Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld #4
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeIssue #4 marks a pivotal expansion of the Gemworld's political landscape, introducing the House of Emerald and the House of Topaz — the very alliances that will eventually rally behind Amethyst against Dark Opal's twenty-year tyranny. Centering its plot on Amethyst's direct confrontation with the villain who murdered her parents, the issue escalates the personal stakes that define the maxi-series' emotional core. As part of DC's early-1980s experiment with fantasy storytelling aimed at young readers — particularly young women — the Amethyst series as a whole predated comparable magical-girl archetypes like She-Ra and Sailor Moon, and this issue is where the coalition of allies that makes that narrative possible first takes shape.
ComicBooks.com Value
This exact issue on ebay
Raw — VF/NM ▾ $1.76–$2.53 2 listings
Raw — FN ▾ $3.98–$4.98 2 listings
Raw / ungraded ▾ $2.99–$64.99 17 listings
More listings for this title
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
The series was written by Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn and drawn by Ernie Colón, under editor Karen Berger with Dick Giordano as executive editor — the same editorial axis that would later shape DC's Vertigo sensibility. The title itself emerged from a naming conflict: the original pitch was called 'Changeling,' but that name had just been adopted by Beast Boy of the Teen Titans, prompting Mishkin to rename the protagonist Amethyst, a decision that cascaded into the jewel-themed world-building of Gemworld entire. DC labeled the 12-part run a 'maxi-series,' a then-novel format for the publisher, and it launched off a 16-page preview insert bound into Legion of Super-Heroes #298 in April 1983, with the main series beginning the following month.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Story title: 'Dark Journeys' — written by Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn, art by Ernie Colón, cover date August 1983 (on sale April 12, 1983).
- First appearances of Prince Topaz, Princess Emerald, Lord Emerald, and Lady Emerald — the key Gemworld noble houses that become Amethyst's primary allies across the remainder of the maxi-series.
- The cover was penciled and inked by Ernie Colón; George Pérez contributed the jeweled decorative frame element.
- The story's central conflict — Amethyst confronting Dark Opal directly to save a soul imperiled by him — raises the villain from a background schemer to an immediate, personal threat for the first time in the series.
- Edited by Karen Berger, who would later found DC's Vertigo imprint; Dick Giordano served as executive editor on the series throughout its run.
- The issue was reprinted in the German anthology Die großen Phantastic-Comics #31 (Egmont Ehapa) and again in Showcase Presents: Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld (DC, November 2012), the latter a black-and-white 648-page trade collecting the full maxi-series.
- The broader maxi-series, of which this is the fourth chapter, predated both She-Ra: Princess of Power and Sailor Moon, making it an early Western forerunner of the magical-girl genre.
- The series was originally pitched to DC under the title 'Changeling,' but the name was changed after Beast Boy of the Teen Titans had adopted that alias — causing Mishkin to pivot to 'Amethyst' and redesign the entire cast around a gemstone theme.
Cast · 3 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Showcase Presents Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld #[nn] (2012), Amethyst Princess of Gemworld #2, Die großen Phantastic-Comics #31
Key issues in Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld
Variants (2)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.