I mentioned previously here that I wasn't happy with the direction that Dynamite Entertainment was taking their Xena: Warrior Princess comic series in, and that I hadn't picked it up. But I noticed their was a different writer on Xena Annual #1, so I took a chance and tossed it in my stack.

There are three variant covers for the annual, and I chose Cover A by Croatian artist Stepjan Sejic. I felt his cover made Xena look too young but the art had an interesting manga influence and I liked the strong composition.

The story was unusual in that it brought a space alien into contact with Xena and Gabrielle. It's also set after Season Six, in a time period where Xena has apparently returned from the dead. Xena's death is alluded to briefly in the panel shown above, when Xena is knocked out and Gabrielle says, "If you're dead again, I'm going to be really pissed."

There were a few nicely handled bits of subtext that showed the writer had a good grasp of the show and its audience. However, I was sad to read that there might have been more subtext if only the publishers had allowed it. In an interview, writer Keith Champagne commented:

This is the first licensed property that I've written so, of course, one has to anticipate notes from the licensor. There was nothing particularly heavy thrown at me in terms of revisions; they basically asked me to dial down some of the chemistry between Xena and Gabrielle.

Dynamite is issuing a "Dark Xena" series after the annual, but with its preference for "subtext lite" scripts, I'm not sure whether it will have enough drama to interest me.