Why Marvel Studios changed Echo’s Native American backstory

Ahead of Echo’s premiere, the series’ producer reveals why they decided to change Echo’s Native American backstory.

The new year has Marvel Studios ready to put its best foot forward as its latest project Echo is set to debut through Disney+ for a five episode run.

A spin-off of 2021’s Hawkeye, the series will follow Maya Lopez, the deaf ex-leader of the Tracksuit Mafia as she tries to outrun Kingpin, aka her adoptive uncle, after their deadly confrontation.

One of the biggest selling points for Lopez is the fact that she’s one of the few Native American characters found in the MCU, and the show’s producer has revealed why they decided to rewrite Lopez’s Native backstory from the comics.

Echo’s Native backstory was re-written to stay true to her heritage

While speaking at an Echo press event, executive producer Sydney Freeland broke down the reason why she and Marvel Studios decided to rewrite Echo’s Native American backstory.

In the comics, Lopez is from the Blackfeet tribe, but Freeland explained that visuals seen in the books were a “hodgepodge” of images that made for a “muddied” backstory that would make no sense to Native people.

So, Freeland and her team reimagined Lopez as a member of the Choctaw tribe from Oklahoma, and went out of their way to meet with members from the tribe in order to develop a partnership with them.

“I had a pitch deck and I pitched them the project,” Freeland said, “It’s not going to be earnest, it’s going to be a little more violent, but we feel like there’s a great story behind it.’”

“Basically I said, ‘No, no, we’re not here to tell you what we’re going to do. We’re here to create a dialogue so that we can get your input and create a more authentic portrayal of the Choctaw people and culture.’”

Freeland made sure every person on her team from the costume department to the production designer had a real experience with the Native culture, or else the entire project would feel incredibly inauthentic to the point she had her costume designer “recreate a palette from the ground up” when creating powwow costumes.

Echo premieres on Disney Plus and Hulu on January 9. Find out more here.