Amulet (comics)
Amulet is an American Manga series illustrated and written by Kazu Kibuishi and published by Scholastic.[1][2][3] It follows the adventures of Emily, a young girl who discovers a sentient magical amulet in her maternal great-grandfather's house.
 Amulet Boxed Set of Books 1-3 | |
| Author | Kazu Kibuishi |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Stonekeeper |
| Illustrator | Kazu Kibuishi Jason Caffoe |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Adventure, Fantasy, Science fiction |
| Publisher | GRAPHIX |
| Published | January 1, 2008–present |
| Media type | Mangal |
Synopsis
The Stonekeeper: After David Hayes died in a car accident, his widow, Karen, and their children, Emily and Navin, move to a house in the little town of Norlen near San Francisco, as Karen hopes that a new location will help them reboot their lives. The house, which has been in her family for years, is large and needs care and attention. As they clean the house, Emily finds a strange amulet in the library where her great-grandfather, Silas Charnon, worked, and puts it on. That night, hearing strange noises, Karen goes to the basement and is kidnapped by a monstrous arachnopod. Emily and Navin follow in order to save their mother into another world in the basement. They are pursued by a mysterious elf but are rescued by a rabbit-like robot called Miskit. Miskit brings them to Silas' house, and they meet his other robots Cogsley, Morrie, and Bottle. Emily talks to Silas, who dies soon afterward. Emily is spoken to by a voice of the amulet, which tells her to accept the powers of the amulet and become a stonekeeper in order to save their mother, and Emily accepts, despite Navin's disagreement. They then hunt down the arachnopod in a plane with Navin as the pilot, and Emily using her stone as defense when Miskit's gun fails because it was a vitamin gun. They fail to rescue Karen at first, but the mysterious elf reappears and kills the arachnopod, freeing Karen from the corpse. Emily and the elf struggle and Emily uses the stone to overwhelm the elf, Trellis. Karen is poisoned by the arachnopod and the house transforms into a walking robot to find a cure.
The Stonekeeper's Curse: After Karen is by the arachnopod, Emily and Navin take her to the city of Kanalis to find a cure, unaware that they are being hunted by Elves sent by the Elf King. The people of Kanalis have been slowly turning into animals over years due to a curse, as the newcomers discover. They meet a humanoid fox named Leon Redbeard who helps them escape from the elves, insisting they are going to need his help. While Emily, Miskit and Leon travel to Demon Head's Mountain, Navin is introduced by Balan (a bull) to the Resistance, a crew of humanoid animals who oppose the tyranny of the elves. They help them repower the robots in the house after they shut down to prevent the elves from gathering information. Emily, Leon and Miskit arrive at their destination and are encountered by the Gadobah trees, which are future-telling trees that bear the fruit that can cure Emily's mother. Using her stone's powers, she finds a non-poisonous one and they set off to reunite with Navin and the Resistance. They are stopped by Luger, an elf stonekeeper, who is then attacked by Trellis. Luger loses control of his amulet's power, hence the title, but is destroyed by Navin piloting the robotic house infused with Emily's amulet power.
The Cloud Searchers: After Karen is cured of the arachnopd's poison, Leon takes Emily and company to search the skies to find Cielis, the legendary city of stonekeepers. They find a pair of cats, Enzo and Rico, who own an airship. Enzo had apparently glimpsed Cielis, but he refuses to help until the elves storm the bar. Failing to find Emily or Navin, they upturn Trellis, who is revealed to be the Elf Prince, and Luger, who seems timid and unable compared to the previous book. Emily rescues and recruits the two, who are both no longer operating under the Elf King. While traveling, they are pursued by bounty hunter elf Gabilan, and are attacked by creatures called wyverns. While trying to fix one of the plane's wings, Miskit and Cogsley are swept off the ship by one of the wyverns. When they arrive at Cielis, Gabilan confronts them but is defeated by Emily and Trellis. Emily shows him a kindness when she opts not to kill him. A stonekeeper named Max Griffin welcomes them to Cielis, and tells them that Emily will shortly be tested and be part of the Guardian Council should she succeed. Trellis and Luger are taken as prisoners, to the discomfort of Emily.
