The Ringer-Verse - 'Eyes of Wakanda,' Plus Marvel Animation: Look Back and Look Ahead | Mint Edition

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Fresh from San Diego Comic-Con, Steve and Jomi return to break down everything you missed at the convention. They dive into Marvel's latest animated series, 'Eyes of Wakanda,' exploring its storytelling, themes, and what it means for the future of Marvel animation. Plus, they preview what's coming next in the animated universe and tease a special Ringer event you won’t want to miss. Don't miss the Midnight Boys presenting 'Blade' at the Los Feliz 3 on August 25!Get your tickets here: The Midnight Boys Present Blade – 8.25.25 Intro (0:00) ‘Eyes of Wakanda’ Reactions (4:43) Marvel Animation Preview (38:52) Outro (53:10) Hosts: Jomi Adeniran and Steve AhlmanProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello and welcome into the Ringiverse, your Nexus feed for all things. Fandom, I am Steve Allman. I'm going to be dinner on. Reporting live from the meat grinder that is. the post-coma-coma-com-glo. Jomey, how are you feeling? Have you gotten any diseases or ailments to declare? Nothing out of the ordinary.

No? Nah. Feel good. Definitely like, you know, you spent the whole week yapping and talking. So I'm finally getting my throat back. In front of literal thousands of people. That was nuts. That was nuts.

But, nah, like, again, I mean, we said it on the pod that we did at the Alien Earth Terrarium. But it was really cool to see everybody. It was really cool to engage with people in real life. Like, you know, you don't really, people online aren't really that nice to you. And so to see the niceness in real life was really kind and awesome. But yeah, Comic-Con was a blast, and it's good to be back into Stu recording with you. Thank you, buddy. And this, of course, is Mint Edition, the once-in-while podcast about all the fandom that you just can't live with out.

Thank you again for all of the great love that you showed us at Comic-Con. Comic-Con, not going to lie, put us a bit through the meat grinder, the rest of the Ringerverse crew. It was a long weekend. We had a lot of things to do. Maybe a couple of us don't really feel too well because we were shaking hands and meeting a lot of people. Kissing babies. Kissing hands and shaking babies. It's a great time, but maybe one of us gets sick.

And pods might get delayed a little bit. So next week we're going to be coming back in full force with Midnight Boys and House of Ar. There might be a nice House of Ar coming to you this week. We're not quite sure. But you can look forward to House of Art giving you their Stranger Things season two deep dive in the lead up to the latest season. Midnight Boys is going to give you some great content. Button Mash is going to give you great stuff. I hear they're talking about the next mafia game, which they're still doing.

That's still a thing. They're still making mafia games. Turns out the mafia is still around. In big 2025 mafia games, it's okay, you know, because the Donkey Kong just came out and that's the hottest game of the year so far. It's pretty great. So at this point, anything is possible. Yeah. Might get a good mafia game in 2025.

Love that. Look at God. Love that for you guys. Not for me. I don't subscribe to the Mafia. But if you wanted to subscribe to the Ringerverse, where might you do that? You can do that on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook, on TikTok, and on the YouTube at Ringaverse. Make sure to follow like and subscribe so you can see all of our content.

We had so much fun at Comic Con as we've been talking about forever. And then you can find us on like all the socials. we have some fun stuff on there. Make sure you hit that follow and subscribe so you don't miss out on anything. And on top of all of that great Ringervor's programming, you can also look forward to the Ringerverse crew hosting their own screenings with American Cinematheum Tech.

Yeah, baby! Come on! In August, the Midnight Boys are going to be hosting their own screening at the Los Felice 3, August 25th of guess what? Always motherfuckers trying to ice skate up here. Blade, baby. Absolutely nuts. Remember when Blade sees Luna Snow,

ice skate uphill? That's going to be nuts. Dude. We are hosting Blade screenings on Monday, and that I believe the next day, House of R is going to be hosting a screening of Mad Max Fury Road. Hell effing, yeah.

Dude, we're up right now, bro. So up. The universe is so up right now. I understand that, like, hosting a panel, seeing all of you at the meeting greet, that was amazing. And it was truly something that was moving. This actually feels like,

this actually feels even almost cooler. This feels so great that we're going to be all sitting down watching the movies that we love. We get to do this with the people that are also messing with us. It's kind of the best of both for us. We get to go up and be like, yeah, dog, American Cinema Tech put us on, you know. And then we get to sit with some of our best friends and watch Blade. And we get to blood rave with them. Yo, Def, put some music in.

Put some, like, brave music. Put some royalty free. Dualifa music in here. I can't wait. We're looking forward to it. You can check out that at Americancinemathecetect.com or at the link that's going to be in the description of the pod. But today, we are going to be taking a look at the brand new Disney Plus series for

Marvel Animation, Eyes of Wakanda, something that we were actually genuinely looking forward to seeing. And now that it's finally out a little early for you guys this weekend. So friendly neighborhood spoiler warning, we're going to be talking about the entire series. So if you haven't gotten to watch it, before we, get into the spoiler warnings. Jomi, what did you think about the show? Would you recommend it to people? I would definitely recommend it, especially if you like Van and you like hate on Africans. You should absolutely watch it because it just, it is, it is fuel for hate.

It's not a good case for the Wakandans, which will get in. It's bad Wakanda optics, man. If I, if Wakanda was real and this was like propaganda, this is good anti-Wakonda propaganda. This is excellent anti-Wakana propaganda. This is excellent anti-Wakana. propaganda. As a show, it is animated beautifully. I thought the voice acting was incredible. It is really, really fun. So again, it's not really crazy. It's what, four 28 minute episodes. Yeah. You can blast it in the afternoon, you know? So lock it on it. I think it's very well made and deserves your time. But if you are trying to ignite the diaspora wars, oh man, it's over. This is cooked. See, now as the only Nigerian on this podcast, we're going to have to, like,

You're going to have some answering to do for Van. It's okay. I can do it. I believe in me and my people. We got it. That's good. That's good. You got it.

