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Vita Ayala's Writer's Commentary on Xena #1 – an Impossible Redemption

Published Mon, 22 Apr 2019 11:30:10 -0500

Vita Ayala's Writer's Commentary on Xena #1, on sale now from Dynamite.

Hi. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Vita Ayala, and I am a freelance comic book writer.

Xena: Warrior Princess was the first show I made an effort to watch that wasn't a cartoon as a kid. I collected the comics and the memorabilia, and even had a genuine replica of her sword. I perfected the war-cry (yes, I can still do it), and could perform some of the early fight scenes to a T (no, I can't do that anymore, I am not so limber).

All this to say that Xena – the character, and the franchise – is incredibly important to me.

Xena as a whole is about a woman who is seeking redemption after doing things that can never really be atoned for. The lives she has taken can never be restored, the people left broken in her wake will forever bear the scars of her wrath. In deciding to fight for Good, Xena is taking on something Sisyphean, but she does it with her chin up and her heart on her sleeve, because in the end she is not doing it for her own sake, but to try and make sure that nothing like what she has done happens again.

One of the more prominent themes in the Xena franchise was the idea that Fate was in your own hands. No decree from the Gods was more powerful than the human will. Ultimate responsibility for one's actions and mistakes. It was important to me to explore this idea, because to me it was basically the central thesis.

Before we get into the commentary itself, let me speak a little about how I view the characters, to give context to some of the decisions that I made in terms of characterization.

Note: Though Xena is the titular protagonist, Gabrielle is as important:

XENA OF AMPHIPOLIS: Former warlord and destroyer of nations, now a warrior who fights for the Greater Good. Skilled in combat, the art of healing, and with a mind like a steal trap, Xena is a force to be reckoned with. There is little that she holds in lower regard than the petty dealings of the Gods meddling in human lives.

GABRIELLE OF POTEDIA: Born with the gift of gab and a wit as sharp as the deadliest of swords, Gabrielle always felt she was fated for bigger things than offered by her provincial little farm town. Traveling with Xena has given her a way to explore cultures and places she couldn't even have dreamed of, and to turn her talent for talking into a way to self-actualize (and make a little coin). She can talk her way into and out of anything, and that comes in handy on the road for a girl who prefers words to weapons.

And now, onto the commentary itself!

PAGE 1

[The idea for the general plot of the story came from the editor, Nate Cosby, and I wanted to acknowledge that at the start. Without him, this would not exist!]

Because this is a #1, we wanted to do a soft reboot. To me, nothing is more iconic than the Xena opening, and Nate and I both thought that would be a good thing to nod to. I wanted people to be able to HEAR the music as they read the first page.

So here we get the sweeping "Greek" countryside, the famous (infamous?) war-cry, then jump straight into the action, all the while we read the iconic intro words.

PAGE 2-3

This scene is a quick fight scene, to get people into the thick of things. Very classic Xena – she and Gabrielle fighting off bandits to save a family on the road.

Originally I had this sequence as two different fight pages, but Nate thought that we needed to go BIGGER. And, what's bigger than a double page splash?

Centering Xena seemed like the right thing to do here, but I wanted a thread to tie the fight together. As much as the war-cry is a hallmark of Xena, her distinct weapon – the charkram – is a symbol of her as a character, I think. I have always been one to enjoy breaking boarders in panels, and being as dynamic as possible, and the chakram bouncing around was a great way to give Olympia (Sweetman, the artist) a chance to have fun and be energetic.

PAGE 4-5

As the family moves on, grateful, Xena and Gabrielle are approached by a desperate man on horseback. He is looking for Hercules, but he has found the Warrior Princess and her Battling Bard, and that is good enough for him. He begs their help, telling them that the children of their village are in danger, threatened by the Goddess Discord. Xena and Gabrielle agree to go with him.

Though this is technically a 2-shot story, there is a very different focus for the second issue, and we wanted to keep things moving quickly to get to the meat of the plot. With that in mind, we don't really let Xena and Gabby have a second to breathe here.

I was worried that having the transition be two pages would be a little confusing, but this was a device that the show used a lot – cold open into a new adventure – so I tried not to stress about it too much.

PAGE 6

Xena, Gabby, and Mason (the desperate man) arrive in Sideros, his village. The women decide to go with the divide and conquer strategy of problem solving. Xena will go speak with the adults of the village, and Gabrielle will see what the children know and how they are feeling. They share a cute moment and separate.

Sideros means "iron" in Greek, which was related to both the strength of the people found there, and the main industry – mining the mountain.

It was important to me to kind of let both Xena and Gabrielle shine in the coming scene, and this was a way to set that up.

Xena tends to approach problems like she is solving a puzzle. She is a little more logical, and likes to deconstruct the dilemma into parts and see where the weaknesses are. Gabrielle tends to be about the human aspect of the problem. She gets a sense for the effect a situation is having on the people involved, and goes about trying to find a solution that alleviates the suffering caused there.

It was also important for me to show that, even though their methods are different, Xena and Gabrielle are two halves of a whole. Both in terms of their relationship, and how they help people, they compliment each other.

