Tag Archives: Amethyst Princess of Gemworld

Amethyst Princess of Gemworld #1 – Third Mini-Series

I have mixed feelings about the four issue mini-series that came out in the late 80s. While I was happy to see Amethyst again, her character changed dramatically. I thought the contrast of Amy Winston with her older incarnation as Amethyst made the earlier series charming.

In this mini-series, Amethyst is a remote goddess, with little trace of Amy left. The art in the series is very pretty, although less innovative than the look that Ernie Colon established for the series.

This mini-series firmly ties Amethyst to existing DC continuity, specifically the Legion of Super-Heroes.

The cover of the issue proclaims “The Legend Reborn.” Amethyst stands in a forest surrounded by magical creatures.

She holds her gemstone over her head, and it radiates purple light.

As the issue opens an old man prepares to face his day. It is White Opal! He gets out of his hermit’s hut, preparing for his job.

The title of the issue is “…And Wait the ‘Pointed Hour”

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Amethyst Princess of Gemworld – The Final Chapter

The final issue of Amethyst! This issue wraps everything up but it depresses me so I’ve been procrastinating rereading it. I will soldier on! The cover of this issue shows Amethyst ready for action in a large facet of an amethyst gem. She’s surrounded by the reflections of important people in her life like her mom and dad, Emmy, the Gemworld nobles, and the infamous Flaw and Child. The title of the issue is “Kismet.”

The issue opens with Amethyst talking to Citrina about all the events she’ll never be able to experience. “You stole everything from me, witch-mother!” You stole my whole life! You know I’ve never had a real boyfriend, Citrina? And I’m never gonna have a sweet sixteen party, or stay up all night on New Year’s Eve! I’m never gonna go to high school now, not to mention college or law school!” Amy goes on to mention that she’ll never get married, have a baby or see Bruce Springsteen in concert. Amethyst is perched on a boulder in limbo communing with Citrina’s spirit. Citrina says that she did what she had to do, and even if Amethyst hates her Citrina will love her.

Amethyst wants her life back on earth and mentions that her mother doesn’t remember her. Citrina says that since her mother was closest to Amy her memories will fade first. Then her father and everyone else on Earth will forget her too. Emmy will adapt to life as the Winstons’ child and dismiss her memories of the Gemworld as a childish fantasy. Amethyst asks if her life will have meant anything to anybody and Citrina says “Oh, yes, my daughter! More than you can possibly know!”

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Amethyst Princess of Gemworld #16 (second series)

I completely forgot that after this issue there is a one-shot special issue that concludes the story. So this is the next to last issue. Amy goes back to Earth and horrible, horrible things happen. Plus, Topaz gets a haircut. A horrible, horrible, haircut!

The cover of the issue shows Flaw holding up Mr. Winston and saying “Say good-bye to your father, princess–FOREVER!” Taffy lies sprawled at his feet. No, not Taffy! Amy is running towards Flaw. The title of the issue is “Little Girl Lost.”

The issue opens with a single panel showing the Gemworld nobility crawling from the wreckage of Castle Amethyst.

Prince Topaz tenderly cradles Prince Moonstone in his arms, Lord Garnet looks like he has broken ribs, and Lady Turquoise shifts a rock off of herself. The Diamond Priest is dead. They all wonder where Amethyst is.

Lord Garnet is bandaging his wounds while Lady Turquoise urges him to take advantage of Topaz’ healing powers. Garnet snaps “My body will recuperate on its own! Can you say the same for the Gemworld??”

Topaz hacks of his hair with a dagger and says that they need to wake up to reality.

Turquoise asks if they should all give themselves amateurish haircuts commenting, “Only the sword will save our home, Topaz. Not some childish rite of passage.”

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Amethyst Princess of Gemworld #15 (second series)

It is a bit of a slog wrapping up my coverage of the last couple issues of the second series of Amethyst, because such unpleasant things happen to her. The cover of this issue shows new characters Flaw and The Child being mean to Amethyst.

Flaw is holding Amethyst over his head, about to throw her down on a pile of rubble where Lord Garnet, Lady Turquoise, the Diamond Priest and Prince Topaz are already unconscious.

