Marvel’s Eyes of Wakanda isn’t just a TV show; it’s a history lesson. The new Disney+ animated series/Black Panther spinoff takes place over thousands of years in just four brief episodes. And as such, it dramatically expands the MCU timeline. So, let’s break down how the episodes of the series fit into pre-existing MCU events — as well as some real world history, as well.-
Here’s the thing… For the most part, the MCU takes place post-World War II, thanks to the events of Captain America: The First Avenger. Meanwhile, Eyes of Wakanda spans from Crete in 1260 BC to Ethiopia in 1896. So you wouldn’t think there would be a lot of crossover. But you might be forgetting a little movie called Eternals, which also spans thousands of years, providing a creation myth for the MCU.
And given unlike other animated series, Eyes of Wakanda is on the “Scared Timeline” of the 616, meaning the events of the show are canon to the MCU, we can neatly fit in the episodes of EoW with what we already know.
So, let’s do that, shall we?
Episode 1, “Into The Lion’s Den” – Crete, 1260 BC
In the premiere episode, we catch up with Noni (Winnie Harlow), a disgraced member of Wakanda’s Dora Milaje who is chasing after a rogue War Dog named The Lion (Cress Williams). The Lion’s fleet is sacking Crete, though Noni stops them.
In the real world, this seems to be somewhat inspired by the Battle of Settepozzi in 1263, which found the Byzantine-Genoese fleet – about 50 ships – capturing four ships, then sailing on to capture Chania, a city in Crete.
In the MCU, there’s not much cool and superheroic that happens, but there are two real-world events referenced in the MCU that we know this sits between. In 1330 BC, Egyptian queen Nefertiti died and was entombed, something that is referenced in the fourth episode of Moon Knight. And in 1250 BC, the Papyrus of Ani, a manuscript with detailed hieroglyphics, was created. That’s referenced in the first episode of Moon Knight, as Marc Spector (Oscar Issac) works at the gift shop of the British Museum… This is where the Papyrus of Ani is displayed in real life.
Episode 2, “Legends And Lies” – Likely 12th Or 13th Century BC
You may have noticed (or at least on the press screener I watched) there’s no date indicator on the second episode of the season. That’s because it takes place during the Trojan War… Which may or may not be a real event. And to drive home the point, the episode introduces the Trojan Horse, as well as multiple characters featured in Homer’s The Iliad, as well as various other myths and legends: Achilles (Adam Gold), Odysseus (Kiff Vandenheuvel), Paris (Yerman Gur), Helen (Joanna Kalafatis), and Memnon (Larry Herron)… The latter of whom turns out to secretly be a Wakandan agent named B’kai.
If the Trojan War is real, it might coincide with an actual historical event, the burning of Troy, which happened around 1194–1184 BC. Since Troy does indeed burn in the episode, let’s roll with that date and see what we can place around it from the MCU.
And in fact, there’s at least one thing we know happens directly after: Gilgamesh (Don Lee) was there to celebrate the winners. In Eternals, he prepared a trio of drinks for the soldiers: beer, wine, and mead. Cool!
The only other major timeline notes are that the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak are created in Babylon in 900 AD (according to the junior novelization of Doctor Strange), and around the same time, Wakanda figures out how to mine vibranium on a mass scale… Possibly making the whole “looking for relics” thing unnecessary, but let’s not worry about that too much.
Episode 3, “Lost And Found” – China, 1400 AD
Eyes of Wakanda Episode 3 introduces the first canonical Iron Fist Jorani (Jona Xiao) to the MCU, and is set smack dab in 1400 AD. We’ve already broken down where this Iron Fist sits in the Iron Fist timeline, at least according to Marvel Comics. But let’s talk about other events this episode sits between, because there are some interesting ones where the MCU is concerned.
Around 1362 (very much an approximate date), Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) battled a bunch of European soldiers in the snowy woods, during the events that presage most of the action of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. And in 1402, the Charles Bridge was completed, which is the site of Spider-Man’s (Tom Holland) showdown with Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Spider-Man: Far From Home. That’s a real-world thing, so to give you a fictional thing, in 1408, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) hid the Tesseract in Tønsberg, Norway – which is where the Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) discovered it in Captain America: The First Avenger.
Episode 4, “The Last Panther” – Ethiopia, City of Adwa, 1896
As the final episode of Eyes of Wakanda is closer to the modern day, there are plenty of real-world events “The Last Panther” sits between. The one that it sits on, though, is the Battle of Adwa, which occurred on March 1, 1896. A decisive blow in the first Italo-Ethiopian War, the Ethiopian forces successfully stopped the Italians from taking the Horn of Africa. That’s the battle that we find our fictional Wakandans, Prince Tafari (Zeke Alton) and Kuda (Steve Toussaint), stuck in the middle of.
As for the MCU, 1893 is one of the years in which Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) murdered her fake covens to steal their power during the montage sequence in Agatha All Along Episode 9, “Maiden Mother Crone.” After that, there’s not much until 1905 when a member of the monster hunters group seen in Werewolf By Night killed a monster and hung its head in their clubhouse. And in 1907, another Werewolf By Night Easter egg, Jacob Howell MacDougall, was buried in the mausoleum.
Oh, and if you’re curious about the time period of The Last Panther (Anika Noni Rose), she’s from about 2396 – and there are no other known events on the MCU timeline past 2077, when Loki (Tom Hiddleston) visited Lamentis-1 in Season 1 of Loki… Other than them visiting the End of Time, which is, er, at the end of time.
There you go! Not much MCU context for these events, as none of the regular characters are hiding in the background or anything. But some interesting historical perspective, nonetheless. Andin one case, a mythical perspective.
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