Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld
Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld is the title of a comic series that US publisher DC Comics published between 1983 and 1988.
The series, which can be assigned to the genre of fantasy comics, tells the adventures of the girl Amethyst, who ends up in a magical fairy-tale world in which, as a princess, she has to endure a series of fantastic adventures.
publication
DC began publishing amethyst stories in the spring of 1983. After a shorter so-called preview story - a bonus story for advertising purposes - in the back of the US Legion of Super-Heroes # 298 from April 1983, was published in the same month the first issue of a twelve-part maxi series was launched. This maxi-series , the issues of which appeared on a monthly basis until April 1984, initially contained a self-contained, non-sequential story, which can be regarded as the "original amethyst story".
After this maxi-series achieved unexpectedly good sales figures, DC followed up with an Annual Edition in 1984 and, from 1986 to 1987, with an ongoing series. The ongoing series eventually had to be discontinued after sixteen issues, so more stories were published in the form of a special (1986) and a four-part mini-series (1987).
The authors of almost all Amethyst stories were the writers Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn , while Ernie Colón was one of the draftsmen .
The Ehapa publishing house brought in the '80s as part of the series The big Phantastic-Comics four volumes of Amethyst on German out.
action
The action of Amethyst begins on the thirteenth birthday of the young Amy Winston. Amy, who has previously lived an average life in an average American middle-class family in an average American small town, finds on this, her special day, that a pipe dream that many little girls have in her case is a reality: She is the truth a "misunderstood" princess through a complicated set of circumstances as a toddler from their true home, the so-called Gemworld ( dt. about jewel world ) made separately for itself in another sphere of existence, in the United States has been set in the late 70s where she was initially placed in an orphanage before being taken into a local family as an adopted child, where she grew up like a normal American child.
With the help of a magical artifact that she received as a present on her birthday, Amy can now return to Gemworld. Since time is different in Gemworld than on Earth, Amy finds herself there as a twenty-year-old woman named Amethyst, who has the task of protecting her new home from all kinds of threats. Together with her lover, Prince Topas , and a winged unicorn , Amethyst takes on the fight against the evil prince Dark Opal , who once murdered her parents, and sets out to regain her lost place as ruler of Gemworld.
Gemworld
The Gemworld is a wonder world shaped by magic that exists on a special “magical level”. While it is presented in the first Amethyst issues as a kind of flying continent that hovers in the sky and is orbited by its own little sun, in later editions it appears as an independent planet that is located in a different dimension than the earth.
In terms of rulership, Gemworld, which is technically at the level of the European Middle Ages, is divided into twelve magical kingdoms, all of which are named after a special type of rock : Amethyst (" Amethyst "), Topaz (" Topaz "), Emerald (" Smaragd "), Moonstone (" Moonstone "), Sapphire (" Saphir "), Diamond (" Diamond "), Ruby (" Ruby "), Opal (" Opal "), Garnet (" Garnet "), Sardonyx (" Sardonyx " ), Turquoise (" Turquoise ") and Aquamarine (" Aquamarine ").
The inhabitants of these realms have all, from the most powerful magician to the smallest fisherman, magical abilities, which, however, differ considerably in their practical capabilities: While most of the inhabitants of Gemworld have only a few abilities that are only suitable for "domestic use" and capable of performing their professional duties, the trained, great magicians have a wide arsenal of powerful gifts at their disposal which enable them to exercise dominion.
Since the Amethyst comics were discontinued , the Gemworld has been used as a setting in various other comic series such as The Books of Magic or Infinite Crisis , where it is also referred to as Zerox and Sorcer's World .