Popular question in the 90s, are you Buffy or Xena? And while one show may have made more of a lasting cultural impact (cough cough Buffy because it was thematically epic), I like them both. Xena is just so aspirational because you could never hope to do kung fu in the air in leather chainmail but it’s so cool to watch.

Xena, The Warrior Princess and Gabrielle are back in a series of all-new adventures ― collected here for the very first time! Xena and her well-loved cast of friends and villains find themselves in-between a feud that reaches all the way up to the heavens as they fight in the “Contest of Pantheons”!

Anyway, Contest of Pantheons is a fun story of Greeks vs Egyptians and Layman does a great job in making it feel like a long-lost episode of the show. Xena and Gabrielle get dropped into the chess-match between pantheons and because of an accidental impalement, Gabrielle is chosen to be the champion of the Greeks where she’d be undoubtedly crushed by the giant blue Egyptian guy.

Autolycus and Joxer end up joining the fun too as well as a surprise double-cross with Callisto. Everyone is in-character, and Layman expertly mixes the high-stakes action sequences with the goofy sequences like Joxer fainting or the guys dressing as belly-dancers to trick some ice-giants. Plus Fabiano Neves’ photo-realistic art makes each character look like their actor’s without being too uncanny.

3 stars

In a time of ancient gods, warlords and kings…a land in turmoil called out for a hero! She was XENA, a mighty princess forged in the heat of battle! In this all-new series, writer VITA AYALA (Black Panther, Shuri, Wonder Woman, The Wilds) and artists OLYMPIA SWEETMAN, VASCO GEORGIEV, JORDI PEREZ, AND ERICA D’URSO throw Xena and her companion Gabrielle headfirst into a mysterious adventure. Can Xena discover the secrets of a village full of super-strong children, before jealous and petty GODS get involved?

If Contest of Pantheons was like a long-lost Xena episode, Road Warrior would be the reboot, declining the camp to bring about a mature treatise about not letting a previous generation’s mistakes affect the future, and a surprising redemption arc for Discord of all gods. Shocking, I know. This could be almost put into a three-parter if it was a tv show. The first part is primarily Xena helping the village and connecting with the magistrate in trying to atone for past deeds, giving it a sort pathos.

The second part is what I’d call the world tour as Zeus banishes Discord to mere mortalness at the ends of the Earth. The ends of the Earth being early Meso-American. From there to Russia to the Carpathian Mountains, Ayala pays tribute to the original series’ penchant for meeting figures of world myths, and Xena/Gabrielle being the origin of some of them in modern day like Baba Yaga.

While Ayala doesn’t do the goofy humor of the original show, there is some primarily in the form of Discord’s disgruntled-ness of her new mortal status and repression of anything resembling friendship or gratitude. Yet Ayala manages to pace it that her semi-redemption works and that it’s believable by the end that she’d willingly slay Dracula to help Xena and Gabrielle.

I do have some nitpicks in that the return to Greece felt rushed, Aphrodite felt out of character (more lovey gentle, not Valley Girl) and the action sequence in the labyrinth felt compulsory. The art by Jordi Perez in #3-4 were more cartoony (such big foreheads on everyone!) than the sleek look of the artists on the rest of the issues.

Otherwise, it was a fun, new look on what Xena could be for a new generation. Plus fans would be happy to note that she and Gabrielle are an official couple here.

4 stars