Phoenix

Maya Lopez is a Native American of the Cheyenne Nation. Born deaf, she was initially placed in special education, but after using her skill to duplicate a song from a recital, she was determined gifted. 

Maya's father was secretly a mob enforcer working for the Kingpin. One day he was murdered under the Kingpin's orders. He reached out to Maya, leaving a bloody handprint on her face. She was taken in by Fisk, who was impressed with her talents and had sent her to the best schools money could buy. As a result, she became very talented in many artistic fields.

Fisk used her in one of his plots to destroy Daredevil. First, he arranged for Matt to meet her, knowing Matt was lonely after the recent death of Karen Page. Then he tricked Maya, by convincing her that Daredevil killed her father. Having watched videos of Bullseye and Daredevil fighting, she proved more than a match for Daredevil. Maya created the identity of Echo (based on her ability to copy motion she sees) and fought Daredevil. He did not know why she was suddenly attacking him, and she was shocked to learn it was Matt she was targeting. Matt was able to explain himself. Angry at the deliberate deception, Maya then brutally shot the Kingpin which left him blind for a time.

Maya eventually returned to New York to reconcile with Matt, only to find he was already with another woman. She then left New York to go to her father's reservation and visited the Chief who is the old medicine man that she and her father would visit when she was younger. After listening to his stories about her father, Maya decided to follow his suggestion and went on a "vision quest". She went to the woods to fast and meditate to receive visions which she hoped would provide her with some answers on what to do next with her life. On the fourth day of her "vision quest" during a thunderstorm she was startled by what she believed to be an animal spirit and briefly fought him. Once she realized her mistake they talked and she shared some of the visions she received. When she got to her final vision about "two dogs fighting", he ended up telling her a story about it. This ultimately motivated her to start telling stories just like her father did. She went back to New York and began to perform in the theater using sign language, dance, and music. She spoke with Matt again who said that he attended her first performance titled "Parts of a Hole" and that he would see "The Echo Story" with a friend. He made no attempt to stop her from kissing him because he knew it was a goodbye kiss.

Maya assisted the New Avengers after being recommended and referred by Daredevil to Captain America, using the ninja identity of Ronin. Murdock provided her with the necessary information on the Hand, Yakuza, and Silver Samurai before meeting with Captain America in a café to receive further instructions. It was in Japan that she infiltrated the Yashida Fortress, only to learn that the Hand and Hydra were now in a partnership, and were trying to influence Harada to join and lead them. Maya, however, was unsuccessful in trying to leave the fortress undetected, and was pursued by many of the Hand's ninjas. She respected Captain America's wishes by attempting to kill fewer of them, but in the end she was left with little choice. Upon returning to the Avengers penthouse in Japan where she had met earlier with Captain America, she quickly explained to him and the New Avengers what she had learned. The Hand, however, had followed her and once they had finally caught up, attacked her and her teammates. She fought alongside the New Avengers against them and arrested Madame Hydra. Maya then arranged with Captain America for her to stay in Japan and watch the Hand's activities, hoping to resolve the conflict between them and the Yakuza, and because she had discovered rumors that Elektra might currently be in power as the leader of the Hand.

Maya was not heard of again until after the the passage of the Superhuman Registration Act and the consequent Superhero Civil War, and was listed as a potential recruit for the Initiative. Though it was not discovered until later, she had been murdered in a fight with Elektra who was, indeed, leading the Hand. A package which had been prepared to be delivered was then sent from Japan to the U.S.

Though it was meant for for Matt Murdock, he had Dakota North deliver the package to Daniel Rand (the Iron Fist), explaining that he was too far away to be able to do anything about it. It contained a letter summarizing Maya's past activities stating that she was likely dead along with a duplicate of her Ronin armor and weapons; she wanted Matt to avenge her.

Maya was revived by Elektra and the Hand with their dark magic, to undergo a drug treatment which would influence her join their cause. It was interrupted, however, by Luke Cage and his New Avengers, which included a new stranger wearing the Ronin armor, who fought off the Hand and Elektra and rescued Maya from their grasp. Although she had been rescued, she had inhaled enough of the drug for it to continue to greatly affect her. The New Avengers took her to the Harada Fortress to regroup, much to the Silver Samurai's disgust, but the Hand managed to track them down and confronted them, along with the Silver Samurai, in the Harada Fortress. Once the drug had completed its course, Maya turned against her teammates and assisted the Hand against them. Iron Fist and Doctor Strange managed to eliminate the drug from her system, and in retaliation against the Hand, killed their leader, Elektra. She was revealed to be a female Skrull in disguise, who reverted back to her original form, and the Hand immediately fled from the scene.

Echo remained with the New Avengers after the incident in Japan. With nowhere else to go, she resided in Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum along with Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, their baby girl, and Clint Barton (Hawkeye), who was revealed to be the new Ronin. He returned the armor to Maya, but she gave it to him as a gift for coming to her rescue along with the others.

