{"id":39468,"date":"2016-02-23T12:01:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T20:01:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/?p=39468"},"modified":"2019-03-06T12:08:17","modified_gmt":"2019-03-06T20:08:17","slug":"xena-comic-and-tv-reboot-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/xena-comic-and-tv-reboot-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Here&#8217;s Tons of Awesome Info on the New Xena: Warrior Princess Comic and TV Reboot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/hitlist.asp?theme=Xena&amp;utm_source=ee-blog&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=entertainment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Xena: Warrior Princess<\/a>,<\/strong><\/em> a beloved show from the 90s, is coming back in big ways.<\/p>\n<p>Javier Grillo-Marxuach is bringing the show back to television with an exciting reboot, while Genevieve Valentine is the writer of the brand new <em>Xena<\/em> comic book from Dynamite Entertainment.<\/p>\n<p>These two creators had the opportunity to interview each other about the heroine via <em>io9<\/em> and the excitement over seeing Xena and Gabrielle again is ramping up. Check out some choice moments from the interview to get a sense of these new projects.<\/p>\n<p>Right off the bat, the two discussed why <em>Xena<\/em> has stayed such a beloved series, with Grillo-Marxuach theorizing:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Xena and Gabrielle represented something that, just plain did not exist in TV at the time&#8230; single-female-led shows like Alias were still some six years away for the major networks. Even for someone like me (and I can\u2019t say that at the time \u201cfeminism\u201d was the first thing I looked for in my first run syndicated action-adventure-fantasy) it was clear that this was something different, and that it offered not just the thrills and sex appeal, but also a genuinely different and, frankly, enlightening relationship at its core. Xena helped a lot of people\u2014myself included\u2014finally embrace the potential of female-driven shows in the genre space.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He also mentions the prevalence of genre shows in the 90s, and how that helped <em>Xena<\/em> thrive (who was originally on <em>Hercules: The Legendary Journeys<\/em> before getting her own series).<\/p>\n<p>Regarding the comic, Valentine is working in the canon universe established in the 90s and therefore has slightly more restrictions than Grillo-Marxuach&#8217;s rebooted series.<\/p>\n<p>Valentine mentions she&#8217;s most excited to explore &#8220;the tension between Xena\u2019s past and Gabrielle\u2019s future,&#8221; as they meet &#8220;when Xena\u2019s trying to shake off a loaded lifetime full of people and events that shaped her so she can make amends, and Gabrielle\u2019s just trying to live a life at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The series takes place 25 years after the &#8220;Twilight of the Gods&#8221; arc, with Xena and Gabrielle returning after a long absence as the Roman Empire is rising to power. Valentine explains this setting for the comic:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I\u2019m genuinely excited to tackle this slightly bizarre point in the show\u2019s timeline, and make Xena and Gabrielle deal with the repercussions of this giant time jump to a degree beyond what they had time to do in the show. I completely understand why the show\u2019s momentum had to handle Eve\u2019s story as fast as possible and then move on to something new, but I also thought it was really rich ground, and as soon as I started thinking about where in the chronology I wanted to set this story, I knew I wanted to explore the idea of Xena and Gabrielle in a world that\u2019s left them behind.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The TV show, on the other hand, is a reboot and therefore has complete freedom in bringing this show back to the small screen.<\/p>\n<p>The first change will be that Lucy Lawless and Renee O&#8217;Connor will not be reprising their roles as Xena and Gabrielle, respectively, which may be a little disappointing, but in the grand scheme of things makes sense and is probably for the best.<\/p>\n<p>Grillo-Marxuach explains that he wants his reboot to be a &#8220;compliment&#8221; to the original series and for Xena to ascend as a cultural icon, above the various actresses who may play her in the future.<\/p>\n<p>The reboot will remix the canon, keeping the same morals and themes, while making slight changes to things like backstories and costumes (&#8220;It\u2019s hard for me in the post-Brienne of Tarth era to reconcile with the idea that Xena and her friends can meet every challenge in such skimpy outfits&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>But don&#8217;t worry, this is his response to keeping Xena&#8217;s trademark weapon: &#8220;Of course she\u2019s gonna have a Chakram, what am I, a monster?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It sounds like we&#8217;re in pretty good hands and I, for one, welcome the new influx of <em>Xena<\/em> into my pop culture universe again. Be sure to read the whole interview <a href=\"http:\/\/io9.gizmodo.com\/meet-the-creators-who-are-masterminding-the-return-of-x-1760590323\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Xena: Warrior Princess #1<\/em> will hit shelves in April, while the NBC reboot doesn&#8217;t have a premiere date yet.<\/p>\n<p>Are you excited for more <em>Xena<\/em> in your life? Are you looking forward to the comic series, TV show, or both?<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/io9.gizmodo.com\/meet-the-creators-who-are-masterminding-the-return-of-x-1760590323\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">io9<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Xena: Warrior Princess, a beloved show from the 90s, is coming back in big ways. Javier Grillo-Marxuach is bringing the show back to television with an exciting reboot, while Genevieve Valentine is the writer of the brand new Xena comic book from Dynamite Entertainment. These two creators had the opportunity to interview each other about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,3792,109],"tags":[3370,3145,112,3914,3913,190,3912],"yst_prominent_words":[8617,6371,6720,9169,30089,30091,11791,8559,5852,6017,7461,5825,8079,17704,30090,30088,30086,30084,30087,30085],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39468"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64373,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39468\/revisions\/64373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39468"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=39468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}