Marvel studio chief Kevin Feige has announced the released dates for the next two Disney Plus shows in the Marvel cannon: Loki Season 2 and Echo. Per Variety, Feige revealed Tuesday at Disney upfronts that Loki Season 2 will premiere Oct. 6, 2023, as part of a weekly release structure. The next month, all episodes of Echo will hit Disney Plus on Nov. 29, 2023.
The two series are set to follow the next incoming Marvel series: the Nick Fury-centric Secret Invasion, which will premiere on Disney Plus on June 21, 2023. All told, that’s three shows hitting Disney’s streaming service this year — a far cry from the eight titles that premiered over 2021 and 2022.
This signals that Feige meant it when he said Marvel would make less content in coming years, following lackluster receptions to the series Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk, as well as to Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in theaters. Variety reports that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever spinoff Ironheart and WandaVision spinoff Agatha: Coven of Chaos were both expected to release in 2023 but now will likely join Daredevil: Born Again on the 2024 roster.
Loki‘s second season will follow everyone’s favorite variant as he skips through time and tries to outsmart Jonathan Majors’ Kang — in what may be the last time we see Majors portray the big bad, given his current legal troubles.
Meanwhile, Echo sees actress Alaqua Cox reprising her role from the Hawkeye series as Maya Lopez, the morally conflicted daughter of Kingpin whose deafness promotes photographic reflexes and allows her to master various fighting styles. Besides boasting a deaf actor in the lead role, the series is said to feature a largely Native and Indigenous cast. Plus, Vincent D’Onofrio will appear as Kingpin, along with Charlie Cox as Daredevil, so it makes sense that Echo would premiere before Born Again.
Let’s hope the reduction in content means an uptick in quality for Marvel shows going forward. But with no end in sight for the ongoing writers’ strike, better storytelling isn’t exactly guaranteed over the next few years.