It appears that one of the episodes scrapped following Daredevil: Born Again getting reworked was a team-up episode between two street-level characters: Frank Castle / The Punisher and Maya Lopez / Echo. Born Again famously underwent a major creative behind-the-scenes change following the production shutdown during the SAG-AFTRA strike. The series was reworked to have more direct ties to the Netflix series, and it appears that many storylines were cut, including one that would have better tied the series in with two Disney+ series, Hawkeye and Echo.
Speaking with IGN, Daredevil: Born Again writer Jesse Wigutow revealed that the series originally contained an episode centered on The Punisher and Echo, which would have broken away from the main action. Wigutow said that the episode would have forced Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) and Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox) to spend a night together, but stresses that it would not be romantic. Although the exact circumstances that brought the two together or the larger plan are unknown, the writer hopes to revisit the storyline one day. Maya Lopez/Echo was absent from Born Again, but The Punisher appeared in two episodes, setting up a larger role for the series’ future. Wigutow said:
“They were looking to do a kind of singular bottle episode around the Punisher crossing into the Daredevil space. This was two, three years ago, and one thing led to another, and I came in to largely focus on that. It involved the Punisher and Echo kind of spending an interesting night together — not romantically, but narratively. Who knows, maybe it comes back again. But the story has been a little kind of crooked in terms of the development, and it was part of a former idea.”
The Future of Echo & The Punisher in the MCU
Wigutow saying that the canned The Punisher and Echo episode was “two, three years ago” hints that the storyline was floated back in either 2023 or even as far back as 2022. This occurred when Marvel Television was reworking Echo, which was drastically re-edited and debuted all five episodes on Disney+ on January 9, 2024. Echo was strongly set up to be connected to Daredevil, as she is the goddaughter of Wilson Fisk / Kingpin, a plotline explored in both Hawkeye and her own Disney+ series. She also fought Daredevil in the first episode of the series, and Marvel likely wanted to connect her to the Daredevil: Born Again storyline and potential supporting cast at some point in the future, but pivoted following Echo‘s debut and a refocus in Marvel’s Disney+ output.
The idea of Echo and Punisher crossing over is very interesting. With Maya Lopez’s history as a criminal working for The Kingpin, would he attempt to kill her? Could she utilize the powers established in her series, which allow her to tap into a person’s mind and explore their history, to possibly subdue him and enable him to revisit his own past? There were certainly a lot of interesting story potentials that the two characters could have explored, which Marvel should revisit in the future. That said, the idea of a bottle episode in Daredevil: Born Again, one that would have deviated from the main plot, would have left some fans frustrated.
Jon Bernthal has a bright future ahead of him as The Punisher in the MCU. In 2026, Bernthal will reprise his superhero role in Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, get his own Punisher-centric Special Feature, and be one of the stars of Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Unfortunately, Alaqua Cox’s future as Maya Lopez remains a mystery, as there has been no announcement about her return since the conclusion of her Disney+ series in 2023. With Born Again already confirmed to be renewed for Season 3, Echo could fit into the future of the series and possibly even join a revamped version of The Defenders. Echo is listed on Disney+ as part of the Defenders Saga, after all.
- Release Date
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March 4, 2025
- Network
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Disney+
- Directors
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Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson, David Boyd, Jeffrey Nachmanoff
- Writers
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Jesse Wigutow, Jill Blankenship, Thomas Wong, David Feige, Grainne Godfree
- Franchise(s)
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Daredevil, Marvel Cinematic Universe
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