Warning! This article contains spoilers for Marvel Studios' Echo.

Summary

• Marvel Studios' Echo explores Wilson Fisk's backstory, aligning it with Netflix's Daredevil.
• Echo slightly alters the details of Fisk's childhood, but the core events remain the same.
• The changes in Echo's portrayal of Fisk's past indicate a sympathetic nature and differ from the darker comic version.

Marvel Studios' Echo with several MCU Easter eggs.

This backstory was first hinted at in Netflix's Daredevil, specifically season 1, episode 8, "Shadows in the Glass.” In this episode, Fisk explains to his wife how he killed his father as a child. The episode shows a young Fisk sitting on a chair staring at a cracked wall while his father beats his mother out of view. Pushed to the breaking point by his father’s abusive nature, Fisk picks up a nearby hammer and bludgeons his father's skull, ending the latter's life and abuse of his wife. Echo alludes to this story across its five episodes, but does the show retcon any of these events in Kingpin’s early life?

Marvel Did NOT Retcon Kingpin's Backstory But Did Change Some Details

Echo's new MCU powers could provide reasoning for some of Daredevil's details being altered.

As a whole, Marvel Studios' first 'Spotlight' show Echo does not retcon Kingpin's backstory. That said, Echo does portray the events slightly differently, though there is a solid explanation as to why this was the case. In Echo's final episode, the titular character discovers an ability granted to her by her Choctaw ancestors that allows her to feel other people's traumatic events and help them internally heal from any pain they have been caused. Echo/Maya attempts to use this ability on Kingpin, knowing the pain he had suffered in his childhood from his father's endlessly abusive nature.

In this sequence, Maya enters a reimagining of the scene before Fisk kills his father with some slight differences from the Daredevil scene. For one, Fisk is sitting on a bed in another room when he decides to kill his father whereas, in Daredevil, he is sitting on a chair in the same room as his parents. Also, the design of the hammer Fisk presents Maya with in Echo is different. The one in Daredevil is a conventional hammer, while the Echo weapon has a rounded head. Also, the hammer in Echo is beneath Fisk's mattress rather than left out in the open as it is in Daredevil.

As such, there are a few different details from Kingpin's backstory that are changed in Echo, though the fundamentals of his past remain unchanged. The reason for these differences could be the nature of Maya's powers. Echo episode 5 did not directly show the flashback of Fisk's murder of his father, instead showing Maya attempting to help Kingpin heal from the ordeal. As a result, the supernatural nature of reimagining Fisk's trauma could be the reason behind the slight differences.

Does Kingpin's Backstory In Echo Mean Netflix's Daredevil Show Is MCU Canon?

Can the long-running MCU canon debate finally come to an end after Echo?

These slight changes cause the never-ending debate of whether Netflix's Daredevil is canon to rear its head once again. The idea of Fisk killing his father for the same reasons in Echo as the Daredevil show seems to the argument that the latter is indeed canon to the franchise. That said, the minor differences could provide evidence to the contrary. Overall though, Echo better fits Daredevil's story as it was shown on Netflix and includes very little of note to contradict the latter being canon to the MCU.

Did Kingpin Kill His Father In The Marvel Comics?

Marvel Comics' Kingpin has a much darker story surrounding his father's demise.

This backstory for Kingpin highlighted in both Daredevil and Echo is different from the comics, with the original Marvel story being much darker. The reason for the change in live-action is to give Fisk more of a sympathetic nature. His killing of his abusive father shows that he once had good intentions, though that rage and trauma turned him down a dark path to become a ruthless criminal mastermind. In Marvel Comics, this sympathetic aspect is removed by having Fisk kill his father in a much colder, more calculated way.

In the comics, Fisk kills his father by drugging him. This drug causes his father to become paralyzed but entirely cognizant with Fisk telling the former that he intends to torture him to death. Fisk reveals that he has been starving a family of rats for weeks before filling his father's mouth with cheese, leading to the rats eating through his father's skull. This is an incredibly dark, gruesome method of torture and makes the Marvel Comics version of Kingpin much more calculated and evil. In Echo, Fisk’s murder of his father is much more versed in an emotional outburst, just as it was in Netflix’s Daredevil.

All episodes of Marvel Studios' Echo are now streaming on Disney+.