We’re headed back to Wakanda a little early, folks. Eyes of Wakanda, the new animated Black Panther spinoff series, is set to debut earlier than expected on August 1 — a whole three and a half weeks before its original premiere date of August 27.
All four episodes of the series will premiere that day and will be available to watch on Disney+. The show, interestingly enough, is going to explore several different time periods, as each episode plays out in an entirely different time and place.
That said, the show as a whole centers on Winnie Harlow’s Noni, a former Dora Milaje member and new Hatut Zaraze recruit who is “a James Bond version of a Dora who just doesn’t tow the company line,” showrunner and director Todd Harris told Entertainment Weekly.
In the first episode, Noni goes after The Lion, played by Cress Williams. He’s a former Wakandan himself — but he betrayed his homeland by stealing its coveted technology and subsequently installing himself as a warlord as a result. It’s her job to take back what he stole, and Harris opened up to the outlet about using this as a jumping off point for the rest of the show.
“We always knew we needed an inciting incident,” the series creator explained. “I kind of went off of Apocalypse Now. What if Wakanda turned into their Colonel? That combined with a Thulsa Doom, an Atlantian in Conan who was from a much older civilization, who created an empire off of the existing world. So with those two themes going into it, that’s the kind of thing that would bring Wakanda into the situation where legitimate resources have to be put towards it.”
Harris also previously revealed that folks will get to see fan favorite Marvel character Iron Fist in the series — but that he will be a decidedly different version from the one we’ve already met in Netflix’s short-lived Iron Fist series. Harris told EW that he and writers Marc Bernardin and Geoffrey Thorne made it a point to dive deep and touch “the weird corners in the Marvel universe to see what we can get away with,” including with Iron Fist.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.
