Marvel's Echo Features An X-Men Easter Egg You Likely Missed
Contains spoilers for "Echo" Season 1, Episode 2 — "Lowak"
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has so many projects that even the relatively stand-alone ones tend to reference others, and "Echo" is no exception. Its most obvious ties to the MCU at large come from the fact that its main players — Maya Lopez, aka Echo (Alaqua Cox), and Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio) — continue their story from "Hawkeye." Then there's the appearance of Matthew Murdock, aka Daredevil (Charlie Cox), who can be seen both in "Spider-Man: No Way Home" and on "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law." Of course, he and Kingpin also have a long history of animosity on Marvel's Defenders Saga shows and are set to continue their own story on "Daredevil: Born Again."
"Echo" doesn't always hit viewers on the head with its references, though. In Episode 2, Biscuits (Cody Lightning) convinces a pair of tourists about the authenticity of the items for sale in Maya's grandfather's pawn shop, contrasting them with merchandise sold from major retailers that's actually made in Madripoor. In the comics, Madripoor is an urban island nation located southwest of Singapore known for its lawlessness and social divide. Various X-Men — Wolverine in particular — often have adventures in the area, and many other superheroes and villains have also ventured there.
It remains to be seen how Madripoor will factor into the future of the MCU in general and the X-Men in particular, but it does seem unlikely that "Echo" would remind viewers of it for no reason. Indeed, the seemingly throwaway line has plenty of significance to the franchise, which is rapidly setting up the arrival of the X-Men with things like Beast's (Kelsey Grammer) cameo in the post-credits scene of "The Marvels."
Has Madripoor just started to make waves in the MCU?
This isn't Madripoor's first MCU rodeo. "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" actually shows it in all of its gloomy glory, with Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl) visiting the island nation on their quest to track down the bootleg Super Soldier Serum the Flag Smashers are using. Apart from giving viewers a first look at the MCU version of this important comic book location, the show establishes that Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) is its effective ruler under the guise of the Power Broker. We already know that Madripoor has a reputation as a safe haven for criminals, and as Episode 2 of "Echo" casually reveals, it's pretty notorious for manufacturing bootleg goods as well.
Madripoor's existence is already firmly established in the MCU, and with its connection to the X-Men, the way it gets a reference in "Echo" doesn't seem like a coincidence. In the comics, the X-Men's headquarters, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, is located in Westchester County, New York, but with the majority of important MCU superheroes based in and around New York City, Marvel's mutants might have a hard time fitting in as things stand. Could Madripoor's increasing prominence mean that it'll play a part in the inevitable rise of the MCU's X-Men — and perhaps even give them an area of operations where they can establish themselves before they start regularly running into other MCU heroes?
Between its lawlessness, its comic book history, and Carter still pulling the strings in the shadows after her pardon, Madripoor has plenty of storytelling options. Oh, and if Marvel Studios really wants to get wild, there's also a gigantic dragon living underneath it in the comics.