All right. So, spoiler warnings from here on out. We're going to be talking about all of eyes of Wakanda. We hope you've checked it out. And let's get into it. So I wanted to start with the broader concept of why Marvel animation might be doing something like this as opposed to their recent fare. So we've had X-Men 97.

We've had, what if we've had friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. we've had a couple of good hits, but also things that we weren't exactly fans of, a la the later seasons of what if. So getting into as much detail as you can, Jomey, what do you think makes this something that is a plus in the category of

Marvel animation that gets it right? Like, it's made by black people, right? So for somebody like me who sees Ryan Kukku's name in there, sees his wife's name as executive producer, right? The creator of this is black. like, okay, they surely have a story to tell because for black creators, it's always hard for

them to get their foot on the door and to make content in general, specifically superhero content, right? And so that off the rip is like, okay, I'm interested. What story they have to tell? And I think going back into Wakana's history is interesting because, like, it's very much a different time with, you know, everything that's happened with Tabick-Bosman and how. how, you know, we're not sure how we're moving forward with that character of Black Panther yet. And so if you want to tell the story of Wakanda, you go back, right? So you don't have to think about like all that, all that stuff. And so using like the vignette structure, I think allowed you to like do different things in terms of where you're at, the time period, you know, showcase different different things that you might not have seen through like a more linear storyline.

So ultimately, I think how they made it work, I think worked for me. But again, you know, they were out there trying to take back stuff from people that they didn't really need to do that. Kind of grim, I guess we'll talk about it more later. But ultimately, as like a show, I think I understood what they were going. I definitely did too. This being an anthology series only throughout history, specifically Wakanda's history with interacting with the outside world. world. This is a very isolationist society. It's highly technically advanced. They have a lot of criticisms thrown their way, not only in like the comic book world, but the real world for not

sharing their wealth or technological advances with the rest of the world for reasons being that the world can't be trusted with this technology, that the safest hands are still our own type of mentality. And I think that the most interesting way that those questions are asked is in the first episode. We have a banished and former Dora Alagé looking to track down a basically O'Conan agent gone rogue, a dog of war, a secret agent, if you will, who is indoctrinating and enslaving people throughout Crete in the 10th century. See, that one I get. A tough break.

But that one I understand, right? Our guy was doing too much out there. He's doing way too much with the vibranium. Sure. You got to get put down. I thought that episode in particular, like you have, you know, she kills all the generals and there's bloodless violence because it's for children. By the way, very cool action scenes almost all around. Right, right.

They really knew what they were doing with the animation and the physicality of it. Because you see her use like Dora Malagé stuff that we've seen in the TV shows and the movies, right? And so it was like really cool to see her take down the Viking lady and the sword dude, you know? Like it's like very much giving like, oh, she is a badass. She knows what she's doing, right? And then she gets to The Lion and they start having that like conversation that they always have in these movies with Killmonger and Black Panther going back to the first movie where it's like, yo, we can help these people, man. We don't got to live like this. We taste free air.

Wakanda is constricting us. We can be free. And she's looking down as somebody is like. Not an invalid point. Not a wrong point, but then she's looking down and somebody's like, building change. So it's not really, brother, it's not really the, no, you're, you're tweaking right now. You're tweaking.

And then ultimately he's like, all right, man, I'm tweaking bad. Well, we're going to blow, I'm going to blow her this whole place. So everybody going to die, you know? And so to Nubi's point, she's like, look, yeah, there is something to like being free and being outside of Wakanda, but you can't do it like this. Right. And so when she goes back, she's like, I can't be. Dora Milage, that's not where I want to be.

I don't want to live my life constricted in Wakanda or by Wakanda. I want to be able to serve Wakanda, got to be able to do it outside on my own terms. And that leads right into our second episode, which I actually found fascinating. This was a homage to basically the Trojan War and the myth of Achilles and Agamemnon, which is now called Memnon. Memnon. Memnon. Memon. This actually was kind of the most fascinating to me interrogation of the Wakandan philosophy of isolationism that we have because our main characters are kind of like lying to themselves about their own allegiances in order for the sake of their own true objectives. And when Memnon is his sole mission is to just get back this powerful vibranium Wakandum necklace that is being worn by humnon.

Helen of Troy, a simple enough objective, but when he's met with his friendship, I'm going to use heavy air quotes with a kid. Bro. They were roommates. All right. We saw. Okay. I'm glad that you said it, man, because we could have solved this whole episode if they just kissed.

Oh, man. Dude, for real. Like, they were lovers. Sure. Did you not see that? Did you not get that vibe? Not really. Really?

No, man. When Achilles dies and, like, he puts the coins on his. eyes and then he just like slowly strokes his face. You don't stroke your boy's face? I, not like that, not unless it doesn't mean something. You don't stroke your boys? All right. This was ancient Greece, by the way.

That's what I'm saying. I mean, like very much like it could have been like a game. That's again, again, I'm watching a children show. I'm not like, man, are these, I guess there are two adults, but I'm not like, man, I hope these two grown men. Yeah. Throw that glue, that clip of a Billy D. Williams being like, they will love us. They will love, baby.

So here's my thing. Nine years for a necklace? Yeah. Icing your guy out. Nine years? Getting Achilles slimed for a necklace. For necklace? Honestly, a valid crash out on the part of Achilles.

