Oct 1983
Last Goodbyes
by Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn, Ernie Colón, John Costanza, Tom Ziuko, Karen Berger
Amethyst takes Amy’s parents home, transforms back into Amy, and explains to them what’s been going on. They tell her about how they lost the child they were supposed to have and how Citrina brought her to them.
Amethyst returns to Gemworld, to Castle Amethyst, unsure of when she will get a chance to return to Earth. She learns that days have passed (in Gemworld) in the hours since she last saw Granch. He left with his siblings to make war with Dark Opal.
Amethyst wants to catch up to Granch and the others but Citrina talks her into staying at Castle Amethyst and training. She trains for days in archery, tracking, combat, tactics, and strategy. She gets a visit from Lord Garnet who brings her a winged horse. He tells her about the wedding of Lady Sapphire and Prince Topaz, which is just days away.
Granch and his siblings reach Fortress Opal. They fight their way in but only three of them make it that far. It comes down to a fight between Granch and his two remaining siblings on one side and Dark Opal, Sardonyx, and Carnelian on the other. Carnellian kills Granch’s remaining brother with his pistol before Granch and his sister use their magic to destroy the handgun.
Sardonyx kills Granch’s sister. Granch and Dark Opal fight to the death. Granch seems to have the upper hand but Dark Opal is victorious in the end. Amethyst senses Granch’s passing at his father’s hand and swears to avenge him or die trying.
Thoughts
I love this cover. There have been some great ones. This one is more like a poster. The bright colors and simplicity of it really work in its favor.
I was a bit surprised and very moved by the death of Granch. The training montage scenes feel necessary but also a bit rushed.
There are two pages (3, 18) where there are a few big panels surrounded by a border of images. The first occurs when Amy is telling her parents about Gemworld. The border for that page consists of images of people from Gemworld drawn in blue ink. The second occurs during Granch’s fight with Dark Opal. The border for that page consists of images of Princess Amethyst going about her day drawn in pink. I don’t recall if there have been pages like these in earlier issues.
Good read. This is the halfway point in the series. Granch is unfortunately gone but I suppose that leaves room for someone else to play a bigger part in the story. It looks like the wedding of Lady Sapphire and Prince Topaz will play a major role in the next issue. Will there be a truce declared during the festivities? Will a fight break out between Amethyst and Dark Opal during the wedding?
Purple Prose
Five letters (plus responses from Karen Berger) fill the letters page his month. The last of these letter writers has questions about how time passes differently on Gemworld than it does on Earth. They propose an explanation which I don’t fully understand but I’m not going to dwell on that.
Meanwhile…
Dick Giordano writes about the upcoming slate of comic book conventions that DC planned to have its writers, artists, and editors attend in the Jun-Sep 1983 timeframe. One of them was in my hometown but comic conventions weren’t something that I was on the lookout for back then.
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