Phoenix's History
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 (a realm that serves both as the afterlife and a base of operations for the Phoenix and its hosts existing outside the Multiverse) 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 interrupt all the other contest fights taking place across the globe. Absorbing the portions of the Phoenix from each of the remaining contestants, Maya became the one and only fully-powered Phoenix. Afterward, she relocated to the Avengers Mountain so that the Avengers could study her new condition.
On Avengers Mountain, Echo passed every test they put her through, but
Captain America was still hesitant about allowing her to join the Avengers. As
Jennifer Walters (simply known as the Hulk at the time) quit the team and multiple high-level threats occurred, Echo accompanied the team on several of these occasions, officially joining after the attack of the Multiversal Masters of Evil (a team of super villains from across time and space brought together by Doom Supreme per the suggestion of the Council of Red). Echo then aided the Avengers to face the Council of Red (an assembly of
Mephisto's variants united for the purpose of rewriting all universes through the First Firmament, or First Cosmos, which is the original universe that existed before the Multiverse came into being and was eternal and unchanging until the Celestials, who desired change, shattered it into the first ever Multiverse and began the multiversal cycles that which all of existence stems from its remains). They followed the Council of Red through time with their Celestial teleporter, eventually making their way to 1,000,000 B.C. to meet the prehistoric Avengers with whom they teamed up to take down the Multiversal Masters of Evil. When they were summoned to the God Quarry (the top sediment, so named because it became a graveyard for gods over time, of the Quarry of Creation, a dimension beyond all space and time with a nigh-impenetrable barrier which serves as a boundary between all realities and the First Firmament but that can be accessed through a black hole located at the edge of the universe using the Infinity Stones to enter this primordial universe of the First Celestials who guard a deposit of Infinity Stones which they deliver to the Multiverse) by
Avenger Prime (a repentant variant of Loki who commands the Multiversal Avengers from the God Quarry), Echo used up the Phoenix power in defending the Quarry and the Multiverse. Phoenix no more, she left the Avengers.