During the events of World War Hulk, Maya attempted to defend Rick Jones from Hirorim and Elloe of the Hulk's Warbound when they invaded the Sanctum Sanctorum to capture Dr. Strange. S she, along with Ronin and Iron Fist, were defeated and imprisoned along with various other defeated heroes. She and the other heroes were released by the the Hulk's Warbound however, after the Hulk and Sentry's final battle.

After these events, she continued to prove herself a valuable ally as she accompanied the New Avengers on many missions. This including attempting to aid the Mighty Avengers against a symbiote-transformed population in New York (although she and many of her teammates were transformed as well). She helped her teammates in organizing the streets afterward, calming many of post symbiote mutated human population after they had been transformed back to normal. She also helped in fighting against the Hood and his criminal empire, once in the streets and a second time at the Sanctum. Although she had been with the New Avengers for a while, Maya was somewhat of a stranger to everybody with the exception of Wolverine, and was still curious to why Daredevil sent Captain America to her in the first place.

After the final battle against the Hood's criminal empire, Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum was destroyed and leveled, forcing the remaining New Avengers to relocate to one of Iron Fist's leased apartments, and continue operating without Doctor Strange. Despite her teammates' suspicions and paranoia, Maya did not believe the idea that a potential invasion had already been set in motion by the Skrulls. She simply viewed it as a conspiracy and an excuse to why their lives were so miserable, due to their fugitive status at the time. This changed, however, when she was attacked by a Skrull disguised as Daredevil. With the help of Wolverine, who had followed her without her knowledge, she was able to fend off the Skrulls.

The next morning she was approached by Clint Barton, who comforted her after hearing about her attack. He recalled his own experience when first joining the Avengers, and assured her that although she felt out of place on the team at the time, it would all work out one day. Maya began a relationship with Barton.

During the Skrull Invasion, Maya and her teammates went to the Savage Land to investigate a Skrull ship which had crash landed there. They and the Mighty Avengers were attacked by 1970s versions of themselves which emerged from the ship, and were under the impression that they were the Skrulls. Maya was the first person to discover that Spider-Woman was a Skrull and helping with the invasion. She was attacked and rendered unconscious by Veranke. Upon recovering, she reunited with the rest of her teammates to travel back to New York and fight the invasion.

Sometime after the Skrull Invasion, Maya made her way to Los Angeles where she went undercover as a stripper. Moon Knight attacked a meeting she was in, forcing her to break her cover to rescue him. Echo accepted the offer to help Marc find out who was the Kingpin of L.A. and started a relationship. While Moon Knight was fighting the revealed Kingpin, Count Nefaria, Echo recorded it on a video camera to bring to the police. Days later, she and Moon Knight were cleaning up some criminal hideouts until Nefaria confronted them. During the fight, although fighting very well, Echo was seemingly killed by Nefaria's optic blast; submitting to his Wolverine personality, Moon Knight then brutally attacked Nefaria in revenge.

Maya resurfaced years later alive and well. She witnessed the beginning of an attempt by Klaw to take over New York City, turning its citizens into sound constructs, and alerted Daredevil about it. Together, they stopped the villain and reverted the effects of his infection.

When the cosmic force known as the Phoenix Force returned to Earth, it staged a contest to determine its next host, and Echo was one of many individuals summoned to the White Hot Room for it. The Phoenix empowered the assembled champions and had them fight each other in trials by combat. In one of the earliest bouts of the tournament, Echo was pitted against Namor at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Due to the favored battle conditions, Namor overpowered Echo and left her for dead in the ocean floor.

The Phoenix was drawn to Maya's suffering, as well as her ability to adapt and wield its power in different ways. It resurrected Echo and chose her as its host. During the final round of the tournament, Echo resurfaced from the bottom of the ocean and proceeded to intercept all the different fights taking place across the globe. Absorbing the portions of the Phoenix from each of the remaining contestants, Maya fully became the Phoenix. Afterward, she relocated to the Avengers Mountain so that the Avengers could study her new condition.

Echo one day found herself in a different universe as an inmate at Ravencroft Institute. She chose not to escape. Instead, she used the powers of the Phoenix to keep Ravencroft's inmates in check. She was eventually approached by Blade the Vampire Hunter, who was also transported to that reality, and that reality's version of Captain America and told her that they planned to form the Avengers to restore reality to its proper place.

While Blade and Captain America recruited Black Panther, Echo recruited Thor who had regained his powers and memories. With Wakanda helping find the Star Brand bearer Brandy Selby in the depths of space, the Avengers team was complete and confronted the Squadron Supreme when they came to Wakanda to investigate the Avengers.

Echo fought Power Princess but was unable to defeat her until she was aided by ally Starbrand, and they used their combined power to knock Power Princess out. Echo and Starbrand then worked to destroy the source of the reality warp, President Coulson's Pandemonium Cube. With the Pandemonium Cube's destruction, reality was returned to normal, and Echo was returned to Earth-616.