According to The Hollywood Reporter, Disney+’s new series, Echo,will start a new chapter that will separate many television shows and movies that require fans to have previous Marvel knowledge from those that don’t. The series will be the very first to be under Marvel’s Spotlight Banner which in the comics was an anthology series introduced in 1971 and served as the origin for many characters. 

Brad Winderbaum (Black Widow, What If…?), the studio’s head of streaming, television, and animation, shared on the Marvel website that, “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.”

He continued, “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.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Echo will start right from the events of Hawkeye and will focus on the character of Maya facing her past. She must overcome many hardships, reconnect with her Native American roots and embrace the meaning of family and community. 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Winderbaum told a group of press who previewed several scenes from the show on the Disney lot in October, “It’s a little on the grittier side for Marvel and shows the breadth of what Marvel is capable of. It is sort of a new direction for the brand, especially for Disney+.”

In the same event, the director of Echo Sydney Freeland (Reservation Dogs, Rez Ball) said, “People on our show — they bleed. They die. They get killed, and there are real-world consequences.”

Echo is scheduled to premiere on January 10th on both Disney+ and Hulu.