1184 BCE - Eyes of Wakanda - Season 1, Episode 2: Legends and Lies
- May 1
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 2
Watch Party
Deep Dive
In the waning years of the Bronze Age, the legendary siege of Troy serves as the backdrop for a high-stakes mission of recovery and infiltration by the War Dogs. B'kai, a dedicated operative of Wakanda's secret intelligence network, has spent nearly a decade undercover as the soldier Memnon, earning the unwavering trust of the formidable Achilles while secretly hunting for a stolen vibranium artifact. As the Greeks deploy the desperate gambit of the Trojan Horse to finally breach the city's walls, B'kai must navigate the crumbling line between his genuine brotherhood with Achilles and his absolute duty to the isolationist nation of Wakanda.
As the city falls into fire and blood, the recovery of a vibranium-infused necklace from Helen of Troy triggers a violent confrontation that deconstructs the myths of heroes and the true cost of national security. B'kai is forced to confront the tragic reality that being a War Dog requires the sacrifice of personal identity and the betrayal of those who believe in him most. This episode serves as a haunting exploration of the psychological toll inflicted upon the War Dogs, revealing a secret history where Wakandan intervention subtly shaped the legends of the ancient world long before the nation ever stepped onto the global stage.
Universe Designation
This story takes place in the main Marvel Continuity: 199999
Note - We at Snark Industries recognize and reject that this universe was named as 616 in Dr. Strange Multiverse of Madness
Characters in the Episode
Character Name | Voice Actor | Role and Description |
Larry Herron | The central protagonist; a Hatut Zaraze agent operating deep undercover within the Greek army for nine years. | |
Adam Gold | Commander of the Myrmidons and legendary Greek hero; B’kai’s closest friend and eventually his adversary. | |
Lynn Whitfield | The Director of the War Dogs in Wakanda, who welcomes B’kai home six months after the war. | |
Kiff VandenHeuvel | The strategist of the Greek forces and King of Ithaca; architect of the Trojan Horse tactic. | |
Jason Konopisos | A Myrmidon soldier who remains perpetually suspicious of Memnon’s true origins and ethnicity. | |
Joanna Kalafatis | The lover of Paris whose "abduction" sparked the war; she possesses the vibranium necklace B’kai is tasked to retrieve. | |
Yerman Gur | The Trojan prince and lover of Helen; he attempts to flee the city during its final destruction. |
In-Universe Date
Date: 1184 BCE, Minoan Crete
Defense: The depicted event is unambiguous on screen, but the specific year of 1190 BC is derived from traditional historical dating conventions (Eratosthenes places the Fall of Troy at 1184 BCE; modern scholarship ranges roughly 1300-1180 BC). The episode itself does not state a year.
Date Confidence: TIER 1 for era (Fall of Troy, late Trojan War). TIER 3 for specific year.
Comic Roots
Wakanda's Hatut Zeraze and War Dogs
The concept of the Hatut Zeraze was first introduced in Black Panther Vol. 3 #4 (1999) by Christopher Priest and Mark Texeira. In the source material, they are portrayed as a brutal, white-clad secret police force founded by King T'Chaka himself and disbanded by his son T'Challa upon taking the throne due to their excessive violence. The animated series adapts this by moving their origin back thousands of years and repositioning them as a response to the "Lion's" betrayal. The term "War Dogs" is used as the informal designation for these operatives, a term popularized in the MCU by characters like Nakia and N'Jobu in the 2018 Black Panther film.
Marvel's take on the Trojan War
The Trojan War has been depicted multiple times in Marvel Comics, most notably in Thor Annual #8 (1979) and the five-issue Trojan War limited series (2009). However, the MCU version takes significant creative liberties:
Achilles: In the comics (Earth-616), the Pantheon's Achilles is a descendant of Agamemnon, the half-Asgardian founder of the Pantheon, from whom all members of the group inherit their superhuman abilities. The Eyes of Wakanda version strips away the explicitly divine elements, presenting Achilles as a hero whose prowess is legendary but who is ultimately vulnerable to the precision and technology of a Wakandan agent.
