Marvel Star Devery Jacobs Dismantles ‘Egregious’ Criticism of MCU Welcoming Multiple Indigenous Heroes

Devery Jacobs is slamming trolls targeting Marvel for including multiple indigenous characters in the MCU.

In December, Marvel introduced the Native American character Kahhori via the animated series What If…? This week, Disney+ launched its new series Echo, which also features portrayals of indigenous people. While fans have largely been applauding the addition of Kahhori, some naysayers have been asked if Echo is necessary, claiming that putting two Native American characters in the universe is repetitive.

Jacobs fired back at those critics at the Los Angeles premiere of the show on Monday, explaining that Echo and What If…? have entirely separate storylines. The actress plays Bonnie in Echo and is the voice of Kahhori.

“Would somebody go up to a white guy and say, ‘This is the one perspective for a white story that there is out there’? Would somebody go and say that?” Jacobs asked when speaking to the Hollywood Reporter. “That’s egregious, that’s insane that anybody would say that.”

“I don’t even know if it’s justifiable for an answer, but I’ll give one anyway,” she continued. “I think that the story of Kahhori in What If …? is astronomically different from that of Maya Lopez in Echo."

“I think one is talking about colonization and history and features Mohawk cultures and communities—the community that I come from,” she said, speaking of What If…? Season 2. “The other is about an antihero, kind of a villain, who is coming back to her Choctaw Nation and to her family, and [Echo is] really a dark crime noir family drama. And so they’re both individual stories that absolutely deserve to be told, and...I personally think [they're] badass, in their own right.”

Echo also stars Alaqua Cox, Chaske Spencer, Tantoo Cardinal, Zahn McClarnon, Cody Lightning, Graham Greene, and Vincent D’Onofrio. The show is now available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu.