Sword of Sorcery #5 – Review

By: Christy Marx (story), Aaron Lopresti (art), Hi-Fi (colors)

The Story: The mother and daughter who stick together survive assassinations together.

The Review: Whenever there’s a cancellation, no matter how deserved, I always feel rather sorry for the creators.  For Marx, Lopresti, and Hi-Fi, that kind of pity goes even further, considering how brief their time on this series has been.  Still, the writing was on the wall since the title debuted on the low end of the rankings (#84, according to Comichron), and has only spiraled downward ever since (#139 just last month).

I’m sure, however, that Marx et al knew that the climb would always be a rather steep one.  Even in the generally geeky world of comics, the fantasy genre is something of a niche area, and a fantasy series starring a teenaged girl in a world of crystals is only going to have it even harder appealing to an audience of mostly male twenty-somethings.  Much as we’d like to believe comic book readers have grown more diverse in their tastes, I suspect a title like Sword of Sorcery will always have to struggle a little for success.

Sword of Sorcery #4 – Review

By: Christy Marx (story), Travis Moore (pencils), Karl Story (inks), Hi-Fi (colors)

The Story: Amy spends her last hour on Earth indulging in mankind’s greatest invention.

The Review: One WCBR reader who regularly comments on this series is David Austin, who has often mentioned his disappointment that Sword of Sorcery isn’t appropriate for his young daughter to read.  To be honest, my first instinct was to scoff and dismiss the concern—sorry Dave, but this is a mainstream comic with the word “sword” in the title, after all—but lately, I’ve developed a little more appreciation for his point of view.

It is true that certain moments in the series haven’t been very kid-friendly (e.g. the sexual harassment of Amy’s “friend,” Mordiel’s attempt to have Amy kill her own mother, the squabble between the Diamond princes over whether one has the right to bed a soldier’s new bride).  Yet at the same time, this title doesn’t quite cross the threshold into serious fantasy-drama.  It has been Game of Thrones-Lite, which doesn’t exactly make for an enthusiastic fanbase.

Sword of Sorcery #3 – Review

By: Christy Marx (story), Aaron Lopresti & Claud St. Aubin (art), Hi-Fi (colors)

The Story: Does flying beastback beat magical quick-changing?  Amy decides!

The Review: Of all the “Third Wave” titles, Sword of Sorcery is really starting to prove itself as what I like to call a comfortable middleweight title.  It doesn’t really amaze you with original, far-reaching ideas, but it does try some new things every month.  On a technical level, you can’t fault anything it does, but neither does it stand out in any way.  The most important quality of these titles is their consistent storytelling value.

Marx succeeds on pretty much all counts.  Nothing she’s written so far has set the internet alight for its radical inventiveness, but there’s plenty of interesting material to work with.  Marx clearly is thinking of the long game for this series, as this issue establishes quite a few important plot threads and characters.  None have much weight in themselves, but you can foresee how they may all contribute to a layered, compelling story later on.

Sword of Sorcery #2 – Review

By: Christy Marx (story), Aaron Lopresti (art), Hi-Fi (colors)

The Story: Amy just wishes her mother and aunt would quit playing these mind games with her.

The Review: If you cornered me into identifying the reason why Amethyst and Gemworld remain such popular concepts after all these years, I’d say it’s because they just naturally hold a wealth of storytelling potential.  If every gem represents a different civilization, and you have dozens of different gems, then you’re basically giving the writer a chance to develop a plethora of cultures, histories, and political relationships from whole cloth.

In other words, Marx has her work cut for her.  So far, she’s done a respectable job showing the different talents of the various Houses without forcing the characters to just stand around, explaining everything.  Instead, the details pop up organically through the plot.  House Citrine is a kingdom of recorders, House Turqoise includes some highly talented weavers*, House Onyx seems purely mercenary (ready to aid and attack the same House by request), and House Amethyst evidently produces some quality portal-crystals.

Sword of Sorcery #1 – Review

By: Christy Marx (story), Aaron Lopresti (art), Hi-Fi (colors)

The Story: This is clearly the worst—and best—land for anyone distracted by shiny objects.

The Review: If this series has one major obstacle to success, it’d have to be the fact that it’s a title about princesses and crystals and lots of purple, trying to find fans from an audience of mostly twenty-something-year-old men.  To achieve a more widespread appeal, Marx will have to minimize even the appearance of girly-girlishness and make Gemworld a more complicated, true blue, sword-and-sorcery setting.

So far, Marx has taken some small steps towards that goal.  Although transformed into the spitting image of your usual blond, warrior princess, Amy Winston certainly doesn’t act like it.  She outright rejects the title, and it’s telling that when addressed as “Princess,” she takes offense at what she perceives as a sarcastic comment on her limitations in battle.  As seen in #0, Amy has made it a life habit to shy away from group-think and stereotype, which will only cause tension between her and the traditionalist forces of Gemworld.

Sword of Sorcery #0 – Review

By: Christy Marx (story), Aaron Lopresti (art), Hi-Fi (colors)

The Story: On the plus side, Amy discovers that the constant dye jobs are no longer necessary.

The Review: An ongoing featuring Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld, is definitely one of those projects which sound like high-risk, high-reward.  After all, the story of a girl from Earth traveling to a magic land where she transforms into a blonde and purple-robed sorceress sounds more appropriate for a children’s cartoon than mainstream comics.  Cute as her DC Nation short appearances were, can Amethyst make a dent in the new DCU?

If you want to make it in a serious business, you have to take your work seriously, and Marx does just that.  On the one hand, this is yet another story where the mother keeps secrets from her daughter, forcing her to do inexplicable things, all to prepare her for some major quest later on.  But Amy’s mom makes it clear that she’s keeping secrets that will be revealed at a precise time and date; there’s an element of control and foresight in her planning that sets her apart from the woman who does what she can and simply hopes for the best.