Surprise Marvel Animation Series Slips into 2025

In March 2023, rumors began to swirl that Black Panther director Ryan Coogler’s Proximity Media production company had begun developing an animated series for Marvel Studios. As Marvel Studios revamped their streaming slate and skipped out on SDCC ’23, the series, said at the time to be referred to as The Golden City, remained nothing but a rumor. However at a press event for Season 2 of What If…? held at the Walt Disney Studios Lot in December 2023, head of streaming, television and animation for Marvel Studios, Brad Winderbaum, revealed that the new series, titled Eyes of Wakanda, was set for a 2024 release on Disney Plus.

Directed by Todd Harris, the series will follow “brave warriors” known as War Dogs, who “throughout Wakandan history have been tasked to travel the world retrieving dangerous vibranium artifacts.” Eyes of Wakanda, Winderbaum revealed, “fits right into our sacred MCU timeline continuity,” making it MCU canon. A leaked description of one episode of the series revealed that it would introduce an Iron Fist named Janora, an original character created just for the show, who would be working with a Wakanda named Basha. In 2022, we first shared information that indicated the studio was developing an animated series that would feature a character named “Jin”, described as a “Chinese warrior” and “perhaps the best-trained martial artist in the world.” According to that information, “Jin’s” story kicks off when another character named “Bosco” steals one of the series’ MacGuffin artifacts. Connect the dots and it sounds like Basha may head to K’un Lun to retrieve some type of Vibranium artifact and then find himself at odds with Janora.

Despite being developed mostly in secret, Eyes of Wakanda quickly became a hot topic of discussion among fans but as 2024 went on with no word of a premiere date, concern over the project grew. Fans can rest easy now, however, as an update to Disney’s All Access page revealed that the series is now part of Marvel Studios’ 2025 slate with an expected release date of August 6th.

As seen in Black Panther, the history of Wakanda stretches back to 28,000 B.C. though the meteorite that brought Vibranium to Africa and the Atlantic Ocean fell from the sky much earlier in 2,500,000 B.C.. This provides Marvel Studios the opportunity to use the series, which consists of 4, 30-minute episodes, an opportunity to redefine its Sacred Timeline by telling stories whose primary settings predate any seen to date in the MCU.