Real valid. I feel like you can let that necklace go, big dog. I feel like you can let that necklace go, man. Either stay with Achilles or go back to your crib, but nine years, it should not take you nine years to get no necklace, bro. Right. That's crazy. But it's the fact that, like, he. built up an entire friendship and allegiance with a different army, seemingly made a life for

himself. Right. And texting Wakanda on the side. Oh, we'll get to that. Be like, get to that. Like, yeah, I'll, like, I'm about to come home. Like, we've got it. I mean, why don't we talk about it now?

The amount of technological advancements that Wakandans have had throughout the centuries is actually more egregious when you turn back the clock to see what they had back then. No, dog, it's gross, man. Like, there was out there on AIM talking about like, yeah, we got it. All right, cool. Yeah, I'm going to see you later. Imagine seeing a Trojan horse and then a dude is just texting on a sidekick. Bro, that is disgusting.

It's a good keyboard, too. That's got a good keyboard. It's disgusting work, but trust me, trust me, trust me. There's a specific part I want to get to why I can really let loose because it's insane. But I think, like, obviously, and this is something that you touched on, the relationship between Achilles and my mom. That is something that I think holds the episode up

because obviously I'm like, this is dumb, this, like, who, what's the necklace shows up? I'm like, bro, like, really? Yeah. All this for that. But then when Achilles is like, bro, we were brothers. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? You sold my wolves. You know what I'm saying? You carry me out of battle. And I just watch you betray me after all this. I just literally stood in front of you when homies was like, I don't even know who this black man is.

And they were being real bigoted. Real bigoted. I defended you at the campfire. It was like, yo, that's my boy. We've been when wars together. What you mean? Like all this, for real, over a necklace dog. And I'm kind of like, hey, Achilles got a point.

Yeah, valid crudgeoning. It's got a point. What you mean, bro? Completely valid. I don't think that, and it speaks to how contradictory that safety philosophy is when you ignore or only used to your own ends the concept of friendship, family, camaraderie, for the sake of your own gains. And that is probably the most important thing that Wakanda needs to be interrogated for. And this second episode ends. Well, hold on. Let me try and throw Memnoms

about. Okay. Okay. What if? Because when we see like vibranium stuff, sure. It's usually like, you know, silver or something. Right. Like, you know, it glows or whatever. but this one is particularly purple purple yes right what if it's some like you know heart-shaped herb type stuff you know what i'm saying like maybe it's something like really crazy that if it did get the wrong hands it could spell the destruction of the world so he needed to spend his nine years out there what if we are being harsh on him because if it's just you know if i was if it's just some vibranium if it's just some vibranium then all right you're doing a lot but if it's like A super powered, like, chemically charged or, like, a super weapon?

Like, if you wear this, you get the powers of the Black Panther, something. Like, whatever. This is the thing. It was being worn by Helen of Troy. Right. So was that giving her some sort of, like, power and influence over Troy? You know what I'm saying? That could be a terrible.

Let me throw him a little bell. Just a little bell. Just a little bell. It was kind of nuts, though. Because I know, but like, when you're just like, bro, it's just a necklace dog. Like, what are you? what's the beef about it. Which I think we needed the briefing.

We needed the thing to be like, okay, Memnon, this necklace is, it has like the power of vibranium influence over any leader that so wears it. So it's like a Midas touch type of thing where like everybody will follow your lead or whatever. And like that's why it can't get into the wrong hands. Like we could have empathized with that. But instead it's just like, all right, you just knocked over an entire city for some jewelry. jewelry, dog. That's crazy.

The black man knocking off a whole city just for some jewels, bro. Man. The optics are not great. You hate to see it, bro. Golly. But also, talk about how this episode ends because he comes back to Wakanda

with the necklace, and then we find from the first episode. Nanny. Nanny. So what does she have, like, what about her, like, lesson to Memnon or like

words of wisdom that she had that ended this episode? Does that tie a bow around what this whole like dogs of war like closing the loop on Wakandans influence in the world help or does that hurt them more? I mean, it obviously. Because it feels like in one and two, in one, she's like, I can't be just an instrument inside of Wakanda. I need to influence the outside world. And after all these years, we meet her. She's very, she's a lot older.

She's, uh, her hair is gray. obviously the cool eye patch and everything. It kind of feels like she doesn't really get her wish. I wouldn't say that. I think the thing that is the point of that scene is to illustrate how that despite

them, like leave O'Conda and coming back, they still carry the stuff that happened to them when they're out and they do it by like what happened to them physically. Right? Nani is missing. Sure. He's got the eye patch. Nemnon, I think his name is

Bakhti. is wearing a he's got a lip yeah right and it's like cool we're back in Wakanda it's even he even says it's like I love I thought I love being back here but I kind of miss being outside and it's like nah man like the thing about it is we're always going to be Wakana we're going to have us inside us but they are they're not reminders of our lives on the outside yeah you know and we have to live with that for forever like that's what you take with you and it's it's It really, it genuinely got me thinking, I'm like, man, like, Wakanda starts to feel a little bit like a prison. It feels like a thing that, like, and like an elective one, I get it, but the fact that, like, it's like the village, you know, like, Amnichamalan's the village.

They do not trust the outside world and they will sacrifice anything and everything to keep that community insular. And it really sucks when you know that it's been centuries of this. and with the introduction of like someone like the Black Panther like a mantle like the Black Panther to be the herald of that it's really like interesting to interrogate I can see the pros and I truly can but like thinking about it too much and applying it to the real world is pretty nuts bad about to getting worse

because episode three starts with Basha first of all leaving his girl like in the moment of the night. Just like, hey, you got it to go get some fibrinium from this little statue. And again, it's a funny bit, right? It's a funny bit.

