ECHO: Page 3 of 3

BIOGRAPHY - Page 3

Under unrevealed circumstances, Echo was resurrected following the rebirth of the cosmos. She was first seen attending a concert in Hell’s Kitchen with a friend and was the only member of the audience unaffected by a sonic carrier wave used by Klaw to take control of the listeners. Echo made contact with Daredevil and used her photographic reflexes to replicate the musical notes created during the concert so a counter-frequency could be developed. [Daredevil (4th series) Annual #1] Next, Maya helped out Daredevil and Luke Cage on a case against Ammo and the Munition Militia [Daredevil (5th series) #21] and was part of a larger collection of local New York vigilantes helping that duo and their Defenders team against the Hood’s organized super-crime faction. [Defenders (5th series) #9-10] With Wilson Fisk as the new mayor of New York, however, he cracked down on costumed vigilantes. Daredevil tried to orchestrate a sting to catch Fisk dealing out favors to his old lieutenants and recruited Echo and the local heroes for the bust. Instead, they ended up being arrest by Fisk’s NYPD SWAT units. Echo and the heroes were only released from custody when Deputy Mayor Matt Murdock temporarily replaced a wounded Fisk during a Hand attack on Manhattan. [Daredevil (1st series) #599-602]

[Note: After Secret Wars, Daredevil’s secret identity was restored thanks to the Purple children and so Echo no longer knows he and Matt Murdock are the same. Also, in Daredevil (5th series) #21, Luke Cage and Echo acted as if they were meeting for the first time, despite serving on the New Avengers together.]

Maya made a home for herself on Roosevelt Island, continuing with part-time super-heroics. She was at ground zero when Mahkizmo the Nuclear Man cast a temporal displacement field around the island to make it his new kingdom. Trapped in this fast-time environment, the male civilians were imprisoned by Mahkizmo while the females were considered for potential mates. The force field prevented any further men from entering the zone, but several female super-heroes joined up with Echo to defend Roosevelt Island, including Spider-Woman, Hazmat, Hulk and Captain Marvel. They freed most of the women and formed a rag-tag dystopian army to fight against the Nuclear Man, ultimately driving him off. [Captain Marvel (11th series) #1-5] Maya was also involved with another group of women, the secret order known as the Daughters of Liberty, led by Peggy and Sharon Carter. They provided much needed support to Steve Rogers when his name was tarnished by the Power Elite after the Hydra takeover of America. [Captain America (8th series) #7-16]

At Carol Danvers’ request, Echo intervened on the planet Geunee to protect a female Badoon settlement from the Swamp God known as Saarl the Slaughterer. Even after learning “Carol” was actually Loki in disguise, Maya remained to aid Dara Ko Eke and her people. Echo defeated Saarl in his gladiator ring and turned him over to the Badoon. Her victory was shadowed by a psychic prediction by Dara “the All-Knowing,” who saw only fire in Maya’s future. [Marvel’s Voices: Indigenous Voices #1]

The meaning soon became clear when the Phoenix Force returned to Earth seeking a new host. At a nesting site near Avengers Mountain, the Phoenix summoned many champions from the active Avengers, their allies and their foes, housing them in the White Hot Room. Two potential hosts at a time were pitted against each other with the ability to harness the Phoenix Force as they chose. This was not a simple elimination tournament, however, for the Phoenix appeared to be looking for traits in its next host beyond the ability to defeat their opponents. Echo was overcome in her first match when she was forced to fight Prince Namor of Atlantis, a former Phoenix wielder, in his own environment at the bottom of the ocean. Namor dropped Maya into a deep-sea trench and closed the crevice on top of her.

And yet, Maya Lopez survived. By whatever metrics the Phoenix was using, Echo proved to be the superior candidate. She rose from the ashes of the ocean floor to interrupt the fights still in progress, reclaiming the portions of the Phoenix Force being wielded by other combatants. When Maya found the match between Hulk and Namor, though, she took her time. Maya Lopez, the new Phoenix, pummeled the Sub-Mariner so that every drop of water evaporated from his body. At his lowest ebb, Namor was forced to crawl from St. Petersburg, Russia until he finally reached the ocean to re-hydrate himself. The tournament was over and the Avengers found themselves with a powerful and dangerous new ally. [Avengers (7th series) #40-44] The Phoenix was not fully welcomed into the Avengers, however. Black Panther wanted to embrace the newfound strength in their ally, but Captain America still remembered going to war over the Phoenix’s presence on Earth. During the Phoenix tournament, the firebird had also claimed that its original human host had been Thor’s biological mother. This made Maya’s presence in Avengers Mountain uncomfortable for the Odinson, who wanted answers and yet the memories of past hosts were not open to Echo. [Avengers (7th series) #46,48]

The Avengers were involved in a multi-faceted war against the Hell-Lord Mephisto and the various pawns and plans he had in motion. To deal with this rising conflict, they started gathering the Ancient Powers wielded by the Avengers of 1,000,000 B.C., including the Phoenix Force. Shortly after Maya received the Phoenix, however, one of Mephisto’s pawns named Phil Coulson used a Pandemonium Cube (or Hellahedron) to re-write reality so the Avengers never existed. Instead, his own morally-rigid and personally malleable Squadron Supreme of America rose to become America’s Mightiest Heroes. In this reality, Maya was cast into the role of a fallen assassin for the Kingpin, condemned to Ravencroft Asylum. Still, Blade of the Avengers resisted the Cube’s influence and retained his memories of the original reality. He sought out Maya and the other Avengers to confront Coulson and the Squadron and retake their Earth. Together, the Phoenix and the Starbrand combined their powers to destroy the Hellahedron, restoring reality to what it was meant to be. [Heroes Reborn event]

