Meet Xanthe, DC's latest supernatural hero from the Spirit World

Move aside, Mr. 13 and the Phantom Stranger: DC has a new guide to the afterlife, and they’re making their first appearance in this week’s Lazarus Planet: Dark Fate one-shot… but you can get a sneak peek thanks to Popverse’s exclusive preview of “The Envoy.”

Xanthe was first introduced to the world via a tweet from editor Jessica Chen in November last year, with Chen teasing that they would “fight Chinese vampires with some help from Constantine and Cass Cain Batgirl.” That’s a fair summation of what happens in 'The Envoy, A Spirit World Story,' by Alyssa Wong and Haining, but it’s far from the full story — as you can see from the exclusive preview below.

Quite where Xanthe will appear next remains a mystery, but it’s worth noting the subtitle of 'A Spirit World Story' using here; Spirit World was a DC horror anthology published in 1971 featuring the work of Jack Kirby, Sergio Aragonés and Neal Adams. DC has a history of reusing classic titles in its back catalog for new series, most recently with Tom King, Mitch Gerads and Evan Shaner’s Strange Adventures mini — could a similar fate be planned for Spirit World at some point in the near future as part of the 'Dawn of DC'?

Lazarus Planet: Dark Fate is the latest in DC’s Lazarus Planet one-shots, and it introduces a number of new players to the DCU at the beginning of the Dawn of DC (there might also be a tease about a potential Batman-themed event later this year if you squint); Popverse has a sneak preview of three of them, including Circuit Breaker and the Doom Patrol. The one-shot issue is available February 14.

It’s not just the Doom Patrol that’s getting a makeover as part of the Dawn of DC; revisit what Tom Taylor and Nicola Scott had to say about the new Titans series.