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In an effort to help viewers understand which of its spinoff projects will have significant connections to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe<\/a> and which are really meant to work as standalone stories, Marvel\u2019s rolling out a new kind of branding just in time for its upcoming Echo <\/em>series<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Ahead of Echo<\/em>\u2019s debuts on both Disney Plus and Hulu, Marvel announced today that it will be the first series to arrive under the studio\u2019s new Marvel Spotlight banner: the brand consisting of all the MCU\u2019s spinoffs that while set in the same universe where the Avengers exist are not required watching to understand what\u2019s happening in the next Avengers <\/em>movie, for example.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Speaking to Marvel.com<\/a>, Marvel\u2019s head of streaming, Brad Winderbaum, likened the Spotlight banner to Marvel\u2019s classic anthology by the same name<\/a> in terms of it featuring fresh characters who\u2019ve gone on to become fan favorites like Echo \/ Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox). Winderbaum also described Echo <\/em>\u2014 an action-adventure drama about a deaf Choctaw crime lord turned vigilante \u2014 as exactly the kind of \u201ccharacter-driven\u201d story that Spotlight\u2019s meant to focus on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cMarvel Spotlight gives us a platform to bring more grounded, character-driven stories to the screen, and in the case of Echo, focusing on street-level stakes over larger MCU continuity. Just like comics fans didn\u2019t need to read Avengers or Fantastic Four to enjoy a Ghost Rider Spotlight comic, our audience doesn\u2019t need to have seen other Marvel series to understand what\u2019s happening in Maya\u2019s story.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Though Marvel\u2019s framing it like a clever new feature, Spotlight feels very much like a response to the criticism that the MCU\u2019s become much harder to follow along with than it used to be in the days before Disney Plus and Marvel\u2019s old plan to flood the space with as many streaming series as it possibly could. Spotlight\u2019s definitely going to be useful for folks who just want to keep abreast of the big things happening in the MCU, but it\u2019s also going to be very interesting to see which projects get that branding going forward after Echo<\/em>\u2019s debut on January 10th.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n