You speak to Chinese, you're like, yeah, we're cool. And he think he got it, but he don't. And so like he steals it and then goes to the ship. And he's like, yeah, man, that was light work, bro. You know me, man. I'm, like, I do this is regular,

dagler, you feel me? And they're like, yo, his homie headbow's like, bro, you sold that, right? Like, I know you sold that. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. Check my report. It's clean. It's like, you're lying.

Like, no, no, no, no. Meanwhile, look back, he snucked the free iron fist back. Yeah. That's crazy. So that particular bit was interesting to me because obviously, as soon as the person's heard, I was like, oh, that's true. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not even close.

But it took me a second. It wasn't until like the, like, the, like the secretary of, third scene with the mask on where I was like, oh, that's the, oh, that's ironfish. Yeah. Okay. All right. We got iron fist. And then she just like didn't use the iron fist.

Mm-hmm. I'll tell him like, yo, if you don't put some cheat in that fist and send him to hell. Like, he played by your name too much. First, he left you out there. He just left you in bed. That's crazy. Me personally, I would not let that slide. I would not take that level of disrespect.

No, ma'am. Right. that's one and two. Are you playing with your name like this? How do you're talking? Nah, Jornani. What are you prepared to do? You got a T-T-T-M-A-Lesson.

No, I completely agree that that was a spectacular level of ain't shitness, but there's a... I think that this episode really actually... Like, it speaks to different, like, core tenants about what, in a weird way, nation-building has, where if you can't find a common ally, or if you can't utilize the things that the people around you give you, you're kind of no better than the people that you claim to be against.

All he had to do was ask her, hey, can you help me get this Iranian out of there? Yeah. And she would have been like, oh, I got you. Because, and I was, and I'm really glad the episode ended with them going in the hatch together. Sure. Because, like, they are, like, kind of made for each other. But at the same time, like, bro, all you have to do was ask. I had to do was be like, hey, can you help me with this?

And there's this, there's, it's that nationalistic pride that, like, actually is the downfall here. and it's a really interesting thing that you keep seeing as history repeats itself, both in the outside world and in Wakanda, where people aren't willing to extend or offer that hand. And I think episode four cements the question are the Wakandans dicks. I don't know. I thought this episode was kind of in the vein of episode, episode one, where you have like, I know like they go to get the hammer for completely like,

who cares, like who knows? Sure, yeah. But then they're like, hey, actually, a woman has to come from the future. Be like, hey, guys, you got to put that back. Yeah. It was a great, like, I wish every British Museum of Airy give that shit back type of attitude. But I enjoy that episode because it's a reverse on everything that we've seen, right? Every single episode is, oh, man, they got to get this particular artifact out of there.

This episode is, no, we have to go put it back exactly where we find it. And that's my whole thing. It's just like, no, you've been so much dicks that you literally have to go back in time to fix your mistake. Well, I mean, well, it's interesting. Well, so this episode serves as kind of like, you know, we were looking back. It's kind of like literally like the watcher, right? Right. I went back.

I was looking at what moment in time is the lynchpin where we can save our future from the horror, right? Because 500 years later, these aliens come down and they attack us. And because Wakanda didn't want to help, we could have banned together. We could have saved the Earth. But since we've been alone, we didn't. Yeah. What moment could we have changed to make it so that every Earth would have been together. we beat the horde, whatever.

And it turns out that that particular hammer is the hammer that is in the British museum that Kilmarner goes to at the beginning of the first Black Panther movie. Correct. To go and with Andy Circus's character and steals it. Great little Easter egg. Right, which brings everything together. Yeah. Right.

Which ties the worlds together, which means like because of that, that means that Chalda was like, hey, you know what? We should get the Olympic. get the Starbucks out here. You know what I mean? And brings Wakanda to the world, which is a great threat that they tie the whole season around.

It's the bow on top of the present that makes this show complete. I think that's a genius way to wrap it all up and put it together. So I enjoyed this episode for that and also like the reverse engineering of what they were doing the whole season. It's very true.

And when I was like looking at like either press materials or things like that, they made a bit of a point to say that this takes place on the MCU's quote sacred timeline. And this playing with that being like, oh, a mistake that the Wakandans made

somewhere in their timeline undid that sacred timeline. And to know that that correction basically brings the linchpin of that artifact and then echoes through the rest of that history, it actually, again, cemented the idea of like, man, like, the Wakandans really needed that, like, extra extraterrestrial

push throughout time and space to really see the error of their ways. Yeah, you know, a lot of game left. A lot of game left, but, man, it's pretty great. Yeah, you know, it's cool. I'm not, listen, I'm not going to sit here and act like the Wakandans were a while and, you know, I'm not going to defend them, you know, by this. What can you do? I do like that you turn into an Italian, you maybe you are going in a,

of the mafia. Maybe. Hey, we don't know. We can't do it. Okay, how many Gabagools do you have in the first? I eat like three Gabba Ghouls a day. I like the Gobobo.

That's pretty good. It's good Gabba Cool. I try. I don't know. Godfather three, man. Great music. Godfather three. The best, the best of all the Godfather.

The best one. The best one. The best one. A couple of performance. Come on, man. Goaded performance by her. It's, I mean, like, all the movies are obviously, like, obviously, like, one or two are obviously obviously the best.

But the third one is special for me because. because I hadn't, so I'd watch the first one in school, and they're like, go watch second one. Wait, you played, they played the first Godfather in school? Well, a film, film class. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Like, I thought you would be like in history class. No, no, no, no.

And they wheel out the VCR. We're learning about like, Jimmy Hoffa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. They're like, you got to like, this is a movie that is like lauded. You got to watch it, you know, write a paper, whatever. Watch it. They're like, go watch the second one on your own time.

