses danger and has an urge to protect her loved ones and innocent lives.
Fisk himself and his men were able to track down Maya in Tamaha with the intent of capturing her before the hunters still participating on the hunt for Ronin could get to her, convincing that she comes home and take over his empire as his offer. However, Maya finally renounced Fisk for the last time and while she would always see her as a beloved and caring uncle who raised and trained her, she also knows that he was also the monster who had her father killed. Maya realized that her real family were the ones in Tamaha all this time since they sincerely welcomed and made efforts to reconnect with her in spite of their estrangement. Maya selflessly protected her people from both Fisk, who spitefully planned to have her family killed and criminals such as Snapdragon, the Night Shift, and the Black Knife Cartel, who all tracked her down during the year's festive Choctaw Powwow. The criminals were defeated with the help of her friends and allies in town, before Maya used her powers to inflict trauma into Fisk, hoping it would him let go of his pain with the traumatic memory of his late father. While Fisk fled to New York in dismay and confusion as he chose to leave Maya and her family, Maya stayed in Tamaha for a while to reconnect and bond with her people and live a little bit "normally" so she could reflect on her life.
After a series of self-reflection in her hometown, Maya returned to New York on a regular basis although she would still return to Tamaha during holidays and weekends. In New York, she accepted Daredevil's offer as she was welcomed within their ranks, along with the promise that together, they would eventually expose Kingpin's crimes to the public and authorities and defeat him without becoming just like Fisk himself. While she was a hero for hire in training in the first few months after meeting up with her allies, Maya embraced the heroic moniker of Echo in the following year of 2023, a name given based on not only her remarkable ability to copy motion she sees but also how her power and identity stem from the echoes of her ancestors, whom she has recently learned of thanks to her grandmother and other family members in Tamaha.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
Ancestral Evocation: Maya possesses supernatural powers that allows her to tap into her maternal ancestors' memories and abilities, from her mother all the way back to her distant ancestor, the first Choctaw woman and leader, Chafa. As a byproduct of her powers, Echo possesses photographic reflexes, an ability also possessed by the mercenary known as the Taskmaster. Even without unleashing the extent of her greater special powers, Echo is capable of duplicating any physical movement or action she sees with perfection after watching it only once or twice. Aside from her inherent powers, she learned a variety of techniques and methods from studying different martial arts by several trainers, fighters, heroes, and villains, as well as copying effective combat forms from different media, who were skilled or master combatants.
- Danger Detection
- Photographic Reflexes
- Ancestral Communication
- Temporary Power Bestowal
- Superhuman Agility
- Enhanced Strength
- Peak Human Speed
- Limited Healing
- Memory Recall
Abilities
- Concert Level Pianist
- Master Acrobat
- Graceful Dancer
- Master Martial Artist
- Expert Marksman
- Expert Tactician
- Multilingual
- Sign Language Polygot
- Limited Vocal Replication
- Weapons Proficiency
- Knife Proficiency
- Staff Mastery
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| Strength* |
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| Speed* |
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| Durability* |
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| Energy Projection |
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| Fighting Skills* |
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| * Heightened stats represents enhancements with her ancestral powers, while fighting skills represents potential abilities | |||||
Strength level
- Class 10+
Weaknesses
- Handicapped
- Deafness
- Missing Right Leg
- Human Limitations
Paraphernalia
Equipment:
- Prosthetic Leg
- Leather Echo Suit
- Ronin Armor (formerly)
Transportation:
- Quinjet (occasionally)
- 1972 Dodge Challenger
Weapons:
- Echo's Notable Arsenal
- Lignum vitae Clubs
- Fighting Staff
- Poisoned Darts
- Various Handguns
- Ronin's Notable Arsenal
- Shurikens
- Two Nunchaku
- Swordsman's Retractable Sword (formerly)
- Katana (formerly; destroyed)
Notes
- No special notes.
- ↑ Modern Comics: Daredevil Vol 3 15
Trivia
- The roots of Maya Lopez's maternal heritage mainly stems from the Chactow Nation, while her paternal ancestry comes from the Cheyenne Nation. However, some of her other relatives' ancestry, like her grandfather Skully Redbird, also came from many different Native American tribes.
- Before taking on the moniker of Echo, Maya was the last known person to take on the Ronin mantle while hunting organized crime members in the aftermath of the Snap.
- According to different reports, Maya was considered to be the bloodiest and most persistent Ronin despite killing her targets only when necessary, although her actions still brought down and kept powerful syndicates — such as Silver Samurai (whom she killed) and his Hand faction — from taking over cities and states amidst the chaotic state of the globe.
- Maya developed a romantic relationship with fellow Defender Xu Shang-Chi when the latter joined the California branch of their team. They initially bonded over how similar their background and journeys were, escaping their deceitful mentors as well as facing their demons by becoming heroes. They would soon fall in love, but the two didn't start dating until the fall of 2024.
See Also
- Appearances of Maya Lopez (Earth-61615)
- Character Gallery: Maya Lopez (Earth-61615)
- Quotations by Maya Lopez (Earth-61615)
Discover and Discuss
- Search News for: Echo · Maya Lopez · Maya Lopez (Earth-61615)
Links and References
- None.