Madame Xanadu eventually got her own ongoing solo book when Matt Wagner and Amy Reeder Hadley teamed up for it in 2008, followed by more Wagner stories with artwork by many other equally amazing artists. The series went for 29 issues, exploring key moments in Xanadu’s very long life and centering in on the details of her magical powers more than any story had before. After the first couple arcs, most of the issues revolved around Xanadu’s actions at the margins of DC’s superhero community in the ‘40s, which makes the run a must-read for fans of DC’s Golden Age.
In her solo series, we discovered that Xanadu’s given name was Nimue Inwudu, and she was the third sibling after Morgan le Fay and the Lady of the Lake in Celtic mythology. They were descendants of the survivors of the destruction of Atlantis known as the homo magi, and thus all possessed inherent magical skills. After a particularly ill-fated affair with Merlin, she traveled the world and gained her immortality by besting Death in a card game.



























