‘Echo’ Ending Explained: Does Maya Have Powers? Will Kingpin Be NYC Mayor?

All five episodes of Marvel‘s latest series, Echo, dropped on Disney+ last night, introducing fans to the new “Marvel Spotlight” brand and Echo, aka Maya Lopez’s (Alaqua Cox), new superhero skillset. The show also came jam-packed with a killer fight scene between Echo and Daredevil (Charlie Cox), the return of Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), and a stellar cast of incredible indigenous talent from Graham Greene to Julia Jones. Of course, if you’ve already binged all five episodes of Echo on Disney+, you already know all this. What you might not be totally clear on are Echo’s aforementioned new powers, how she defeated Kingpin, and how the show’s end credits scene tease the upcoming Daredevil: Born Again, Disney+’s reboot of Netflix’s Daredevil show…

**Spoilers for all five episodes of Echo, now streaming on Disney+**

Echo stars Alaqua Cox as Maya Lopez, a deaf Indigenous superhero first introduced in the comics in 1999 and in the MCU in 2021’s Hawkeye. In Hawkeye, we learned the basic strokes of how Maya wound up working for her “uncle” after witnessing her criminal father’s murder. Maya believed that Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) was responsible for William Lopez’s (Zahn McClarnon) death, but it was actually her uncle, Kingpin, all along. Hawkeye ends with Maya shooting her mentor point blank in the face. Echo‘s first episode ends with the reveal that Kingpin did not die.

Instead of plotting his revenge, Kingpin follows the rebellious Maya to her hometown of Tamaha, Oklahoma. Even though she willfully incites a war against him, he is still hellbent on winning her back to his side as his heir apparent. When she rebuffs him, he finally fires back: kidnapping her grandmother Chula (Tantoo Cardinal) and cousin Bonnie (Devery Jacobs), promising to kill them so she feels his pain.

The one thing Kingpin didn’t count on? Maya had recently reconnected with her ancestors; specifically the spirit of her healer mother Taloa (Katarina Ziervogel). Now that Maya understands that she is a protector of her people, she is able to call upon all the women before her to fight back. But how? And what exactly does she do to Kingpin? And how does the final season tease another hero’s comeback? Here’s everything you need to know about the ending of Echo on Disney+…

Echo Ending Explained: Does Echo Have Powers? How Does Echo Defeat Kingpin?

The ending of Echo is pretty clearcut provided you let yourself forget everything you know about Maya Lopez from the comics.

We already knew that Maya was a ferocious fighter, capable of holding her own against an Avenger like Hawkeye or a Defender like Daredevil. That would be cool enough, right? Well, she has powers! Only not what comics nerds likely expected…

Instead of giving the deaf brawler the ability to “echo” anyone else’s fighting style, per the comics, Echo’s powers in her very own show are instead tied to harnessing the special abilities of generations of her ancestors, dating all the way back to the first Choctaw, Chafa (Julia Jones), to her own mother Taloa. Not only that, but she’s able to share these powers in hours of need with the other women of her bloodline: Chula and Bonnie. And how does she know when there’s danger? A woodpecker blessed with the ancient ability to warn the Choctow comes to her.

These changes give Echo‘s final episode a distinctly spiritual quality. So much so, it’s not so much that Maya manages to beat her former mentor-turned-nemesis Kingpin with firepower, but instead using Taloa’s powers of love. As her mother did for her, she takes Kingpin back to the moment of his first, soul-breaking trauma. For Maya, that was the death of her mother. For Kingpin, the moment he decided to take up a hammer against his abusive father. Maya tries to tell her uncle they are family and he doesn’t have to be defined by violence. While we’re not wholly sure it 100% healed Kingpin, he definitely emerges from the experience, bewildered, upset, and non-confrontational. He immediately retreats to lick his wounds, wondering what Maya did to him.

So what is Kingpin doing next? Well, we have the end credits scene to help us figure that out…

How the Echo End Credits Scene Sets Up Daredevil: Born Again: Wilton Fisk for NYC Mayor!

Are there end credits in Echo? You better believe it! Even though every episode ends with that jarring ode to the Georgia film industry and a few producer names, there is an end credits scene in Echo!! And it sets up an intriguing storyline that we’re sure will set the stage for Daredevil: Born Again.

The Echo end credits scene opens up on Kingpin on his private plane, journeying home to New York City after his weird encounter with Maya in Oklahoma. He does what any self-respecting New Yorker would do in this situation: he pumps up the volume on home news network NY1. The topic du jour is the lackluster mayoral race… and, yes, it’s the most grounded situation we’ve ever seen depicted in the MCU: New Yorkers lamenting the lack of quality mayoral candidates.

When it’s suggested what the people of New York City want in a mayor is a “bare-knuckle brawler,” you can see the wheels turning in the new kinder, gentler, less violent Wilton Fisk’s mind. Perhaps he should run for mayor? This is a comics storyline in the Daredevil comics so it wouldn’t be too wild an idea for the MCU to mine. (And I will remain mum on the question of who I would vote for in a Kingpin vs. Eric Adams election.)

Between the otherwise unnecessary Daredevil cameo in Echo Episode 1 and this intriguing stinger, we’re guessing Kevin Feige and company are hoping this latest Disney+ series will get Marvel fans amped for a season of Daredevil: Born Again where the titular lawyer-by-day/vigilante-by-night will have to grapple with Kingpin in the streets and see Mayor Wilson Fisk in court.