They don't watch the, third. And I'm like, man, the second one was so great, how bad could the third one be? Not. I mean, it's bad by Godfather standards. But it's a perfectly watchable movie. It's a perfectly watchable movie. Yeah.

But, bro, and I can't, like, I can't imagine my life without this. Once I think that I'm out. They pull me back in. Like, it's, they pull me back in. There's bars in there. There's memes in there, man. There's real life memes in there, bro. And I think that's the unfair standard that the Godfather three has actually put

upon because yes of course godfather one and two are like pillars of american cinema and culture so and the thing is and the because we can't watch godfather two in the movie because like it'd be you're like hey man you got to go watch godfather one and then we'll say in class watch godfather two yeah don't watch this bullshit though yeah yeah well it's just like it just made more sense to watch the first one in class yeah and then tell everybody like listen i need you to go watch the second one too we don't have time watch it in class but it is like you know even better film the whole thing And you're like, cool, okay, whatever. And then you're like, oh, this third one.

And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. Don't do that. It's like, what's wrong with this one? And again, it's like a fine movie, but compared to one and two, Jesus. It's kind of like Spider-Man. Right. To bring it all the way back to the superheroes.

Man, we over-hated Spider-Man 3. It's the funniest Spider-Man movie to ever exist. So, but is it funny because it's funny? Or is it funny because it's bad funny. Who cares? It's funny. No, it's different. Who cares?

It's different. When he's eating the pie and he's like, so good. 21 and 22 Jump Street are good moves because they are funny. Yes. You're laughing with them. You're not laughing at them. I don't care. I'm having a great time watching Spider-Man 3.

I think there's a little bit of a difference. I think you're talking when he walks out of that restaurant doing that dance, you don't think that's cinema. I think it's cringe when he like, like he's at the thing and he attacks Mary Jane at the dinner. I think that's weird. You don't think it's comedy when you pray to God to kill Peter Parker? Okay, so that is not unfunny. That's hilarious. And then you have like, obviously, like, the,

You want forgiven, it's fine religions. The meme, the meme shade of him, like, dancing in the street. But it's also just kind of like out of left field. It's kind of like, why did we need three minutes to do this? Now, it's meme funny now, but in the theater, you're kind of like, all right, man. She's, okay. Brother, I was like 10 when that joint came out. Yeah.

Right? And I'm sitting there like. Oh, I don't know, man. This don't hit the same, bro. Like, it's fun. Like, I'm having a good time. I love that how skepticism, like, you just, you're 10 years old. You walk out of the theater and then you just immediately light up a cigarette.

It's like, man, Spider-Man changed, man. You should have seen me after Fantastic Four at Silver Surfer, bro. I was disgusted. You were vibrating after the first Fantastic Four. I was so hurt when the second one came on, bro. I, like, I honestly could have used to smoke and be like, yo. What? What movie do you think the Wakandans should have watched to say, you know what?

The world gets vibratium. What world? Just say in general. What movie do you show them to be like, listen, the world's not so bad? Come on out. Oh, man, Paddington. Yeah. Two or one?

Ooh. Not in Peru. Paddington and Peru, perfectly fine. Probably two. Probably two. Marmalade. Yeah, if you're not feeling something at the end of that one, you got nothing for you. There's no soul in there.

Okay, one more tangent before we get back to the show. I want to see a scene where you are a Wakandan watching Paddington 2, reacting to the cooking marmalade sandwiches scene. I got to put on an accent. Yeah, yeah, you do. That's crazy. Nah, I'm going to be the Wakanda that went to school in Los Angeles for three semesters. How did you end up in Los Angeles?

You know, they got the cultural exchange program. Sure, sure, sure, sure, yeah, yeah. So me, okay, so we watch the marmalade scene, all right, cool. Yeah. Hmm. And that seems like a, seems like a lot of, okay.

Oh, right, right, right, right, right. They make it bar, okay, cool, cool. Wow. Seems like a lot of sugar. Okay. Yeah, we don't need that over here yet because we got that sweetener that don't make you fat over here

because we condens, you know what I was like. Yeah. Ooh. Oh. Oh. So the little bear, he really loved this marmalet. I got to call my mom.

This bear really does marmalet, man. Oh, my mom. my gosh. And then you cry and then you go, you know what? And see. You know what? We should open Obamaconda just for the bear. Just for the bear. Just for the bear. Just for the bear. We will only let in Paddington. Paddington is the only person. Bring us the bear in the raincoats.

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story again. I thought, I knew with that little, just a shot. I literally went back and rewatched Black Panther again because I was like, oh yeah, look, the hammer that they put back is there. Okay. Which, I thought that in the very first episode, when she was in Crete and she was trying to grab the two bits of artifacts when she fell in the water, I thought one of those was that hammer, or at least it looked like that paldron from the hammer? When they were in the vaults in the third episode, I was trying to see if there was anything like Easter eggs from the previous episodes, but nothing, nothing came to mind. Nothing that I saw. Yeah, but yeah, it was cool. So we have a thing on here on this little, little, take you behind this. We've got a little doc what we want to talk about.

And it talks about the biggest grievance. Yes. That I've got with the Wakandans. Yeah. Can I get like two minutes? Please. Jemmy, guess what? You could have three.

Episode three begins, and I mentioned this earlier, with Basha, yeah, running down, like getting, just taking the statue. Yes. With the vibrational tongue running down and getting into. a one person plane. Yes. Which, again, a plane that I would describe as more or less a jet. Basically a jet.

Ladies and gentlemen, everybody under the sound of my voice, are you telling me that in the year of our Lord, 1,400, the Wakandans had jets. Jet! And they could arrest you not one Negro from slavery. Nerea one! That is the most egregious, selfish, and frankly disgusting act I have ever seen in my entire life. The implications of that scene are insane.