Memnon: The character of Memnon has a distinct comic history, appearing in Trojan War #3 (2009). In that series, he is depicted as the King of the Aethiopians, historically associated with modern-day Ethiopia and Sudan, who fought for Troy and was killed by Achilles. The show subverts this by making "Memnon" a false identity for a Wakandan agent who fights for the Greeks, effectively flipping the mythological and comic script.
Vibranium Inheritance
The concept of vibranium as an extraterrestrial metal deposited on Earth by a meteorite is well-established in Marvel Comics lore, with the meteorite origin developed across multiple comics following vibranium's first appearance in Fantastic Four #53 (1966). That foundational issue introduced vibranium as a rare metal unique to Wakanda, and subsequent comics established that a massive meteorite carrying the mineral crashed into the region in the distant past, with scattered trace particles seeding the broader world. The Eyes of Wakanda series expands on this by suggesting that pieces of vibranium were circulating globally long before Wakanda established its strict isolationist borders. This mirrors comic runs like Black Panther: Flags of Our Fathers, which explores the historical presence of vibranium in various global conflicts.
Recommended Reading
Black Panther Vol. 3 #1–12 (1998–1999) by Christopher Priest
The definitive modern Black Panther run and the source of the Hatut Zeraze and Dora Milaje in comics. Priest's T'Challa is a layered political figure operating a spy network, the direct spiritual ancestor of Eyes of Wakanda's premise. Start here.
Black Panther Vol. 3 #26–35 (2001) by Christopher Priest
Develops War Dog operations further and explores what happens when Wakandan agents become too embedded in foreign cultures. Directly relevant to B'Kai's psychological arc.
Black Panther: The Client (1998) by Christopher Priest
The most accessible entry point to Priest's run. Introduces the War Dogs concept, Everett Ross, and the political machinery of Wakanda's intelligence apparatus that Eyes of Wakanda directly inherits.
Black Panther Epic Collection: Panther's Rage (1973–1976) by Don McGregor
The first major Black Panther solo story and the foundation of Wakanda's literary mythology. Establishes the nation's culture, geography, and internal conflicts that all later stories build on.
The Iliad by Homer (8th century BC)
Non-comics but non-negotiable context. Achilles, Memnon, Odysseus, the Trojan Horse, Achilles' heel, all originate here. The episode is in active dialogue with Homer and inverts several of its most famous moments.
The Snark File - Easter Eggs, Callbacks, and Technical Tidbits
The Achilles Heel
The episode's sharpest bit of mythological sleight of hand is hiding in plain sight throughout the runtime. B'kai/Memnon ends the fight with Achilles by slashing his heel, and it is the wound that kills him. The show is quietly rewriting the Greek myth: in the original tradition, Achilles is killed by Paris, guided by Apollo, with an arrow to his heel. Here, it is Memnon who injures Achilles by severing his heel before sadly ending his life, a Wakandan spy doing what Paris and the gods supposedly managed. The legend survived. The truth did not.
A Composite of Mythological Figures
B'kai draws from multiple figures in the Iliad simultaneously. His assumed name, Memnon, belongs to the Aethiopian king who was an ally to the Trojans. His role as Achilles' closest companion mirrors Patroclus. His role as Achilles' killer belongs to Paris. The episode collapses three distinct mythological characters into one Wakandan operative, which is both a narrative efficiency and a pointed suggestion that the legends were never reliable to begin with.
Noni as Nick Fury
By the time the episode's coda arrives, a much older, eyepatch-wearing Noni is running the War Dogs as their Director. She functions as an explicit parallel to Nick Fury, sporting a similar eyepatch, leading the Wakandan equivalent of S.H.I.E.L.D., and being referred to as "Director." The parallel is almost certainly intentional, connecting Wakanda's ancient intelligence apparatus to the modern one audiences know from the broader MCU.
The Myrmidons and Daredevil
Achilles leads the Myrmidons, his legendary band of warriors, which is accurate to the source material. However, the name carries additional weight in Marvel Comics continuity: the Myrmidon is also the name of a private prison in the Daredevil comics, used by Mayor Wilson Fisk after he passes the Power Act. Whether intentional or not, the name now operates on two registers for comics-literate viewers.
