Sword of Sorcery #5

Worst assassins ever. "There's our quarry! Be sure she sees us and has time to draw her weapon. We wouldn't want to murder her by silent or secret attack often for political reasons!"

Amethyst begins with Amy returning to Gemworld and telling her mother how she touched Timothy Hunter and "woke up his power." She and her mother must have a fairly close relationship to discuss things like this. I would feel kind of weirded out telling my mom how I touched some guy. Although I have no problem telling the entire internet how some guy touched me! The Ken part of Me and Ken is Doom Bunny, for those people keeping score. The me part is me.

She just told you she was off touching boys and you freak out about the pizza?!

Amethyst accidentally transfers the power of the Portal Crystal into the amethysts she wears on her person so she can travel between Gemworld and Earth more easily. When this happens, some bigot of House Citrine starts whining about how Turquoises and Amethysts shouldn't interbreed. Next she'll probably start pointing out how the members of House Onyx can't swim but are super good at assassinating. And how the members of House Diamond can't dance and love to stab siblings in the back. That bitch is racist. Or am I racist for coming up with all the racist stuff I imagine she believes?

No, no. She's racist. You can see it in the way Aaron Lopresti drew her racist eyes.

Is it racist to point out that everyone in House Citrine is racist?

Amethyst and her mom take a road trip to visit the tomb of Amethyst's father in the Land of Turquoise. While on the road, Amethyst learns how her father researched how to open up a portal to Earth so that his family could hide there from Amethyst's Aunt Mordiel, if it came to that. During the story, Amethyst incidentally learns a little about Eclipso's history.

So the Black Diamond was brought to earth from Hell by Exoristo. Then somewhere along the way, it passed on into Gemworld (perhaps it was even instrumental in creating Gemworld?). And then Eclipso caused a bunch of fucking trouble and was kicked out and sent back to earth.

At her dad's tomb, Amethyst learns a little more. Like how her grandfather betrayed her mother and father resulting in her father, Vyrian, having to give up his own life to open the portal to earth to save his family. So Amethyst's aunt and grandfather are both assholes, although her grandfather seems remorseful. But it's easy to act guilty and remorseful after you've gotten all of your power back from your stupid dead son. She also learns that a couple of assassins are lying in wait to kill her mother.

In Dungeons and Dragons, two high level assassins can usually defeat a Level One teenaged girl.

Amethyst uses her Firestarter powers to kill one of the assassins. Except she doesn't create fire with her mind. She creates pointy gems and flings them through the air. She's not pyrokinetic; she's kosmimakinetic. Or something. I never claimed to be a linguist! I'm fairly decent at bullshitting though. It's very similar.

Amethyst kills the second assassin in the more conventional blade through the sternum way. She's become a pretty good survivor even though she isn't enjoying the killing. Probably because there isn't any loot to be had after the battle. The loot is always the best part and the main reason for killing! Killing for self-defense is boring.

After the battle, Lady Akikra of House Onyx shows up with some sketchy story about how she was there to make sure her "rogue assassins" failed. That must be why they were so awful at assassinating! They put all of their experience and skill points into thieving! Dumb dumbs! Lady Akikra gives Amethyst a Healing Ruby to help her mother and kills Amethyst's grandfather as an extra special bonus present. Gee, thanks!

No heir? Amethyst is sitting right there! Total heir-head! If Amethyst didn't suddenly fill up with Turquoise Power, that means her grandfather or her dad had a little bastard on the side somewhere before she was born. Otherwise she was next in line for the power.

Oh! And in the last two pages, we get to meet this bastard. He's a thief goes by the name of Preet. But the best part is he has a pet cat named Fuzzybutt! I sense a new favorite character coming on!

No, not fucking Preet. The kitty cat!

I can't believe this title is on the chopping block. I bet Didio hates it because it takes place on a world separate from earth and then hampers his ability to "world-build". It's building its own world with solid characters and an interesting history. And I like Amethyst! But I guess if it's sales aren't as good as Superboy's sales, I can only blame other comic book readers for supporting shit while despising fun. "Hey, Mr. Comic Book Store Owner! Can you put Shit, Crap, Vomit, and Excrement on my monthly pull list! Yeah, a little of Lobdell's and a pile of DeFalco's. Oh! And Ann Nocenti's pussy discharge." Pussy as in that yellow stuff that comes out of festering wounds, you misogynist gun jumpers!

Next up is Stalker! I claimed last issue that Stalker killed all across time for fun and has only recently met up with Lucifer, the person that owns his soul. But it sounds more like Stalker was doing all of the killing across time for Lucifer. And the story focuses on this killing because it could possibly be Stalker's final job for the devil. He has to find a woman name Clarissa Rowe that has something of Lucifer's. I don't know if Stalker is supposed to kill her or not. I also don't know if I should recognize that name.

Stalker finds her pregnant ass pretty quickly because this is only the back-up story. It doesn't have time to fuck around being that it only has eight pages.

As I mentioned last issue: this story would deal with his long lost family.

Even though letting Lucifer have Stalker's great-great-great-nearly-ad-infinitum-grandson would mean Stalker would get his soul back, Stalker decides to fight Lucifer by casting Rune Spell in Rune Speak (Rune Speak is, apparently, the proper name for DC's Alien Language which was last called (in Swamp Thing) "Old Portugese" [sic]). He escapes with his progeny and heads back to his shit-hole apartment.

Apparently the Ninja Turtles own their own pizza place now.

Stalker begins to help Clarissa deliver her baby when the devil and his host of demons appears for the big showdown. Which will happen next issue. And which I don't really care that much about. I'm not a fan of Stalker. He's like Phantom Stranger Lite.

Sword of Sorcery #5 Rating: +1 Ranking. I'm enjoying Amethyst in Gemworld more and more. And since I'm now reminded of it, I'll watch the DC Nation Amethyst cartoons!

The first one introduces us to Amy and her new problem. So cute. Love the Sailor Moon transformation.

The second part teaches us of her quest! And her ability to think under spiders!

The third part is just fucking adorable.

The fourth part should end, "I'm proud to be a Skeleton-Gemworldian!"

The fifth part ends on a cliffhanger that I can't unhang from because I guess the next part hasn't aired yet?! Dammit! I watched them too soon!