You have the tools to free black people all over the world. For centuries, centuries. From all of it. And you said, nah, man, we got to steal this vibranium from this little. hung though. Oh, we got to make sure, oh, man, that little, little, little necklace over there can't get stowing. Are you serious, dog? Are you for real? There was people out there on slave ships and you couldn't do nothing. Ah, damn, look at them. That's

crazy. We'll let that happen to me. Are you for real? That's the part where I can't grab my head around. I can't co-sign the like the operation here because I'm watching these Oconda's do whatever it is they doing, living their life, whatever. Even in the last episode, it's 1896. Yeah. Right? Jim Crow going crazy up there.

Planes still not invented. Reconstruction is still going wild. And you mean to tell me, y'all could have been out here protesting, marching with us, but nah, we got to go steal this hammer. That's more important than the safety, protection, and love for all the black people across the world. Wakanas, I've been trying to throw bail for y'all since the jump since 2018. Now, I can't help you.

I can't help you. You got to go get bail. You got to bring Johnny Cochran from the grave and raise him up from the dead to get you some help. I am done. They had jets, Steve. It's nuts. They had jets. I felt the same way when I saw somebody bring out the texting machine in the ancient Troy.

If you can communicate, you can literally communicate from Greece to sub-Saharan Africa, not only in code, but on paper. Nah, dog. That's incredible. That's disgusting work. And you don't get any messages out being like, hey, have you seen what's been going on in Greece? Have you guys seen what's been going on in Troy? What?

Maybe Van was right, though. Maybe Van was right, bro. That's so nasty, man. You can't even like, not one slagship. Hold Atlantic slave trade. They had to hold the big triangle out there. And you couldn't be like, hey, yo, let's stand up for our people real quick. You know what I'm saying?

Kilmonger was right at this point. And I get that that was pretty much the whole ethos of the first, like, film of Black Panther of like Kilmonger's point being like, no, Wakans need to be sharing this with everybody. We need to be militarized. All of our people are being oppressed all over the world. and it's high time that you've been ignoring this for too long. Does this show reinforce that narrative? Jomi at Denneron, go.

Absolutely. Yes. 110%. It's tough to watch. Like, with the car, like, again, this is a fun show. It's end, you know what I'm saying? If you, like, if you don't really think about it, which you shouldn't because it's, like,

an animated show, it's not really that serious. It's like, oh, yeah, they're having a good time. They're stealing necklaces. They're still in hammers. Who cares? But if you're even, like, think about it even a little bit, and you're like, man, they were they were they were they were buying slaves at this point then it's like

yeah that's tough that's what y'all was worried about y'all was worried about uh y'all was worried about uh yeah i was worried about uh just a little your trinkets your weapons your trinkets when people was dying people was getting turned into chairs people was getting whipped that's as bad news bears so joey me you will be siding with achilles from here on out i'm team achilles bro killy should have stabbed them done in the face Honestly, and I think between him and Memnon, that might have been the best fight scene in the entire show. Again, I want to emphasize the animation and action in this,

I really, really enjoyed. Yeah, I enjoyed the Iron First stuff. It's inventive and it is still quite violent. Well, yeah, we'll see, it's bloodless. No, there's some blood. There's some blood. No, but like, but it's not the boys. No, of course not.

Deadpool, where it's just like, like literally, remember, they threw the knife at his head and you get like a trickle. Yeah. Where if it was like something more gory, the whole head would explode. But again, like, it's that's, that level of violence, you don't get to see that much from Marvel nowadays, especially in the animated kids show fair. Like when you see somebody like whose head falls on an accident hits the ground real hard, I was like, oh, wow, they're really, they're really doing a lot here. I mean, I enjoyed it.

No, I thought that what, what Todd Harris and the team were doing ultimately like came up a success because, again, it's very enjoyable. it's very fun and it's very easy to watch and I had a blast tapping in with these four episodes yeah I did too again we obviously recommend it so I want to actually talk about a bit more for a little bit more time that we have left

knowing that this is some of the better animated fair let's look ahead to the things that we're going to be seeing in the coming year or so pre-dumnsday from Marvel animation and do we think that this is the right track for them to be on so we have Marvel zombies coming out

spinoff of what if Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Season 2 and X-Men 97 Season 2 Obviously X-Men 97 Season 2 could not come soon enough We are incredibly excited about that Team take as much time as you need

You guys are doing great Hold on Don't take too much time Well no not don't take too much Real quick I was talking about this with a friend And it's like the difference between how Like we treat animation

versus we treat like live action and even like within animation American animation and Japanese animation because a show we used to get shows on the regular right for sure the show have 22 episodes every year on the dot you'd wake up in September and there would be a new show to episode to watch and you watch it all the way till May or June and then you take summer off and you'd be right back at it right now it's not the same anymore right show might take a year off for animation's a little different show might take two years off may take three years off, right? And you, and obviously want artists to be able to have time, don't want no crunch.

You want to be able to do everything. But at the same time, Invisible took that break, you were like, Hey, man, where to show at? Well, here's the thing. Mid-season break and season break. No, no, I'm just talking about season one, season two. Sure, sure, sure. Right?

Took them like two plus years. And we're like, all right, guys, come on. Let's be, let's be for a. Like, let's lock in. There's this weird, like, line, right, that we have to thread where, obviously, we don't want to push animators too far. We want artists to be able to be able to, like, crunching all the time. But also, all right, man, like, where's the, where's the joint? Is that argument?

