Long(er) Boxes

Summary

This is the start of a new series for DC featuring a reboot of Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld!

What’s good?

The art in this book is gorgeous. I’m not familiar with Aaron Lopresti’s prior work but I’m definitely going to be looking into it. The colors are gorgeous too.

I really like this book’s main character, Amy. She’s a firecracker that stands up for others and can hold her own in a fight in a realistic manner. Seriously, that’s big for me. I hate “waif-fu” and seeing this solidly built girl fighting dirty, fighting to win, sold me on the action. She’s a solid female character that is level-headed and doesn’t have a revealing outfit. This is exactly the kind of character we need so we can progress past all the unnecessary “cheesecake” in comics.

What’s not-so-good?

This book is ridiculously generic. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: an ordinary girl discovers that her boring, ordinary life is a lie when she’s whisked away on her birthday to a magical land where she discovers she’s a princess and there are dark forces trying to keep her from reclaiming her birthright.

I’m cool with a generic premise if you can do something interesting with it but this book needed to do a little bit more to convince me to come back for a second issue. There was just too much “been there, done that.”

There’s an appearance at the very end of the main feature that felt more like an ad for another comic than a page of story.

I’m definitely not feeling the back-up. I’m pretty sure audiences are familiar with the story of Beowulf and transporting it into a post-apocalyptic landscape isn’t going to make it fresh or new. 

Rate that shit!

This is a generic first issue of a book with gorgeous art that, in spite of my better attempts at frugality, is going to make me come back for another. This gets a 7/10.

McStack