The text on the cover proclaims “Introducing Flaw and The Child…Apocalypse!” I am stunned that Flaw and the Child were only around for two issues, because I found them so incredibly annoying that when I used to think back about this series, they were taking up the mental space of a six issue story arc.

Dark Opal continues to menace people as only he can. Perhaps he is more menacing because he is naked with a strategically placed shadow covering up his butt. Dark Opal complains about the quality of his welcome, saying that he expected refreshments and a party to welcome him back from the dead. Topaz tells him to return to the grave, because The Gemworld no longer fears him. Opal says “My grave was a dark and lonely place, Topaz. I missed the light of my Gemworld’s sun. And I missed all of you, my fellow lords and ladies. Can you not say you missed me?? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

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Amethyst Princess of Gemworld #14 (second series)

The cover of this issue shows a battered Amethyst crouched against a wall. Her sword and shield are broken. A man-shaped shadow looms over her, with the text on the cover proclaiming “Guess Who’s Back?” The title of this issue is “Inner Sanctum.”

On earth in a darkened bedroom in Hudson, New York something is making strange noises like “Shloop!” and “Chink-Chink-Chink.” Carnelian’s metal arm rolls on the floor followed by a puddle of blood.

Amethyst falls out of a magical portal into Citrina’s workroom. She’s still disoriented by her new blindness, and she isn’t sure where she is. A voice calls out “But you’ve done it, Princess! You’re in Citrina’s chambers now!” Amethyst realizes that she can feel Citrina’s mystic energies. She asks the voice if they’ve met before and it says “Naw. I’m only a crow. Caw!”

Amethyst moves towards Citrina’s scrolls to see if she can find a spell that will restore her eyesight.

She realizes that she can’t read any of the spells and starts smashing the workroom in her frustration, angry that Citrina never told her the truth about her father.

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Amethyst Special Feature: Interview with Gary Cohn and Dan Mishkin

It is not a secret that I’m a huge Amethyst fan! Amethyst isn’t available in a collected edition but it is well worth visiting the back issue bins at your local comic book store to collect the series, especially the first 12 issue mini-series.
Amethyst co-creators Gary Cohn and Dan Mishkin graciously agreed to answer a few questions from me via e-mail.


1) How did you come to be involved with Amethyst? Were the characters sketched out before you came aboard, or did you do the bulk of the world building and character development?

GARY: Amethyst was purely ours, and predated our work with DC. I don’t recall if Dan’s first daughter, Grace, was born yet when we were graduate students together at the Department of Popular Culture Studies at Bowling Green State in Ohio, but I think she might have been, which would contribute to our having been thinking about stories for girls. We had adjacent desks. We were teaching assistants…Dan and I have been friends since our mid-teens, and he came there a year after I’d started. We were seriously trying to break into comics and had started a correspondence with an editor at DC, Jack Harris, that eventually led to our first sales. Anyway, we’d sit around the office and brainstorm comics ideas, and one day one of us noted there wasn’t much of anything for girls. So we started back-and-forthing ideas (our best work mode) and started talking about the archetypal “girl” story…your parents aren’t really your parents, you’re a magical princess from a fairy tale realm…a changeling. And that’s the name we settled on: Changeling.

The idea only went so far, and then it became just one of a bunch of ideas we had. A few years passed, I moved to NYC, Dan stayed in Michigan, we worked as a team by phone. Somehow (I don’t remember now) someone at DC, maybe editor Dave Manak, asked if we had anything interesting and I started telling him about Changeling. He suggested we work up a proposal. Dan and I started talking that night. The breakthrough came when he came up with the name “Amethyst,” and suddenly the name GEMWORLD popped up too…and we started researching gem lore, and we were off and running! Sometime later Manak mentioned Ernie Colon. I said I loved his work, and that’s how Ernie came aboard. Once he started visually imagining the series more and more ideas came. The three of us created everything, with editorial input from Manak and, I seem to recall, Len Wein.

