Hawkeye episode 3 teases Kingpin’s return to the Marvel Universe – the Hollywood reporter

[This story contains spoilers for Hawkeye episode three.]

Hawk Eye is a ghost story. It is about the choices people make as they move around the world, what they see and hear, what they choose to ignore, and the spirits they release while doing so. Hawk Eye is a ghost story, which revolves around the past, present and future, from Dickens to Marvel. This, in turn, makes it the perfect Christmas tale.

Clint Barton’s (Jeremy Renner) war on organized crime as Ronin finally caught up with him in the final episode of Hawk Eye. After the first two preparatory episodes, Hawk Eye really breaks loose in the third installment of the series, which sees Clint and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) take on the tracksuit mafia. But of course, the Tracksuit Mafia brothers are just parts of the whole, as their leader, Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), known to comic book readers as Echo, is making her presence known. And a bigger one, do that a lot bigger, the threat lurks in the shadows.

In “Echoes”, written by Katie Mathewson and Tanner Bean, and directed by Bert & Bernie, audiences witness Clint Barton’s impact on the life of another young woman. Where Kate saw Hawkeye’s inspiring heroism during the Battle of New York City, setting her on a path to becoming her own hero, Maya saw the effective, emotionless, Ronin bloodshed after Snap, putting her on the path to becoming her own hero. the way of revenge. Clint Barton’s dual inheritance, or echoes, is brought to the fore in this episode, and it’s not unnoticed that the overly talkative, upbeat, and wealthy Kate positions herself as the opposite of Maya. Cox, a deaf actress from the Menominee and Mohican nations, makes her screen debut in Hawk Eye, making her the MCU’s first Indigenous superhero and the second deaf superhero after Lauren Ridloff’s Makkari in Eternals. Nothing suggests that Cox is a first-time actress as she commands every scene she finds herself in, imbuing Echo with a calm, barely contained rage. Maya’s tension, a serrated arrow with a specific target rather than Kate’s loose and somewhat careless.

As Kate and Maya’s lives, and the paths they take, are haunted by their fathers, Derek Bishop (Brian d’Arcy James) and William Lopez (Zahn McClarnon) respectively, there is an inherent discussion about the privilege at stake when looking at their two lives. This privilege is not only defined by wealth, as evidenced by William’s discussion with Maya about not being able to afford to send her to a school for the deaf, versus Kate being sent to better schools. and course of the world, but also by the fact that Maya is part of the deaf and amputee community, which is also true for Cox. Maya has a different outlook on the world, which made her more cautious and observant than Kate, but above all an equally exceptional athlete and martial artist. Without a doubt, Maya had to fight harder to get to where she is than Kate, and this dynamic of acknowledging privilege without ever commenting directly on it is an unusual, but welcome, element for comic book movies.

Where Kate finds a foil on one side, she finds a compatriot on the other. Kate’s relationship with Clint grows stronger in this episode as the two bond as a mentor and protégé. When Clint is left temporarily deaf after Maya destroys her hearing aid, the two learn to communicate on a new level, especially during an explosive car chase that is drawn directly from Matt Fraction and David Aja. Hawk Eye No. 3 (2012). The Fraction and Aja comic book series isn’t the only one hovering over the episode, as we learn that Maya has her own mentor, the mysterious “Uncle”. David Mack and Joe Quesada’s Daredevil Story, “Parts of a Hole”, which has gone through daredevil (1998) # 9 through # 15, introduced Maya Lopez to the Marvel Universe where she was revealed to be the ward of none other than Wilson Fisk, aka Crime Fulcrum.

Rumors that Vincent D’Onofrio will reprise the role he crushed on Netflix daredevil have been around for a long time Hawk Eye. While “Echoes” doesn’t give us a full look at the Kingpin, the tall man standing behind Maya as a child, who places his sizable hand on her shoulder certainly suggests Fisk’s presence, as does the aura of power surrounding him. the nickname “Uncle,” as the tracksuit mafia overseer in the current storyline. Additionally, the previous iteration of the tracksuit mafia, led by William Lopez before he was apparently killed by Ronin, sold out at an auto store called Fat Man’s Garage. Throughout his comic book history, Fisk is frequently referred to as “the fat man”. Now I know what you might be thinking, but it’s not another Mephisto-style leap to determine the big bad this time around. We should all be able to say with confidence that Wilson Fisk is definitely on the line. So what does Fisk’s presence mean for the future of Hawk Eye and the recently announced spinoff series focused on Maya Lopez, Echo?

It seems Ronin’s War on Crime left a power vacuum and state of disorganization when it came to New York’s criminal empires. Fisk is obviously the man to unite them and make them stronger. As ill-equipped as the tracksuit mafia may seem for Clint and Kate, they are probably only a small part of Fisk’s growing empire. If the Kingpin is only just beginning, always mentioned in the code names, what does that mean in terms of its presence in the three seasons of daredevil on Netflix, in which he was a recognizable local celebrity and denounced as a criminal? It seems likely that this version of Wilson Fisk and the rest of the Marvel Netflix characters will be recoded as variants, with new versions of these characters, some played by the same actors, now being introduced to the MCU’s Central Earth. This would allow Kingpin’s grip on the criminal underworld to start from scratch and attract new heroes to his schemes and deceptions.

In the comics, it was Fisk, who grew up in poverty, who killed William Lopez, his business partner and best friend. He later accused Daredevil of murder and commissioned Maya to kill the devil from Hell’s Kitchen as “a favor.” After a ensuing battle with Daredevil who also entangles Black Widow, Maya ultimately learns the truth and later joins the Avengers, becoming the first Marvel Comics character to take the Ronin name, preceding Clint Barton’s time in the mantle of two years.

At Disney + Hawk Eye, Maya finds her father already dying, apparently as a result of Ronin’s attack. But it is possible that Fisk was responsible or that he informed Ronin, resulting in the death of Williams. However, Hawk Eye As the “Parts of a Hole” storyline approaches, it seems certain that Maya won’t remain an antagonist at the end of the series and that her relationship with “Uncle” will change for the worse. Whether that means she’ll take on the Ronin role for herself or eventually join the Avengers remains to be seen, but one thing seems certain: Maya Lopez will be the key to defining the MCU’s street-level exploits.

If part of the final phase of Hawk Eye Do Clint and Kate find out about the Kingpin, then Echo can focus on Maya’s efforts to take him down, perhaps with the help of long-awaited familiar faces, Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) and Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll). The connection between Echo and Daredevil seems impossible to avoid, and Hawk Eye, whose tone and design were already similar to Marvel’s Netflix shows, can serve as a bridge between the MCU’s life-saving exploits and those more grounded comic book stories starring Hawkeyes (Clint and Kate), Daredevil, Black Widow, Echo and Kingpin, whose minds are all part of a whole. While the holiday spirit takes pride of place in Hawk Eye as a feature that emphasizes fun and frivolity, it is the decoration of a series that closely resembles that of Dickens A Christmas Carol uses her vacation setting for a broader consideration of class, disability, mentoring, and the things and people that can never be salvaged.