Echo To Kick Off Marvel Spotlight Banner With Less Focus On MCU Continuity

When Echo debuts in January, it will launch a new Marvel Spotlight banner that will focus on shows with less direct ties to MCU continuity. Deadline reports that at a two-episode screening of the upcoming MCU series, it was announced that the Marvel Spotlight banner will begin with Echo and will serve as a category of MCU projects that are more of a standalone project, taking place within the MCU but not intimately connected with the greater MCU storylines.

Marvel Spotlight is an idea (and a name) being taken directly from Marvel Comics. Stan Lee launched Marvel Spotlight in 1971 to focus on new characters that readers did not have to have a massive understanding of the whole Marvel Universe to follow. Marvel Spotlight was its own comic series and focused in part on new characters who had not appeared in previous books. Some of those characters became major players in the comics universe like Werewolf by Night, Ghost Rider and Spider-Woman (specifically Jessica Drew).

Marvel Studios’ Head of Streaming Brad Winderbaum said at the screening, “Marvel Spotlight gives us a platform to bring more grounded, character-driven stories to the screen, and in the case of Echo, focusing on street-level stakes over larger MCU continuity. Just like comics fans didn’t need to read Avengers or Fantastic Four to enjoy a Ghost Rider Spotlight comic, our audience doesn’t need to have seen other Marvel series to understand what’s happening in Maya’s story.”

Echo launches on Disney+ on January 10th, 2024 and focuses on Maya Lopez, who was introduced into the MCU in Hawkeye. Vincent D’Onofrio will reprise his role as The Kingpin in the series.