How Eyes Of Wakanda Delivers One Of Marvel's Most Violent MCU Stories Yet

The last couple of years have seen Marvel Studios embracing more and more "mature" content. The return of players from the Netflix Marvel shows like Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and The Punisher (Jon Bernthal) has necessitated new spaces for those characters to fully stretch. That has, in turn, given rise to more Disney+ shows under the "Marvel Spotlight" banner carrying TV-MA ratings, allowing for a higher dose of violence and other "adult" material.

Still, that's far from the MCU norm, which is why I was a bit surprised to tune into the latest series from Marvel Animation, "Eyes of Wakanda," and find it as bloody and violent as it is. To be clear, this is still well below the line of something like "Daredevil: Born Again." The animated series isn't on the level with "Castlevania" or "Cyberpunk: Edgerunners" either, at least when it comes to taking advantage of the format to include gratuitous gore. But while it might be totally reasonable as a more broad-audience show, the first two episodes, in particular, still feature more explicit violence than I've come to expect from similar MCU projects.

Part of that may have to do with when these stories take place. Being an anthology series, "Eyes of Wakanda" jumps around in the timeline with each episode, and the initial two both take place more than 3,000 years in the past — with the first focusing on a renegade Wakandan ransacking cities in the Mediterranean, while the second focuses on a version of the Trojan War. These settings also lend themselves to more visceral combat than we typically get in the present-day based MCU stories, and the show handles it well.

The usual style of off-brand MCU karate is great for family-friendly blockbusters because it never gets too violent. You can always rest easy knowing that those guys were just knocked out, actually. It recalls all those shots in "The A-Team" of bad guys crawling out of wrecked cars, as a way of assuring the show's viewers the main characters never actually killed anyone.

The thing is, that's harder to pull off when you set your stories in a period when knives, spears, and swords are the weapons of the day. The first two protagonists in "Eyes of Wakanda," Noni (Winnie Harlow) and B'kai (Larry Herron), both rack up substantial body counts in their respective episodes, and the camera doesn't shy away from their kills. I'm talking axes in the skull, blades through the heart, and a lot of overall slicing and dicing.

Again, it's nothing vulgar or too extreme, but it gives the show a distinct feel from the usual action of Marvel, and it's not just for aesthetic effect. The show emphasizes time and time again that the work of protecting Wakanda must be conducted at any cost. Characters you root for in this show kill individuals they love because it's necessary to keep the homeland safe. And while extra violence isn't some inherent mark of quality or even maturity in the content, it's nice to see Marvel willing to move the curtain a bit and let the action reflect the intensity of the narrative here.

Unlike the animated Disney+ series "X-Men '97" or "Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man," "Eyes of Wakanda" seems to take place in the main MCU continuity — something that is confirmed near the end of episode 4 via a subtle reference to Erik "Killmonger" Stevens' plot in the first "Black Panther" movie. But because the show's episodes take place in other parts of the world, and long before the present-day MCU stories are set, the series gets a lot of distance, which allows it to occupy a different tonal and aesthetic space.

It's not just about the violence. The whole timbre of storytelling in the show is slightly different from the rest of the MCU, even though it's still technically a "Black Panther" spin-off (and potentially the only one we'll get, now that the Okoye series has been canceled). Yes, it still looks similar to "What If...?," though "Eyes of Wakanda" is a much more visually striking show thanks to its strong compositions and great storyboarding. And yes, you still get some of that recognizable Marvel dialogue. But there's enough that's different here to keep things fresh and interesting. And unlike a lot of series, it knows not to overstay its welcome.

The MCU seems to be going more and more in this direction of letting individual spin-off projects develop their own tones and narrative angles, rather than forcing everything to adhere to a singular creative ethos. If "Eyes of Wakanda" is any indication, I'd say it's working out pretty well.

"Eyes of Wakanda" is now streaming on Disney+.