DAN: Gary’s recollection lines up with mine for the most part, though there are a few things I remember differently or can just flesh out. First of all, my daughter Grace was born when we’d already been doing work for DC, a few years after we came up with the idea. She did have some influence, though: I remember sitting in an easy chair with her in my arms and a pad of paper on the arm of the chair, and writing dialogue for Dark Opal to speak to Amethyst along the lines “You’re nothing but a babe in arms compared to me!” And then realizing where the line came from.

Dave Manak asked us initially to propose an ongoing eight-page series for one of the “mystery” anthology books he was editing, and somehow it turned into its own solo book (the same thing happened when we created Blue Devil). And I still have a distinct recollection of the moment the name Amethyst popped into my head as I stood in the kitchen in my apartment in Flint, Michigan. And the excited phone call with Gary that followed.

As for character building and world building, I have to echo Gary and make sure we give tons of credit to Ernie. Even though Gary and I came up with all the basic ideas, everything that Ernie did was an inspiration to refine and shape and often go in new directions — I learned lots about who the characters were from the way Ernie drew them. I think, by the way, that I was the one who proposed Ernie as the artist because I really liked his work on The Grim Ghost in the seventies…something that Ernie found a little shocking because he tends to see only the flaws in his older work.

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Amethyst Princess of Gemworld #13 (second series)

This is by far one of my least favorite issues of Amethyst. I fortunately was able to remain ignorant of this issue for many years, because I skipped it when I was originally collecting the series and didn’t read it until many years later when I got a complete run of the series from Ebay.

Amethyst gets pulled into larger DC comics continuity through some retconning involving the Lords of Order. The explanation involves making Citrina much more sinister than I would have expected.

The cover of this issue features Amethyst’s reflection in Dr. Fate’s helmet. The title of the story is “The Hand of Fate.”

Dr. Fate carries Amethyst through the dimension between worlds. She thanks him for helping him out because she’d never be able to find her way back to the Gemworld in the dark. Dr. Fate tells her that their way is lit by the light of a thousand suns.

Amethyst wonders why she can’t see, and Dr. Fate reminds her that she was blinded when fighting in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Amethyst asks if she’ll be able to see again and Dr. Fate replies “Put aside all such wishful thinking.” She wonders why he is being so mean, and he tells her that her struggles have just begun. He’s going to tell her the true history of the Gemworld, and it is nothing like the stories she heard from Citrina.

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Amethyst Princess of Gemworld: Crisis on Infinite Earths

Crisis on Infinite Earths lives on in the mind of my inner 10 year old girl as one of my most traumatic comic book memories, because the mini-series managed to kill Supergirl and blind Amethyst. Since those were the only comic books I was following at the time, Crisis really bummed me out. I’m not going to attempt to get into the whole mega-crossover thing, I’m just going to focus on the Amethyst related parts. So let’s see how the purple princess was maimed.

In issue #5 of Crisis on Infinite Earths, space and time have become warped and all the heroes are gathered together on a giant splash page to discuss the issue. Here’s Amethyst hanging out with a dude in a loincloth, the Warlord.

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Amethyst Princess of Gemworld #12 (second series)

Sorry for the long delay between Amethyst posts! They are time consuming so when I am busy with my not very glamorous life, I don’t have much time to put them together.

This issue is a bit of a filler story before Amethyst gets caught up in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. It has a guest writer (Mindy Newell) and a guest artist (Colleen Doran).

The cover proclaims “Once upon a time….But did they live happily ever after?” and there’s a nice sketch of Amethyst and Topaz riding on her winged unicorn. The title of this issue is “Love Story?”

On Earth, Amy arrives for a babysitting gig. The kids are fighting and their parents are running around trying to get ready. The fraternal twins Nicole and Larry are decked out in orange t-shirts that say “Yes, we’re twins.” Amy restores the peace by promising to do the kids’ chores if they settle down and get into their pajamas. She’ll also tell them a story.

Amy talks about a princess and prince, “Her name was Amethyst and his was Topaz. They had magic powers and lived in a place called the Gemworld. It was a very beautiful land and the people were happy, but one day something terrible came….”

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