DC Comics is back on top for the first time that I can remember, which with my memory is saying something. The publisher has finally been able to defeat Marvel in the sales charts and is putting out hit book after hit book. We’ve reached one of those eras in the comic industry when DC, Marvel, and the indies are all putting out fantastic comics. It’s something of a golden age right now and it reminds me of previous decades when it felt like the entire comic industry was hitting like this. One of the most fruitful of those times was the 1980s; Marvel and DC were selling comics at every store you can imagine and were trying to create their empires of cartoons and comics, challenging the big names like Barbie. DC was especially serious about this and created a character meant to be the next big thing – Amethyst.
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One market that DC and Marvel could never really conquer back in the day were girls. Sure, boys loved characters like Batman, Superman, Wolverine, and Spider-Man, but young girls rarely gravitated towards superhero comics. It wasn’t exactly impossible and there were books with high female readership, but girls and superhero books just didn’t go together back then. DC had some of the best female superheroes ever, but that never mattered if girls never read them. Amethyst was created from the beginning to be a character that appealed to the young girls of the ’80s. While she was something of a failure, she’s had a rich history and could finally become a big deal in the 21st century thanks to the DCU.
DC Wanted In On the Girl Side of Pop Culture and Amethyst Was Their Ticket
I was born and raised in the ’80s, so when I say that it was a different time in pop culture, believe me. The idea of “boy’s toys” and “girl’s toys” was everywhere. While there were always kids who were outliers, for the most part, the genders stayed in their lanes back then, if for no other reason than no one was given any other choice. DC and Marvel both had cornered the boys side of the market and wanted in on the girls. While Marvel was working with Mattel to create Nick Fury figures, that would become the new G.I. Joes, DC went in another direction.
Back in the day, there was an idea of “boy’s stories” and “girl’s stories”. Superhero comics were boy’s stories, Betty and Veronica were girl’s stories. Girl’s stories were often about a little girl being taken to another world where they are revealed to be a secret princess or the magical person everyone was waiting for. Basically, back then, a lot of girl’s fantasy stories were isekais and that was the direction that Amethyst was meant to take. She was going to be the kind of fantasy character focus-grouped to appeal to little girls.
DC Comics in the ’80s was a very different place. Whereas the DC we’re used to now is mostly superhero comics, back then, you got all kinds of books. There were war comics, Western comics, and swords and sorcery books. Girl’s stories were often more fantasy-oriented (when they weren’t just set in the real world), so Amethyst was going to be about a magical girl. That’s right, Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld was going to be a magical girl isekai; magical girl manga had been around since the early ’60s, but Amethyst was doing the Sailor Moon thing eight years before that series would debut.
Amethyst was Amy Winston (speaking as an ’80s baby, that was honestly a super ’80s name; I feel like I knew an Amy Winston growing up). She first appeared in a back-up story for Legion of Superheroes #298 in April 1983. She was just a normal American ’80s girl, living a normal American life when she discovered that her life wasn’t what it seemed. She wasn’t Amy, but Princess Amaya of Gemworld, a magical world ruled by twelve families based on various gemstones. She was the princess of the House of Amethyst and her nursemaid Citrine sent her to Earth to save her from assassination at the hands of Dark Opal.
On her 13th birthday, she discovered the truth about her life, becoming the last scion of the House of Amethyst and battling the forces of Dark Opal. On the one hand, Gemworld seems like something an old man would come up with to appeal to girls – a world made of jewelry – but it was folded into the DC Multiverse expertly. Gemworld was related to the Lords of Order and Chaos and it would be set up as important to the overall magical cosmology of the DC Multiverse. Amethyst served as one of the protectors of the origins of magic, positioning her as something of a major character.
Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld #1-12 told the beginning of her battles against Dark Opal. It was successful enough to lead to an annual and an ongoing series, but that only lasted for 16 issues. It would be followed by a one-shot special and a four-issue miniseries that would end her adventures in 1986. She wasn’t exactly a failure, but the character never really caught on and she’d make sporadic appearances over the years; Gemworld itself made more appearances than she did. In 2005, she popped up again in Infinite Crisis, but DC never got around to bringing Gemworld back to prominence.
She’d get her chance in next chance in 2012, when she was the main character of the New 52’s Sword of Sorcery, but that book would only last until 2013. Fans don’t really seem to want fantasy characters in their comics anymore and Amethyst has been a tough sell in the modern day. DC tried again with her in 2020, in Brian Michael Bendis’s Young Justice reboot, leading to a miniseries. DC would also put out an Amethyst book for younger readers in 2021, but so far, Amethyst has yet to catch on.
Amethyst Could Make a Huge Splash in the 21st Century
DC is hitting new levels of popularity, both in the comics and in the greater pop culture. There are a treasure trove of basically every kind of character you can imagine in the DC Multiverse and Amethyst is a character whose time has come. She was created back in the day to appeal to little girls, back when we split up pop culture by gender, but she’s perfect for the modern day. Amethyst is a character with a rich history, and it’s one that fans would love to explore if they got a chance.
DC Studios has the opportunity to bring some of the weirder parts of DC to the world and Amethyst is perfect for that. Right now, manga and anime are much bigger than superheroes and Amethyst, as mentioned above, is basically a magical girl isekai character. DC should go to Japan right now, get one of the better anime studios and put out an Amethyst isekai. The ’80s weren’t the right time for Amethyst, but because of the popularity of manga and anime, the days to come could be.
What do you think about Amethyst? Do you think she would appeal to the manga fans of the 21st century? Sound off in the comment section below.
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