Xena: Warrior Princess Road Warrior written by Vita Ayala with art by Olympia Sweetman, and cover art by David Mack, is exactly the balm we need today for our battered hearts.

From the very first page, in which the opening sequence of the television series is lovingly drawn out, prompting every reader to hear the pipes, then brass of the musical theme, all the way through the final page and the ending we always wanted, this book was a delight.

The story is exactly the right level of cheesy, lighthearted blasphemy against the Olympians that made the show so fun. Xena and Gabrielle find themselves in the unenviable position of assisting Discord (Hail Eris! All Hail Discordia!) to clear her name and regain her godhead and her position on Olympus. To do that, Eris, Xena and Gabrielle travel the world and stomp all over other, non-Greek mythologies, until they can pin the problem on Discord’s sibling Strife.

My favorite chapter lands the three at the door of the crone known as Baba Yaga. For this section, the stories relies on a theory I myself subscribe to – that gods have only as much power as they are given by belief. With Gabrielle’s bardic skills and a little timely help, Baba Yaga is restored to her rightful place.

Xena and Gabrielle are shown throughout the series as the lovers we all knew they were. Phew ! What a relief. And it’s about time, too. It’s 2020, I think we can stop pretending they were roommates, can’t we? I joke, but Ayala’s Xena and Gabrielle have exact the same level of teasing friendship that we saw in the show…with the intimacy we never got. It’s…perfect. We never needed a sex scene, but we did need this.

The art in this book is not at all to my taste, not with so many years of looking at manga art, but when Eris showed up in her angry goth black leather lingerie I had to cheer – Sweetman nailed the look of the series from the gormless villagers to Olympian ridiculousness. In my head I heard Kevin Smith and Alexandra Tydings as clearly as if they were standing there reading Ares and Aphrodite’s lines…and of course read the entire thing hearing Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor in the lead roles. So, who was Eris in my head…good question. I think I heard her voiced by AJ Michalka. Eris was petulant and ironic – of course the goddess of chaos and discord hates to be inconvenienced. ^_^ I was glad that the story included Eris, but wasn’t just another iteration of the original snub.

From beginning to end, Road Warrior is the Xena Warrior Princess episode we all deserve.

Ratings:

Art – 6 YMMV, proportions are all over the place
Story – 10
Character – 10 Other Gods for the win
Service – 1? 2? Not all that much, honestly, very TV show esque
Lesbian – 10

Overall – 10

Bonus features: No Joxer, Eris ends up with a pet capybara.
No Joxer.