PAGE 7

We see Gabrielle interacting with the kids, getting a sense of how much they understand, and also observing how strong they seem to be.

It was important for me to make sure that the book was not homogenous. Greece wasn't a unified nation at the time that Xena would have been walking around if she were real, and there was a LOT of travel going on.

We make that more plausible by having it be a town founded by refugees of war and ex-soldiers. The elders we will end up seeing in the next page are the founders. Sideros is not a big city, but I wanted it to show some of that, and so the citizens are of "Greek," Arabic, and North African descent. The youngest generation is the most diverse, which made the most sense.

PAGE 8-9

A transition page between what Gabrielle is doing and what Xena is doing. Gabrielle sits with the children, babysitting as the adults and elders have a meeting, and tells them stories about her and Xena's adventures.

In the meeting hall, we finally get to meet the adults and get more information about what is going on. The magistrate (Philokrata) is accused of being at fault by an angry elder in the crowd. Xena latches onto something the angry woman said, her mind beginning to work on a solution.

Here we get to see, too, that not all the adults are in agreement about what to do. I wanted to kind of examine all the obvious options for the problem, and having the adults loudly arguing about it seemed like the best way to do that without it feeling completely like an exposition dump.

PAGE 10

Xena follows the angry elder (Lydia) after the meeting, and confronts her. At first Lydia is prickly and aggressive, but soon she breaks down in Xena's arms, revealing that the elders are somehow at fault for what is happening to their grandchildren.

I already set up that Gabrielle is kind of a soft touch, but I wanted to give Xena a moment where she connected with the people of the village in a more personal, vulnerable way. Xena tends to be the sort of person who has an aloof front, but will open up to people in quiet, meaningful ways. She is the strongest to me when she is offering comfort and protecting people not with her sword, but with her heart.

Also, showing that she cares about people other than Gabrielle was very important to me, because it is an easy sort of trap to fall into to see the Warrior as the cold one and the Bard as the gentle one. But the reason that Xena works is that she and Gabrielle have the capacity to be both, just manifested in different ways. Xena likes one-on-one connections, and Gabrielle can charm a room. I wanted to show that softer side of our favorite warrior.

PAGE 11

Xena and Gabrielle lay in bed, discussing what they have seen/learned, and vowing to help these people, no matter what.

This scene served two purposes.

First, it is kind of a pulling together of all the threads. We set up a bit of a mystery, and we needed to give readers some room to regroup and assess what was going on.

Second, I needed to show Xena and Gabrielle existing and interacting with each other, away from the world.

One of the most central and important things about Xena as a show was Xena and Gabrielle's relationship.

Without Gabrielle, Xena would have failed in her quest to become a better person, and would have given up on seeking redemption or fighting for the Greater Good. That is fact.

Xena and Gabrielle are queer coded HARD in the show, with at least two episodes a season dedicated seemingly to establishing that the two of them are in an intimate and deep partnership. It was VERY important to me to do them justice, and this was a start to that in a tangible way.

PAGE 12

The next night – the night that things are going to go down – finds the villagers trying to assemble enough loot to attempt to buy Discord off. The Goddess appears, amused, but rejects the offerings. Xena confronts Discord, positioning herself as the children's champion.

The big bad finally appears!

Also, the last line on the page was the most Xena thing I have written, and I am 5 issues into this now.

PAGE 13-15

Discord is all for taking Xena out, but Lydia comes in and stops it. We finally get a reveal of what happened all those years ago, when the people who are now elders made a deal with the Goddess. Their children were ill, dying, and they were offered a deal – Discord would save their children, and in return they promised the next generation to the Goddess.

Lydia begins to bleed from her eyes and mouth as she speaks, dying in Xena's arms as she finishes telling her tale. We learn that there was a blood curse on the villagers, so that they COULD NOT talk about what happened, even if they wanted to.

Discord offers the villagers a new deal – kill Xena and she will spare the kids!

There was no avoiding the exposition scene this time, so I wanted to make sure that at least Olympia got to have some fun with it. The flashbacks and the gnarly death hopefully keep people in the drama of the moment!

Also, I love Discord. She is such a brat, and writing her is a blast!

PAGE 16-17

Fight scene! Xena versus some of the adults, who just want to save their kids.

I think this scene was truncated a bit, which is a shame. We were running out of room, but needed to put in a lot more plot stuff, and this scene is the one that got shortened in service of that.

PAGE 18

Gabrielle gets in on the action, jumping in to have her boo's back. They find an ally in Mason, the man who asked them for their help to begin with.

There is something somehow more dramatic about whacking people with giant sticks in a comic than a sword, and I wanted to get more of that in here. Also, I feel like action scenes should have some variety, for the artist's sake at the very least, and wanted to make sure Olympia was having fun!

PAGE 19

Discord threatens the kids again, but Philokrata jumps in and says that they cannot sacrifice a stranger for their own sins. Xena, mind every whirling, comes forward…

PAGE 20

Xena offers herself/her services in exchange for the kids! To be continued…

Had to wrap things up in classic Xena cliffhanger style!