Marvel fans are debating the franchise’s latest example of time travel, seen in Black Panther spin-off Eyes of Wakanda, and discussing whether it breaks the MCU’s own rules set forth in Avengers: Endgame.
Warning! Spoilers for Eyes of Wakanda follow:
Eyes of Wakanda’s fourth and final episode sees a future Black Panther travel back 500 years to alter the course of history — something Endgame’s description of time travel suggests shouldn’t be possible.
So, what’s going on here? Did Marvel forget its own time travel mechanics, or is there a deeper solution? Well, fans have a clever theory for how it could all (mostly) make sense.
Let’s begin with a recap of how Endgame defines the mechanics of time travel within the MCU. In a memorable scene, Hulk plainly states that “changing the past doesn’t change the future.” Instead, going back in time creates a fresh timeline branch you begin existing within instead.
This is handy, as it allows the Avengers to steal the Infinity Stones from various points in the past without impacting their present — for example, nabbing the Space Stone from Tony Stark’s father in 1970 doesn’t then erase our version of Iron Man from reality, even though his existence is based on the Arc Reactor technology derived from his father’s research.
Getting back to the situation raised in Eyes of Wakanda, though, it also means you should not be able to travel back 500 years into the past to alter the course of your own timeline. As Endgame makes clear, you can only impact a new version of your future — or, as Ant-Man succintly puts it, “Back to the Future is a bunch of bulls**t.”
Marvel has already stretched this definition of time travel in Loki, which introduces the concept of a “Sacred Timeline” policed by the Time Variance Authority. Within the series, we see events unfold across countless ongoing timeline branches, though the existence of the TVA acts as something of a get-out clause, with time explained as occuring differently within its boundaries, and the Authority’s headquarters existing outside of its rules.
Now, fans are pointing to Loki’s explanation of timeline branches to rationalise the situation in Eyes of Wakanda — with the suggestion that what we see on-screen in the series’ fourth episode is actually a simplification of what is going on beneath the surface.
In it, a future Black Panther from a version of Wakanda still closed off from the wider world travels back to alter the events of her timeline’s present — the very thing Hulk said couldn’t be done.
Her mission is to nudge the timeline (by retrieving an axe) to ensure the events of the MCU’s Black Panther film take place, so Wakanda ultimately opens its borders and, in the future, it has help fighting off an invasion by aliens known as the Horde. “Once the axe is returned, my timeline will realign with this one,” the future Black Panther states, “and rewrite everything the Horde has done.”
Now, a video from Marvel YouTuber A Bit of Everything has suggested that the bulk of this episode is actually a What If… story — something that’s potentially hinted at on-screen at one point with the brief appearance of What If series’ Watcher.
“That means everything we saw with the Horde showing up in the future and then Tafari having to return the axe and then everything finally working out with Killmonger, all of that was in a branch,” A Bit of Everything explains.
“That means in 1896, Kuda won the argument and they aborted the mission, they left the axe where it was. That also means in 1896 we get a Nexus Point, where Tafari disobeys orders, retrieves the axe, and we get the terrible future. Then it seems there must be a branch off that brannch, because the [future] Black Panther keeps saying ‘my timeline will realign to yours.’ So there’s two timelines at play and I think the reason they did that is so that she can go back in time, not to her branch but to the original branch, and she covinces everyone they need to return the axe, and that of course results in the positive future rewriting the original branch and then realigning her branch to that branch.
“The timeline travel stuff is just wonky, however you do it,” A Bit of Everything concludes. “But why I really like this is all the crazy time travel and multiple timelines and all that, it’s happening in branches, not effecting the Sacred Timeline. The Sacred Timeline is how we’ve always seen it play out — basically Killmonger finds the axe and Wakanda opens itself to the outside world.”
Once again, then, it seems like Marvel might have found a way around its rigid timeline rules for those who really want to think about things deeply. And, for now, there remains no simple way to go back in time and kill off baby Doctor Doom to quickly sort things out in Avengers: Doomsday.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
