Series: N/A
Audience: +16
Genre: Comic Book
Publisher: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: August 29th 2017
My Rating: 3 cups
Source: Netgalley
Blurb (from Goodreads):
Xena, Warrior Princess, has toppled nations through the force of her will. She's captained the most deadly pirate crew ever to sail the seas. She even turned her back on her past, seeking redemption for her darker acts alongside her partner Gabrielle. And yet, despite her propensity for defeating all odds, her thousand-strong army has fallen to an implacable and ancient evil. Her only recourse? To use the dreaded Necronomicon to summon Ash Williams - the wise-ass, butt-kicking, smooth-talkin' demon-killer from the future - for aid! But how can Xena save the world when that chainsaw-wielding knucklehead's every temporal mishap threatens to unravel time itself? Cult favorite media sensations Army of Darkness and Xena, Warrior Princess collide in a wildly hilarious adventure written by Scott Lobdell (Red Hood and the Outlaws, Uncanny X-Men) and featuring artwork by Elliot Fernandez and Diego Galindo!
"A superlative job of capturing the spirit of both Xena, Warrior Princess and Ash of Army Of Darkness." - SciFiPulse
"Lobdell balances the personalities of his distinct cast and Fernandez's layouts are superb." - Nerds on the Rocks
"(Lobdell's) dialogue is hilarious and flows very well." - Big Glasgow Comic Page
*Disclaimer: I received an eARC of this book from Netgalley and Dynamite Entertainment in exchange for an honest review. This does not influence my rating or the content of my review in any way.
It's no secret that I love Xena, and that, in my opinion, she's the second best superhero, right after Wonder Woman. Since the end of the show *queue sobbing* I've been drowning in watching reruns and reading whatever new story available with and about her. So I was super duper excited about reading this book. I also have to be honest and say that I know nothing about the Army of Darkness, but I plan on rectifying that this year.
I have to say, the artwork was awesome. The thing I liked most was that the artist didn't try to make portraits of the actors playing these characters, which would have bothered me to be honest. I can't explain it exactly, but I know I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much with actor portraits all over the book.
The panels are easy to read and to follow, and they were not as crowded as usual. I also liked how the art seemed to adapt to the story in each issue. You could tell that the story happens in a different timeline based on the colors used and the use of shadows. I thought that was cool.
The story was pretty standard. You have Xena and Gabrielle in a little bit of trouble and they're trying to get some help by summoning Ash, the time travelling warrior. I loved the Xena episodes with time loops. I'm not sure if there were more than one, I remember one where Xena gives in and just kills the rooster, which still makes me giggle every now and then. But time loop usually means that things stay the same, it's just one person that figures it out and tries to break the loop. For some reason this didn't happen in this comic book, which I guess makes sense, because it shows how desperate times are for Xena and Gabrielle, so in that regard the book is pretty unique and different from what I was expecting.
Now here's what I didn't like all that much. I feel like the story in itself wasn't bad, but it wasn't executed as well as it could have been. At one point there's this character that tells Ash to look for clues in all his time jumps. There were no clues, not that I could figure out. Ash makes a ton of time jumps, but they don't actually make sense. The ending was anticlimactic too. If you're going to have a super powerful baddie, make him really bad, and scary and not as easily defeatable. Maybe this is just me being more bloodthirsty than most, but I was expecting more of a struggle than that. There were a lot of things that didn't quite make sense in this story, and I feel like they could have made for a fantastic plot, had the story not been so rushed. The idea that someone is like a time guardian, that guards the various alternate worlds and timelines, or the fact that it takes a lot of time before Ash reaches Xena when she's summoning him, or that we don't know what happens to Xena while Ash is timejumping to the wrong place.
I was expecting a lot more from this story, honestly. A tons more than what I got, but it was still fun to spend some time reading and remembering about my favorite heroine.
I'd read this for just the nostalgia value (I love Xena!!!), but that sucks that the story overall didn't make sense. I hope your next read is better!
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