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.