Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander (2018)

A five-issue Dark Horse Comics limited series published from April to August 2018, written and illustrated by Frank Miller as a companion and expansion to his celebrated series 300. The story follows Persian King Xerxes from the aftermath of his father Darius's defeat at Marathon, charting his transformation into the god-king who wages war across the ancient world -- a campaign of conquest driven by grief and imperial ambition. As Xerxes marches toward Greece and its inevitable reckoning with Leonidas's Spartans at Thermopylae, the series also plants the seeds of Persian dominance's undoing in the rise of Alexander of Macedon. Miller adapts his stark visual style to a wider sweep of ancient history than 300's close-quarter brutality, moving between courts, battlefields, and the ambitions of men who mistake themselves for gods. Elements of the story formed the loose basis for the 2014 film 300: Rise of an Empire, though the comic was published four years after that film's release.