As we head into the third episode of Eyes Of Wakanda, I can’t help be feel that even though the show is bright, enjoyable and visually stunning, it doesn’t seem to be the game changing look at ancient Wakanda I’d been sold on. While we’ve seen a couple of missions spaced sixty years apart that’s detailed the heavy toll required to go out into the world and do Wakanda’s bidding without question and we realise what a big deal being a War Dog is, we’ve basically learnt nothing of the nation herself or any of its history – which I thought was kind of the whole point.
However, just because we’re not getting a good glimpse of Wakandan history, it doesn’t mean that we’re not getting a gander at anyone else’s and with Lost And Found we see the MCU introduction of a character who hasn’t exactly been treated well in previous adaptions. Wakanda may be forever, but the way of the Iron Fist is immortal.
Meet Basha, a War Dog who, unlike the others we’ve preciously met, doesn’t let the weight of his responsibilities crush him down and instead sees his missions as exciting adventures to be enjoyed and bragged about. But while his carefree attitude means he’s a far less somber fellow than some, that devil may care nature might soon catch up to him as the missing Vibranium he’s searching for his led him to the snowy mountians of China and the bed of a woman who took him in. However, after pulling some James Bond shit that sees him sneak out of her room to desecrate a holy statue and whisk it back to Wakanda, Basha’s unorthodox methods continue to vex the long suffering Captain Ebo who strong disapproves of virtually everything his colleague does.
Well, in this instance, he’s proven painfully right as it seems that Jorani, the girl that Basha “befriended” not only managed to stow away in his aircraft and infiltrate the Golden City, but she’s actually the current holder of the mantle of the Immortal Iron Fist, a protector who boasts near unstoppable fighting skills and the ability to redirect her chi to be able to punch through virtually anything. Obviously, this makes Basha look really bad and as a masked Jorani tears her way through the security forces of Wakanda’s vault like a glowing fist through wet toilet paper, he realises that if he doesn’t do something soon, his reputation as a War Dog will be in tatters.
As he desperately tries to think on his feet, Basha recruits Ebo to help him slow the Iron Fist’s roll, but how exactly to you out-fight the out-fightable? Where fists fail and kicks collapse, Basha finds that maybe he needs to start taking responsibility for his reckless actions and try and talk things out – however, Jorani isn’t exactly known as the Immortal Iron Debater…
So I have to admit that while I’m kind of disappointed that Eyes Of Wakanda isn’t all it could have been, I just can’t resist a good old MCU debut and while getting a female Iron Fist running around and dealing out maximum whuppage in 1400 AD may not exactly be the Danny Rand rehabilitation we were all hoping for, it’s a massive shot in the arm for a character that has been imfamously fumbled by his frustrating Netflix show. For a start, a female Iron Fist is hardly new seeing as the aforementioned show ended with Colleen Wing taking up the mantle and secondly, it’s great to see a take on the costume that somehow manages to be a bold redesign and yet perfectly manages to invoke all elements of the classic costume you’d hope to see. Also while the look and rules of Jorani’s iron fist remain fairly consistent with the Netflix show, there’s none of that recharging shit we had to put up with back then, so the animated Kung-Fu flows nice and smooth. Of course, in a year that also gave us MCU debuts of the likes of Red Hulk, the Sentry, the Fantastic Four and Mephisto, maybe I’ve just gotten caught up in the excitement of the universe once again getting that little bit bigger, but aside from the razzle dazzle of a new face, Lost And Found finally manages to open up Wakanda a little.
While it’s not exactly a deep dive into the inner workings of arguably Marvel’s most accomplished world building, the episode does manage to crack open the world of the War Dogs just a little bit, offering up an interior look at their headquarters and a glimpse into exactly how advanced Wakandan tech truly was 625 years ago (they had readouts and tablets and shit!). Interestingly, while the precious two episodes featured quite heavy stories featuring rather serious leads facing sacrifice, betrayal and a loss of self as they serve their nation, episode 3 takes a rather different look at the life of being an undercover spy. While I have to ask at this point why still Wakanda has so much Vibranium still scattered all over the bloody globe (can they not keep hold of anything?), our introduction to the cocky and quite cheerful Basha ends up giving us a far lighter installment than the others.
From the start, our swaggering hero has precisely no weight or guilt in his shoulders whatsoever and can make the transition between living a lie out in the world and snapping back to Wakandan life far easier than Noni or B’Kai previously could. Whether this is just due to Basha’s somewhat shallow, almost playboy outlook on life, or that changes have been made to how War Dogs operate is unclear, but his happier, almost Roger Moore era Bond demeanor means we get the most humourous instalment yet.
My comment about parrellels with the Moore phase of James Bond comes from the fact that we’re introduced to Basha after already bedding Jorani before sneaking out and doing his thing for King and country not unlike the beginning of The Spy Who Loved Me and from then on the entire adventure takes the form of a Kung-Fu farce as the entire escapade could have been all cleared up is someone had come clean from the very start. Yes, it means that once again, we have yet another episode that expends the bulk of its runtime on the latest of a string of fast paced fights/chases that occur on the move, but as energetic and beautifully choreographed as the fights are, there’s still that niggling issue that the show is underachieving when it should be striving for a lot more substance under that flashy style. Why are the War Dogs of this era seemingly more at ease with their responsibilities? How are they trained to infiltrate vastly different kingdoms? Does the Iron Fist’s mystical realm of K’un-L’un know about Wakanda? Where are the Black Panthers in all of this?
Simply too many opportunities are slipping through the show’s claws and while I’ll freely admit, I’ve been totally distracted by the “debut” of Iron Fist like a cat distracted by a set of jangling keys, the final episode had better start dealing out something more substantial than the usual extended fight sequences. It’s fairly ironic that the most intriguing world building so far has come from a character not actually from the Golden City; but while the introduction of the mantle of Iron Fist is worth it, the Eyes Of Wakanda might end up getting quite bruised if it doesn’t deliver soon.
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