Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld



Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld was a comic book series about a little girl who discovers that she is really the ruler of a magical world, and must return there to defeat the tyrant who now rules it.

Amethyst began as a 12-issue maxi-series by writers Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn and artist Ernie Colon in 1983. It proved popular enough that it was given its own regular series that lasted until 1985. Despite several similarities, Amethyst precedes both She Ra Princess of Power and Sailor Moon.

In the story, Amy Winston was a normal 13-year-old girl who was one day taken to the Gemworld, situated in another dimension. There she finds out that she is actually Princess Amethyst, daughter of the rightful rulers of that land. However her parents were killed by the evil Dark Opal when she was a baby, and she only survived because their servant, Citrina, brought her to Earth, where she was adopted by the Winstons. Due to the way time works on Gemworld, Amy finds herself transformed into a 20-year-old woman while there, and the rebellion fighting against Opal's rule wants her to lead them. Amy thus finds herself splitting her time between her normal life on Earth and her secret adventures on the Gemworld.

Other characters in the series include: the two Princesses Emerald, who becomes Amy's best friends; the handsome Prince Topaz, whom Amethyst falls in love with; Lady Turquoise, an ally who also becomes a rival for Topaz's feelings, and Carnelian, Dark Opal's "son" who turns out to be a boy from Earth raised on Gemworld. (Like Amy, he reverts to his true age on Earth.) Despite the fairy tale trappings, Amethyst was an action/fantasy series, and some characters actually die in battle. Still, Amethyst's forces triumph in the end and Opal is killed.

In the regular series, Amy goes back to living on Earth but continues to have adventures on Gemworld. The Love Triangle was eventually resolved in Turquoise's favor, probably to avoid the issue of Amy's relationship with a much older boy.

Sadly, after the original creators left, it was decided by DC to boost Amethyst's sales by tying her to the rest of the DC Universe, in particular the war between the Lords of Order and Chaos, which was a major plotline at the time. But the new stories, written by Keith Giffen and Mindy Newell, shifted entirely from fantasy adventure to horror. Amethyst was blinded; found out that she was actually the product of an illicit affair between a Lord of Order and her mother; several characters met horrible deaths (in particular, Carnelian's was pure horror) and ultimately, Amethyst is forced to merge with a Lord of Chaos in order to save the Gemworld. The series was then, very unsurprisingly - some would say mercifully - cancelled.

Amethyst has since then made a few reappearances, but they have been very inconsistent. In one story, she was now a villain, who tried to conquer the Gemworld herself. More recently, during the Infinite Crisis Crisis Crossover, she was seen again, with no explanations of her current status. Animated shorts based on Amethyst will be part of the upcoming DC Nation block on Cartoon Network.

Note: Another story established that the Gemworld would one day enter our universe, becoming Zerox, the "Sorcerers' World" from The Legion of Super Heroes mythos.

It should also be noted that, since she was the only Lord of Order to survive Infinite Crisis (with all but one of the Lords of Chaos also dying), Amethyst is one of the two most powerful magic-users in the DCU.

- Tropes:
 * Another Dimension
 * Arranged Marriage - Prince Topaz initially has a politically-driven betrothal with Lady Sapphire, but backs out at the last minute.
 * Attempted Rape - Twice in the first two issues.
 * Big Bad - Dark Opal, in the original series. Fire Jade in the first eight issues of the regular series
 * Better Than It Sounds/Comic Books - At least until it started to go south.
 * Body Horror - The second series goes into overdrive on this, especially
 * Changeling Fantasy
 * Cool Horse - We mentioned the winged unicorn, right?
 * Everything's Better with Princesses
 * Evil Counterpart - Carnelian, to Amethyst
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture - the Gemworld's various kingdoms are based on ancient Earth cultures; it is revealed midway through the mini-series that.
 * Fantasy Gun Control - Averted; Carnelian uses Earth technology, including guns, to compensate for his lack of magical ability.
 * Fantasy World Map - The comics provided one. Turns out the Gemworld is flat.
 * Green Lantern Ring - the Gem-based magic
 * Heir Club for Men - Dark Opal has repeatedly attempted to get himself an heir, but his children are all misshapen and he locks them away in another dimension, except Granch, who understandably rebels against him.
 * High Fantasy
 * La Résistance
 * Load-Bearing Boss -
 * Love At First Sight - Topaz falls for Amethyst the instant he sees her.
 * Love Triangle
 * Magical Girl - Amethyst can be considered an early combination of both the Cute Witch and Magical Girl Warrior types.
 * Magical Land
 * Muggle Foster Parents - The Winstons are this to Amethyst, or rather Amy.
 * Offing the Offspring - and.
 * Older Alter Ego
 * Order Versus Chaos
 * Overnight Age-Up
 * Post Script Season - the regular series
 * Ruined FOREVER: The character has never been the same since the attempt to make her more grim-and-gritty.
 * Sacrificial Lion -, whose death causes Amethyst to realize just how serious this is and how evil Dark Opal truly is.
 * The Dog Bites Back
 * The Obi-Wan- Citrina
 * Theme Naming - Gemworld royalty are normally referred to by their royal title and house name--i.e., the series lead is properly known as Princess Amethyst, her birth parents were Lord and Lady Amethyst, etc. Becomes a bit confusing when royal houses have several children of the same gender; in the original mini-series alone, there were three princesses of the House of Emerald, all of which were named as "Princess Emerald" by lifelong Gemworlders (Amethyst would later nickname the youngest princess "Emmy" to differentiate her).
 * In the third series, the children of the House of Topaz are referred to with individual names by their parents; either Gemworld conventions changed in the years between the second and third series, or possibly they are personal names are only used within the families of the individual houses.
 * Wake Up, Go to School, Save the World
 * What Could Have Been: Imagine how this book would have fared if it hadn't been destroyed in DC's wanking over Crisis Crossovers and was allowed to live until the 90s Anime and Manga boom.