I saw this argument on a TikTok somewhere where a guy was critiquing some music and he's like, the problem with ASAP Rocky is that he thought he was in the elite group of people that could wait five years to drop music. and he's actually not. It's just, it's interesting to think about. Because in Japan, they just work you like a dog forever. Yeah.

And you're going to get that one piece episode. Yeah, you will. And it's not, it's not great. I'm not advocating for it at all, right? The business practice.

The business practices, like, are really bad. There's so many studios that make stuff that we enjoy that if you like ask somebody, like, who knows what's going on

and they're like, yo, it's bad over there. It's bad, it's bad. But we don't think about that we just watched the episode. And they're like, give me more,

give me more, give me more, give me more, give me more. And so when we talk about like, man, X-Men 97, we wanted to come out, I mean, I would prefer if it came out in 2026 and not 2028, but ultimately, like we want this things to come out,

want them to be good, we want the people working on them to be able to enjoy like living life. And so, you know, like, again, hopefully it doesn't take forever, hopefully we get as soon and rather than later,

but ultimately it's all about just, you know, having to come out, come out, And so if I had to think about, you said, X-Men, it's Marvel Zombies and Friendly They're with Spider-Man. I mean, it's easy like one, two, three. Like, obviously in bronze, Marvel Zombies, the last drags of what if.

It could be interesting. It could be good. But, like, I think what if poison the well at the end there, especially at the end. Too friendly than Spider-Man, we talked about it on this podcast. We enjoyed it a ton. We didn't know what we were really expecting, but the fact that the show came out and again at first I was like there's no way this is going to look good

I was shocked at how much I enjoyed that based on what we saw because again when we saw the first footage of that we were like what the hell is going on here it looked grim but ultimately became a show that we both loved and enjoyed obviously gold number one

the champ and not only the hearts and minds of the people but the hearts and minds of everybody who's locked in X-Y97 that is the jewel the crown of the MCU animation world right now. So again, if you want to stay on top, you got to make sure those things come out.

However, I mean, I can't wait because that is what it's all about. And so, again, we just don't know. I think Marvel's Amics coming out this year, and the rest of them, we're not, like, completely sure when we're getting new episodes. So it's very much, like, it's kind of empty when you think about it?

It is, but again, I feel like we're in a great reset time for when Doomsday Secret Wars comes out, because I'm not going to say that this is going to be, like we've always had the dreaded state of the MCU conversation of like, okay, is this going to be the make or break? Will the MCU be over after Secret Wars? Obviously, it won't. But I do think that there's going to be a giant reassessment

of what Marvel can do with its overarching IP umbrella when it comes to animation. I think that there's the biggest room for potential here because of shows like Eyes of Wakanda, I feel like this is what they hit when they don't miss the boat on something that could have been what if. And what I mean by that is a vignetted story about a society and a time and a people works really well in the Marvel animation blanket because all you have to do is kind of perpetuate this kind of the smaller idea in bigger, broader ways. and for what if I get that we were trying to have fun ideas

but I think it kind of got lack of a better term NCUified by making its own insular universe and making things more connected while still weird and hopefully trying to be fun diminishing returns on that come the end of the third season so when we see something like

friendly neighborhood Spider-Man X-Men 97 and now this I'm worried about the Marvel zombies of it all because it only is like an expansion of a what if idea. If that's executed well, probably could be very much worthwhile. But what I really like to see for Marvel animation

is the smaller, let's take one place, one character, one idea or one concept, and just magnify it a little bit. I think the biggest thing that we had with what if was the fact that it took too much dip on the chip way too quickly and we were, in out gone. Didn't actually like it.

So I hope that we get more more things like this. And then my ultimate dream is that this could just easily be something like DC animation where we get our own well-written high-quality animated films or at least

animated series that expand on characters regardless of the shackles of canon or continuity and just have fun with that because I feel like that we're desperately missing that. Jomi, do you agree? I think in general

we're missing mid-tier animated shows just across the board. Yeah. Right? We used to be able to watch I want to say like everything, but I was like thinking about this the other night because I wanted to go back and watch Shilin Showdown.

Ooh, nice. It is a show that like is I mean, there's like a tier one of like like shows I watched growing up that like yeah everything to mean like Avatar obviously is one of those and like challenge shot honestly it's like

if it's not in if it's not tier two it's tier one for me like that show love it and you can't watch you got to buy it on Amazon I'm not spending all that money that's crazy but I just remember like having a plethora of stuff to watch as a kid options I had options

you don't have options anymore animated stuff you're either getting like stuff that people know and love like SpongeBob. Mm-hmm. That have been around for decades now. That had been around forever. Or you're getting like, I don't say like high concept, but like high effort,

animated stuff like arcane, blue ice samurai, things of that nature. Yeah. All things that we love, by the way. Yeah, but again, those things take forever. Yes. Right? Understandably so. What do you do in the meantime?

They're not making, I almost said they're not making finish firm anymore. They are. But like, but it's the same as SpongeBob. These are things that people love. If people are going to watch it, we're going to make it. But they're not making, like, Milo's Murphy's Law anymore. They're not making Hampshire and Gretel anymore. They're not making Haley's on it anymore.

Like, these are just not things that they do. And for D.C., we used to have brother, Justice League, justly of, Teen Titans, Young Justice. We used to have a plethora of options. Now, like, outside of My Adventure Superman, they announced My Adventure of Green Lantern, the Starfire show, DC Superpowers. and The Batman Crape Crusader show. But these things aren't airing, like, consistently.

Right. And this is... Some of these shows are just like, they just announced that they're working on. Yeah. That they're working on. And some of these are like, yeah, we'll give you, you get season two, guess you through whatever. There's no like, cool, consistent.

