Eyes of Wakanda: Marvel’s Animated Time-Travel Spy Saga Makes a Bold Debut at Annecy

Marvel Animation’s Eyes of Wakanda made its global debut at the Annecy Festival with a screening of its premiere episode and an in-depth conversation with director Todd Harris. The upcoming Disney+ series, executive produced by Harris, Ryan Coogler, and Marvel Studios leadership, traces the impact of Wakanda on the wider world—through time.

Structured as a spy story and described as “anthology-adjacent," the four-part series follows generations of Wakandan warriors charged with recovering Vibranium artifacts that have fallen into the wrong hands. While the series is rooted in the Marvel universe, each episode explores a distinct point in global history, showcasing how Wakanda’s technology, secrecy, and principles intersect with evolving civilizations.

“What kind of culture creates a Black Panther?" Harris asked rhetorically, sharing that the idea for the series first came to him after working as a storyboard artist on Avengers: Infinity War. Before Wakanda Forever entered production, he pitched a Wakandan origin film to Kevin Feige and Ryan Coogler. Though Marvel Studios hadn’t yet formed its animation division, the idea stuck—and when Marvel Animation launched, Coogler suggested a key historical anchor: the mysterious Sea Peoples of the late Bronze Age.

Festivalgoers were treated to the first episode, set in 1260 BC, where a former Dora Milaje warrior named Noni is sent on a high-stakes mission to Crete. Hoping to earn her way back into the Dora Milaje, Noni is tasked with tracking a Wakandan defector known only as The Lion—an aristocrat who has taken a cache of dangerous Wakandan weapons across the sea.

The episode unspools as a tense, elegantly paced spy thriller, with Noni operating in disguise and navigating foreign terrain while grappling with what it means to serve her people. The Bronze Age setting, laced with historical and cultural specificity, is brought vividly to life through animation that feels both painterly and cinematic.

Harris noted that while Eyes of Wakanda is not episodic in the traditional sense, it shares a philosophical throughline: “Wakanda is like Star Trek dropped into the middle of Africa. What does it mean for a civilization to stay hidden and preserved while the world changes around it?"

Though Harris avoided revealing much about the connective tissue between episodes, he confirmed that each installment will take place in its own time period, jumping across centuries to explore both new cultures and previously unseen regions of Wakanda itself.

While the story largely stands on its own, fans can expect at least one Marvel tie-in: “There will be an Iron Fist," Harris teased, “but not the one you expect."

A self-professed comic book nerd and CalArts alum, Harris said the series draws inspiration from Marvel lore but is not beholden to it. “You treat every show like it’s your only shot," he explained. “If more grows from it, that’s cake."

The visual style of Eyes of Wakanda was a major focus of the Annecy discussion. Harris and his team—including art director Craig Elliott—were influenced by early 20th-century American illustrator Dean Cornwell and 1970s African American artist Ernie Barnes, whose elongated forms inspired the characters’ unique silhouettes and proportions.

The goal, Harris said, was to give every frame the texture of a painting. “When you pause the show, you should feel the oil and brushstrokes," he explained. That philosophy extends to the characters themselves, whose facial features and body types reflect authentic cultural diversity and historical grounding.

The fight sequences, choreographed without a dedicated fight coordinator, were meticulously blocked by the team based on Harris’s experience with John Wick and other action-heavy films. Every culture depicted in the series features its own fighting style and movement language.

While the show primarily uses CG animation, Harris has a deep love for hand-drawn work—something he managed to incorporate in the series’ stylized opening credits. Animated entirely by hand in charcoal by the team at AKA, the sequence evokes the look of ancient drawings and introduces the show’s historical tone with symbolic flourishes. Originally, Harris hoped to include 2D montage sequences throughout the series, but production constraints limited their use to the introduction. Even some of the visual effects, including explosions, were rendered in 2D—a rare touch in contemporary TV animation that reinforces the show’s handcrafted ethos.

To maintain authenticity across its shifting time periods, Eyes of Wakanda weaves African design principles into its DNA. Harris explained that the team leaned heavily on fractal geometry—a recurring motif in African art and architecture—as a foundation for Wakandan iconography. “You take a recurring shape and build it out geometrically," he said. “That’s how we designed Wakandan technology and culture from the ground up."

Costume authenticity was another key element. The series benefited from consultation with Ruth E. Carter and Hannah Beachler’s teams from the live-action Black Panther films. While the series travels far outside Wakanda, those visual guardrails ensured a consistent cultural aesthetic, even in ancient eras. “Even in the past, a Wakandan building still looks Wakandan," Harris noted.

The team also worked closely with artists from across the African continent, including contributors from Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa, many of whom helped shape regional representations with nuance and care. “It doesn’t look fake," said one Nigerian audience member during the Q&A. “It looks real, and I can see myself in it."

The Annecy presentation offered a rich, behind-the-scenes look at a series that is both expansive in scale and deeply personal in its execution. Eyes of Wakanda bridges history, fantasy, and superhero lore with visual sophistication and cultural reverence, offering Marvel fans something wholly original, yet unmistakably tied to the world of Black Panther.

Eyes of Wakanda premieres August 6th on Disney+, inviting viewers to journey across continents and centuries through the vigilant eyes of Wakanda.

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