Maya struggled to understand and reign in the Phoenix. While stopping a simple burglary in Hell’s Kitchen, she went wild and burned a criminal to death when he tried to kill her. To make things worse, her fires ignited a building and nearly killed a child and other innocents before the blaze was brought under control. The X-Men of Krakoa also worried about the Phoenix Force being loose on Earth (and out of their control). Forge of the Cheyenne took it upon himself to try to cage Maya and the Phoenix, with predictably poor results. Feeling lost and hunted, Maya chose to return to the Rez where she visited with her father as a child. She learned the elder who once helped her had passed on, but his adopted grandson Riverwalker was there to offer her assistance.

River was a storyteller, able to move his mind through time along someone’s ancestral line. Through River’s power, Maya learned the Phoenix had been enticed by her ancestral line’s long history of warrior women, including a past Phoenix wielder. River warned her, however, that the Trickster God known as the Adversary had targeted her and intended to wipe out her line to ensure she had never been born. The power of the Phoenix combined with River’s to physically transport them both back through time to protect Maya’s ancestors from the Adversary. Over twenty years in the past, Maya got to visit the night her parents met and even exchanged an earring with her mother. The Adversary followed them through time and murdered Maya’s mother, though. They were forced to continue traveling back through time, as Maya could no longer exist in the present day.

Maya and River traveled back over 1,000 years to Cahokia, the Great City, where Maya’s ancestor wielded the power of the Phoenix Force. Ohoyo Luak was guardian of the Great City and she gave them shelter after River was injured protecting Ohoyo from an assassin. Ohoyo taught Maya about the wonders of the Phoenix and how to embrace its power. With her advice, Maya brought the Adversary to the White Hot Room to battle him on her home ground as the Phoenix. The Adversary had been prepared for this and trapped Maya in an illusion where the power of the Phoenix wasn’t hers. River had been a pawn of the Adversary’s, who promised to restore his parents to life, but he realized he cared for Maya and couldn’t trust the Trickster. With Ohoyo’s guidance, River sacrificed himself so that his soul would reach the White Hot Room. River managed to connect Maya with her ancestral line again, giving her the spiritual strength to break the Adversary’s hold. Together, they cast the Adversary back to the beginning of his ancestral line, the birth of chaos at the dawn of time and his essence was dispersed. Maya’s mother and her ancestral line were restored and Echo used the Phoenix power to bring River back from death as well. [Phoenix Song: Echo #1-5]

Echo’s attempts to make amends with Thor brought her to the Bifrost Bridge of Asgard. The Realm Eternal came under attack by the Multiversal Masters of Evil, powerful and corrupt versions of Killmonger, Dark Phoenix and her pet, the Berserker Wolverine. Echo joined Thor and Iron Man in defending against these assassins, but Thor wanted none of her help. This Dark Phoenix knew intricate psychic manipulations for the Phoenix Force and initially Echo seemed outmatched. However, Maya had been practicing, studying the actions of cosmic-level beings who might eventually threaten her as the Phoenix. The Dark Phoenix called her a mere mimic, but Maya proved she now fought as the echo of everything, all at once. Echo and the Odinson fought together against the Berserker Thor whom Dark Phoenix summoned next. With this victory, Thor finally accepted Echo as an Avenger and so the Phoenix joined Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. [Avengers (7th series) #51-55]

Almost immediately after, the Avengers began to plan for their ultimate mission. The Multiversal Masters of Evil had been eradicating entire realities, conquering Earths by killing the primordial protectors of 1,000,000 B.C. and leaving them without hope or heroes. Earth-616 was meant to be the final stop for the Masters and their patrons, Mephisto and the multiversal Council of Red. The Avnegers intended to travel back in time to join the primordial Avengers in defense of their timeline, but Mephisto's intervention sent them bouncing through the timestream. As they journeyed on, Echo met Reno Phoenix and the Starbrand Kid from the Old West, and Theordosia Szardos, the Phoenix Witch of Wundagore from the age of Vikings. She also found peace with Namor, who joined the Avengers in a showing of penance after his recent actions. Phoenix and the Sea King oddly made amends by promsing to kill each other if either showed signs of going "dark". [Avengers (7th series) #58-61]

Eventually, the Avengers reached their final destination, teaming up with their ancestors in 1,000,000 B.C. against the Multiversal Masters of Evil. The stakes escalated even further as the fighting moved on to the God Quarry, home to an Omniversal outpost of Avengers defending the boundary between the void of the First Firmament and the rest of the multiverse. The Masters' Doom-Above-All sought its power, while Mephisto-616 merely sought to end all that is, was, and ever would be. With the Avengers 1,000,000 B.C. and the Omni-Avengers, Maya found herself fighting alongside Firehair, Thor's god-mother and the first Phoenix, and Old Man Logan, the Last Phoenix from the end of time. They overcame Raven Darkholme, the Masters' Dark Phoenix, and contained the breach in the God Quarry when it ruptured. Though Maya exhausted her connection to the Phoenix Force, the Omni-Avengers succeeded, and all of existence was saved. Though she was no longer the Phoenix, Maya Lopez remained friends with the mighty Thor. He opened the halls of Asgard to the former Phoenix and introduced her to Gaea, his birth mother, and Frigga, the mother who raised him. [Avengers Assemble crossover]