Spoilers Before “Eyes of Wakanda”.
“Black Panther” is always one of the high creative points of Marvel Cinematic Universe, and “Eyes of Wakanda” only adds to his already impressive heritage. When the animated series was announced in the winter of 2023, the premise of Wakandains warriors recovering artifacts through history looked like the perfect expansion of the existing “Black Panther” tradition. In addition, some fans have instantly noted the similarities between Erik “Killmonger” Stevens (Michael B. Jordan) and the declared mission of Wakandan “War Dogs” of the show, which brought them to wonder if we could see the beloved antagonist Marvel. Well, the favorite of MCU fans appears in “Eyes of Wakanda”, but not in the way you think, and it is the sneaky wink perfect for the first appearance of Killmonger in the franchise.
The first episode of “Eyes of Wakanda”, which is entitled “Into the Lion’s Den”, focuses on Noni (Winnie Harlow), a former warrior of Dora Milaje who finds the lion (Cress Williams), another Wakandan Voyou who succeeded with a bunch of artifacts and vibranium arrivals. It is essential that not stops the lion before becoming powerful enough to start a war with Wakanda, and it is not difficult to spot the parallels between their conflict and that between T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) and Killmonger in “Black Panther”. In addition, it turns out that special agents have undertaken similar missions for centuries, which deepens the strange ties that Killmonger has with his Wakandse line. Instead of bringing these weapons home to be locked in a safe, the lion wants to take revenge on people oppressed by force.
All this gathering of Wakandais artefacts also made me ask me if Killmonger would or not to present himself in “Eyes of Wakanda”, and the last episode of the series did not disappoint in this regard. Entitled “The Last Panther”, this chapter follows two Wakandains agents in an adventure that indirectly puts the famous scene – and Pivot – where Killmonger made a visit to the Museum of Great Britain in “Black Panther”. Indeed, as has become a reason in the MCU, it turns out that Wakanda was responsible for the creation of one of his biggest problems of years before becoming a problem.
Eyes of Wakanda sets up Killmonger’s best scene in Black Panther
“The Last Panther” opens in the Ethiopian city of Adwa, around 1896, and followed the adventure of Prince Tafari with his Kuda guard. They are looking for a Wakandian artefact in a storage house, but it becomes more difficult due to a continuous conflict between the Italian military forces and the Ethiopian resistance fighters. Tafari obtains the brilliant hammer, and fans of “Black Panther” will immediately recognize it as having the same shape as that which Killmonger sees at British Museum at the start of this film. If it was the only sign of the head, it would be more than enough, but things go further for our strange couple, as evidenced by the fact that the observer is in the background of their mission after the turn of the title card.
In Marvel Comics Continuity, the Watcher presents itself only for historical events at the level of the major league, which is why it is important when it appears briefly in animated series like “X-Men ’97”, “Your Friendly in Spider-Man”, and now “Eyes of Wakanda”. We discover why when Kuda and Tafari end up meeting the “Last Panther” holder (Anika Noni Rose), who has traveled in time with the help of a “quantum scanner”. It turns out that their mission is to find the artifact which causes an apocalyptic extraterrestrial invasion in the future and prevent it from falling into the hands of the Wakandan before the shortening of T’Challa with Killmonger. In other words, “Eyes of Wakanda” literally uses the emblematic moment of Killmonger to tell one of the coolest multiverse stories of the whole MCU saga to date.
Apparently, in the future calendar, humanity was fixed by a kind of horde of insects and fell because Wakanda has never adopted the integration philosophy that he developed after the events of “Black Panther”. Essentially, T’Challa had to meet Killmonger and fight for their different opinions to make sure that Wakanda would be there to help repel these extraterrestrial invaders. However, he cannot do this if the ax is not in Adwa when it falls, because it must cross the black market for decades to go to the museum seen in “Black Panther”. It is a traction inspired by the creatives of the series, the showrunner Todd Harris included, and it has become all the more poignant by the choice of making this adventure that which is closest to the current MCU in “Eyes of Wakanda”.
Why Wakanda’s eyes are a successful addition to the MCU
Killmonger himself is a marvel character popular enough to continue to inspire animated arguments of years after “Black Panther” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” released in theaters. This kind of emotional connection is rarer than we would like with regard to comic book films, and the choice to anchor the most ambitious story in “Eyes of Wakanda” in Killmonger bears fruit. A current complaint concerning this current cycle of “multi -aid narration” is that its stories lack weight because it is difficult to attach issues to conflicts when the characters can be instantly replaced by their carbon copy variants of the worlds that we know very little. And although I do not share these complaints, “Eyes of Wakanda” nevertheless offers a bypass solution to which many people will respond well thanks to its links with “Black Panther”.
Without a doubt, Marvel fans will theorize what it means for Wakanda’s future calendar and if we will see “The Last Panther” again soon. Rose, for her role, is not unrelated to playing royalty, and many fans of “Black Panther” probably love his performance as Princess Tiana in “The Princess and the Frog” too. Anyway, it’s a great way to create another layer of connection with the public, because the cast of rose has all its meaning in the world. Meanwhile, MCU television shows have been on a hot sequence for about a year now, and “Eyes of Wakanda” is undoubtedly the first animated project that felt tailor -made to sit alongside live action offers. If there is a lesson to learn here, it is because the interconnectivity of MCU, when managed, is more a force than something to be overcome.
“Eyes of Wakanda” is now in trouble on Disney +.
