Nearly a decade after it was originally announced, Dark Horse Comics has finally revealed the release date for Frank Miller's 300 prequel, Xerxes: The Fall of the House of Darius and the Rise of Alexander . This five-issue miniseries will debut on April 4, 2018.

Xerxes art by Frank Miller. (Dark Horse)

Xerxes art by Frank Miller. (Dark Horse)

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Miller is both writing and drawing Xerxes, with Alex Sinclair (The Dark Knight III) providing colors. Each issue will cost $4.99 and include 30 pages of story content as well as special wraparound covers.Xerxes will focus on the titular Persian monarch before the events of the original series, as he sets about avenging the death of his father Darius and expanding the Persian Empire across the world. However, the series will also deal with the rise of Alexander the Great and his conquest of the Persian Empire, suggesting that the book will feature Xerxes' successors as well.“300 was an interlude in the great story of the Persian Wars. The battle of 300 represented one episode in a much greater series of wars,” said Miller in a statement. “This series tells the story of the first great clash of civilizations, the first bloody contest between east and west. The odds vastly favor the Persian forces, but the Greeks have Alexander, the greatest military commander of all time.”Dark Horse first announced Xerxes in 2009. At the time, it was expected that the comic would serves as the basis for the sequel to the 2006 film adaptation. Instead, that project evolved into 2014's 300: Battle for an Empire.For more on Miller's plans for this long-awaited project, check out our video interview from 2017:Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter , or Kicksplode on MyIGN