My MCU Timeline Experiment: Starting With Eyes of Wakanda
So, I do what most people do these days: I binge-watch TV shows.
My problem is that I’ve started running out of basic TV shows that I actually like or am willing to tolerate. So, I made the conscious decision to watch the entire MCU timeline.
I know, I know. That’s ridiculous on so many levels.
Personally, I’m not a huge fan of the MCU movies. I feel like they’ve gotten out of control in so many ways. They’ve changed characters’ races, genders, and even backstories to fit whatever narrative they’re going for at the time.
Ironically, this is pretty much what they’ve done with Marvel Comics in general over the years, so I guess it’s on-brand for them.
Nevertheless, they seem to have an ample amount of content for me to leave playing in the background while I do other things. At least, that was the theory.
So, I started.
Eyes of Wakanda: A Painful Beginning
I began with Eyes of Wakanda.
It’s an animated series, and I wasn’t entirely sure why it was the starting point for the MCU timeline. But whatever. I figured I’d give it a shot.
What followed was roughly five episodes of some of the most painful viewing I’ve experienced in a while.
Apparently, Wakanda had technology so advanced that, even back in the 1300s—or whenever some of these episodes were supposed to take place—they had teleportation, radios, flying machines, and all sorts of other technological wonders.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world was apparently still trying to figure out how everything worked.
I understand the basic premise. Wakanda is technologically advanced compared to the rest of the world. We get it. That’s the whole point of Wakanda.
But holy hell, did they need to hammer that point home in every single episode?
It was like watching the same message repeated over and over again, just with different characters and slightly different historical settings. By the end, I was starting to wonder if the writers thought the audience had the memory of a goldfish.
And honestly, it hurt my head.
Now, I’m not someone who automatically dislikes Black Panther. I liked Black Panther before all of this. The concept of Wakanda is interesting, and there’s plenty of potential in exploring its history, culture, and technological development.
But Eyes of Wakanda somehow managed to make the whole thing feel exhausting.
Time Travel, Vibranium, and Whatever the Hell That Was
Then we got to the final episode.
Without getting too deep into the weeds, the story involves a time-traveling Black Panther queen attempting to stop a prince in the present from saving a piece of vibranium. Apparently, this would interfere with the future, where someone needed to steal that vibranium to keep the timeline intact.
Or something like that.
Seriously.
At this point, I was just sitting there trying to figure out why any of this needed to be so complicated. We’ve got time travel, vibranium, a queen trying to manipulate events across different points in history, and a timeline that apparently depends on someone stealing something at the right moment.
Because, naturally, the best way to tell a story about Wakanda is to make it a time-traveling headache.
The only genuinely worthwhile part of the episode was the connection to Killmonger.
When that scene came around, all I could think was, This is the only episode I really needed to watch.
Seriously. Just fast-forward to that scene, show me the animated version of the relevant events, and call it a day.
It would have gotten the point across without making me sit through all the unnecessary nonsense leading up to it.
What a waste.
Is This Really Where the MCU Timeline Begins?
Overall, I rate Eyes of Wakanda as horrible.
And the fact that this is supposedly the first thing you should watch to understand the MCU timeline tells me everything I need to know about the shitshow I might be in for.
If this is the starting point, I can only imagine what the rest of the journey is going to look like.
But, in the interest of fairness, I made a commitment to this ridiculous experiment. I’m going to keep going, watch the timeline in order, and see what happens.
Maybe I’ll find something I genuinely enjoy. Maybe I’ll discover that some of the shows are better than the movies. Or maybe I’ll spend the next several weeks questioning my life choices while a superhero show plays in the background.
Only time will tell.
For now, though, Eyes of Wakanda has set the bar impressively low.
And somehow, I have a feeling this is going to be a long ride.
On to the next one.
— X
MCU BINGE PT1
