'Echo' Star Alaqua Cox Revealed The One-Of-A-Kind Marvel Item She Was Dying To Take Home
Actress Alaqua Cox says it was a huge thrill to star in Echo as Marvel’s first deaf and Indigenous superhero, although there’s one prop she wishes they would’ve let her keep.
Cox first played Maya Lopez (a.k.a. Echo) in the 2023 series Hawkeye on Disney+ before landing her own Echo series, which debuts this month. The character first appeared in comic books a few decades ago, but the MCU version was updated to reflect that Cox herself has an artificial leg. Of course, that didn’t stop Maya from kicking plenty of butt in Hawkeye, and while the series worked in a lot of American Sign Language, it never really dealt with her amputation.
That changed with Echo, the new five-episode miniseries that debuts on Disney+ on January 9. The series adds an origin story to explain Maya Lopez’s lost leg, and Cox says it was extremely meaningful to see herself reflected in that way.
“It was very nice of them to add a piece of my identity into the character of Maya,” Cox told Narcity through an ASL interpreter.
Maya’s leg also becomes a point of pride for her as the series progresses, and she even gets a superhero-worthy upgrade to the prosthetic in a later episode.
“While filming the show, we have three different prosthetic legs, but my favourite of course was the superhero leg,” she said.
That leg appears in the show as an ornate metal prosthetic with plenty of intricate detail.
Cox told Narcity that she was proud to be part of such an empowering amputee story, although she was disappointed that she didn’t get to take the superhero leg home after production wrapped on the show.
“I wish I did, but they wanted to keep it,” she told Narcity. “And I was like ‘OK, no one’s going to be able to use it. It fits me.’”
However, she says that’s all minor compared to the opportunity she’s had to star in a Marvel production.
“When I was five, I never thought of becoming a superhero or anything like that,” she told Narcity.
“Just being able to have this platform, this huge platform for the deaf community, the Indigenous community and the amputee community, all of those communities are so very underrepresented.”
Cox added that she had a blast learning all the stunts for the show, and she appreciated how much sign language the other actors learned in order to communicate with her along the way.
As for where Echo fits into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, she’s already crossed paths with Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) and Daredevil (Charlie Cox) in her own series. So who would Alaqua Cox want to team up with next?
“I feel like it’s the most common answer, but I’m going throw it out there. It’s Spider-Man,” she said. “One of my favourite superheroes ever. I’d like to work with him.”
You can watch all five episodes of Echo on Disney+ beginning January 9.