I'm going to get this every year. I'm going to get this every season. Like, it's just we do not have that anymore. It's either you get it all the time, or you get it none of the time. And this is more likely a Chris and Andy on the watch type of conversation because like that's,

that clearly isn't what TV is now. Like we're not going to be, there isn't that regular programming of like this is, this is successful enough. Yeah. And cheap enough to be making infinitely amount of it until it is a,

either no longer profitable or we're creatively out of juicing. Well, I don't need it to be infinite because again, it's going to, well, the problem with infinite is you get to be, a SpongeBob, right? Sure, yeah.

Where you're just like, at this point, isn't even the same thing. I haven't watched SpongeBob since 1987. But that being said, I will watch a SpongeBob Bowl whenever the NFL does a collab broadcast. Obviously, because that stuff is, that stuff's hilarious.

Yeah. But I mean, like, the, just the mid-level content of stuff that isn't, that doesn't take a billion dollars to make and looks incredible, but you can only get it every, once every three years because it's so expensive,

because it's such, so time consuming. Then you have the other stuff that's just like, all right, this is easy, this is cheap, we can make this quick quick, boom, boom, boom, boom. And just like, keep it going on a turnstile forever. So I hear that and I also hear like a little like

a little bird in my ear that might be a YouTube comment or something that I'm going to snuff out already be like, what do you say to like the Jurassic World chaos theories of the world? Something that's like clearly not. Of those. Yes. Where it's like, it's like, it's clearly not the most high fidelity

the best-looking show in the world, but infinitely compelling, it seems. Dude, yeah, well, cool. So, like, obviously, temperatious did what it did, and they followed up with chaos theory. And it's something that, like, I'm excited to see because I'm like,

oh, man, look, there's a show that's coming out. They can make these consistent. They can make these consistently, man, like, it's not hard. Like, Dragon Prince came out at, I had said a Nica Comic Con, or, like, for crown funding for a new season. We want to continue with the Dragon King.

And they're like, who is not funding? this. I just, well, because Netflix I want to pay for because nobody wants subscribed for this

and it's like, I understand like, you know, corporations got to cooperate whatever, blah, blah, blah. It's a money at this point.

At this point, Netflix has infinite money yet no money. So here's a problem, right? Let me put my MBA head on. They've already reached market saturation. There's no more people, no more people can subscribe to Netflix.

Yes. That's why they're doing the whole like two households thing because it's like, oh, if we can like punch it off and then like we, you know what I'm saying? It's like just bad maps. that's why you introduce the ad tiers, right?

Because then you're like, okay, we might... Well, we'll just make it cheaper, but then we'll just make it more profitable. Exactly. And then they're going to find another way to do that. Exactly. Netflix will come out with a TikTok in like five years. That you have to pay $5.99 to subscribe. Like, it's insane.

It's just like when you've made as much money as you can, the question shouldn't be, let's make even more money. How do we make more money? I think that's ridiculous. That's besides the point. The point is that these networks, these corporations aren't making me tier animated shows anymore. So they had the,

this is getting real in the weeds here, but they did the, the Warner Brothers Discovery breakup. Yeah, right? And they took all the cable stuff and they put that on Warner Brothers, right?

And the discovery stuff. It's all the anime, all the animation stuff is discovery. And Warner Brothers is a, brand that we all love and recognize. And it's that like, yo, we make it some Warner Brothers stuff. He's like, oh yeah, I'll mess with the Warner Brothers.

I know with them. The MDC, right? Yeah, you know what I'm. boys, Discovery, it's not the same. Hey, listen, if I want a Duck Dynasty or a murder show, it's just that we used

to be able. Ice road truckers, come on. We used to be able to do all of it. And now we only do parts of it. And it makes it hard for people who enjoy this stuff like me and you and people listening to really get into

what we love because, again, it's either slop that runs 24 7 that they can mass produce with the quickness, or it's these high-level concept things that take forever to make. Infinite money and take way too long. And so we're standing here in the middle, right?

No blue-white samurai. Our canes gone. What do we do? What do we know X-My-97 for the future? What are we supposed to do? Just sit here and stare at each other and look, make go gougly eyes and go, man, Steve, you're so handsome.

You're my Memon. You're my Achilles. Yes. Oh, man. when he slices Achilles tendon, God, that's I mean, you knew that. That was crazy, too, because you know that's his weakness. Yeah. Well, that's anybody's weakness. Jesus Christ. That's crazy. He looked

cutting in Achilles tendon? They say he's Tyrese Halliboran out there. That's crazy. Wow. Nasty work. Let's get out of here, shall we? Let's get out of here. Thank you guys so much for listening. We appreciate you sticking around with us. This has been Mint Edition. We are produced by the great

Devin Maldo. And with our additional production, help from Arjuna Ramgo-Pal, Stay tuned on the Ring Reverse. It's been a rockety recovery week from San Diego Comic-Con, but you can look forward to on the House of Our Feed, the deep dive into Season 2 of Stranger Things, more Midnight Boys coming out, more Button MASH on the new Mafia game.

Get ready for it. Jomi, do you have any parting words for all of the great junior men that have been working with us and listening to us and said hello to us and really just had a great time with us all this past week and everyone listening abroad? I do. I do. I want to say I love you, but I want to give a special I love you to our friend, our co-worker, somebody who we love and admire and care about so much, Joanna Robinson. Joe, we love you, with you, we support you.

We stand in 10 toes down with you, girl. Yes. Okay, we got your back. Just wanted to say that. And to everybody listening, we love you as well. Have a fantastic weekend. And we will see you guys next time. You know, I'm just a few views.

Bro, I'm tired. No, it's tired. We love you, Joe. We love you, Joe. Love you, Joe! What's the difference between butter and butter made from real California dairy? It's the real California farm families behind it.

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