Random Back Issues #145 - Amethyst #3

Amethyst is back in Gemworld, though she isn't sure how, and unknown to her, her body is still asleep on Earth. Portents say Gemworld's doomed, so she'd just as soon go home. But, until she can figure out how, she might as well get involved in revolutions. Lord Aquamarine is dealing with a rebellion, led by a fisherman with an enchanted scimitar.

OK, Lord Aquamarine was dealing with a rebellion. Now he's dead, but Quarr balks at the idea of killing Aquamarine's child bride (his 6th) or her baby. Which puts him at odds with the mysterious Fire Jade, who gave him the scimitar in the first place. But Amethyst doesn't know that when she shows up slinging magic. Magic which is promptly reflected back at one of her allies by Quarr's sword. Amethyst tries containing Fire Jade in pillars of earth, but Fire Jade combines the earth with her own elemental magic to make flaming golems, and retreats underground, where she cradles some weird sucker-faced thing.

The golems are a problem until Amethyst gets hold of a sword to lop their flaming heads off. At which point she turns on the fishermen and is on the verge of slaughtering them, until the High Priest Diamond gets through to her. Amethyst isn't sure why she got so bloodthirsty, and while Diamond apparently knows, he doesn't get a chance to tell before "fire imps" start chasing Aquamarine's widow. Quarr jumps in and takes out the flames. At which point, Fire Jade emerges from a gush of magma like one of those annoying video game bosses that runs away and makes you fight cannon fodder for a while, then returns at full health.

She does the Big Rant how she's going to destroy Gemworld, and magic is unbalanced from Dark Opal and Aquamarine dying. Princess Emerald manages to clear a path through the flames for Amethyst, but takes a hit in the process, though not a lethal one, oddly. Quarr follows, buying Amethyst time use wind magic to swallow the imps. Which gives Quarr a chance to run Fire Jade through, sending her falling back into the magma.

This apparent death also frees Prince Topaz from a trance where he was wooing Turquoise, only to kill her while she slept. So that's one death averted, but back at the battlefield, Amethyst is figuring out Quarr and the fishermen weren't just dupes. They had legit grievances with Aquamarine, and they aren't going to agree to his widow or, his infant child, being put in charge. Amethyst agrees with Quarr's idea of having the realm ruled by its people (to Moonstone's obvious displeasure), but then she vanishes.

{1st longbox, 153rd comic. Amethyst (vol. 2) #3, by Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn (writers), Ric Estrada and Romeo Tanghal (artists), Carl Gafford (colorist), John Costanza (letterer)}