The Last Council: After Emily and company find the city of Cielis, they attempt to see the Guardian Council, but they slowly realize that something strange is going on in the city. Emily's stone tells her she will not hear the stone's voice after she arrives in Cielis, and warns her of a hallway she should not walk down. Emily is sent to the void, which is a simulation which the stonekeepers have to survive. If they die, they're turned to stone. Other young stonekeepers show up angry at Max for omitting this fact, but Ronin and Pierce help Emily, and Max follows. Meanwhile, Leon, Enzo and Rico roam the city, finding it empty, contrary to Leon's memories of the busy streets. A girl called Alyson Hunter takes them to her family restaurant upon discovering they aren't "ghosts", where she explains that the Guardian Council was actually dead but re-animated to trick them into coming, and they rescue Trellis and Luger from their jail cell in Cielis. Meanwhile, Cogsley and Miskit are taken by an older stonekeeper named Vigo, and they also adopt a baby wyvern, which Cogsley names Dagno, after the robot that Silas had never finished building. Cogsley at first tries to leave Dagno alone, but he pursues him, so Cogsley makes Dagno a team member, and they apparently form a strong bond with each other. The two robots leave to go find Cielis and rejoin the others, and Vigo decides to return with them as well. Emily, Max and the other tested stonekeepers find the last shard of the Mother Stone, a stone that was used to create all of the amulets. The other stonekeepers turn to stone, and Emily finds out that they were simply reanimated dead stonekeepers. Max is revealed to be working for the Elf King, and brings the Mother Stone to him.
Prince of the Elves: In the beginning, Max is shown as a child. He is a promising advocate for the Guardian Council along with a young Vigo, but his father refuses as he wants Max to follow in his footsteps, not his grandfather's. His best friend, an elf named Layra, has her parents to be sent to jail for being elves and the risk of them being spies of the Elf King, even though they had done a lot to help build the city of Cielis. When Max's father expresses cold disinterest to helping them because they're elves, Max breaks into Yarboro Prison and rescues them. Shortly after taking off, they are shot down and Max destroys the airship that did in anger, killing the pilots. He is sentenced to 50 years in the Ice Prison of Korthan, and attempts to escape but dies from the cold, yet is resurrected by the Voice. Ever since, Max has been aiding the Elf King to destroy the people of Cielis for revenge. Meanwhile, after Emily and Vigo become the last Guardian Council, the city guard begins preparations to fight the Elf Army, but the enemy gets stronger and the Elf King begins to use the last shard of the Mother Stone to create his own Guardian Council. Navin and Cogsley enter a course that uses mech suits and airships to fight the Elf King, and Navin and Alyson attempt to fight Max in an airship, and are almost killed until Emily and Vigo appear. Unbeknownst to everyone except a worried Luger, Trellis is secretly attempting to travel to the past through the void to stop the terrible things that the elves did, which was influenced by the elf king, when he was actually just going into his memories. Emily joins him, telling him they're all in danger. Trellis wakes up to find the airship destroyed and all of them falling, but manages to land everyone safely. He reenters the void to wake up a still-sleeping Emily, and find they're in the moment Max succumbed to the Voice. They wake up, and so does Max a few miles. The Voice fixes all his bones and tells him he has work to do.
Escape from Lucien: While Max promises the Elf King to kill the other stonekeepers once and for all, he secretly is recruiting them to enter their memories so they can kill the voice with their powers and the mountain giant, Chronos. Meanwhile, the elves fire on the academy's ship where Alyson Hunter and 2 other recruits are to fly their mech suits to the city of Lucien, which has already been destroyed by Max. The three are then joined by Navin when they crash-land. They are repeatedly pursued by shadows, gas organisms that need hosts to survive, and one takes over their classmate. They are saved by the elf Riva Ash who shows them that the inhabitants of Lucien have moved underground, and they reunite with the Resistance and Balan. When shadows attack, Riva attempts to evacuate everyone via the underground trains. Navin, Alyson and Riva's advisor, the robot General Pil, get rid of as much shadows as they could before they're forced to escape to a portal where they borrow mech suits from Pil's parents. They travel to Frontera, the Resistance's base, to attempt to launch an attack on the Elf King's kingdom, Valcor. Meanwhile, the four stone keepers arrive at a memory of Valcor, where the Voice lives. During the confrontation, Chronos is killed, and Max decides he cannot continue on his current path any longer, after being reminded about everything he has done and seeing he was simply a corpse being kept alive by the Voice. The Voice accepts this, and takes Max's life away. Before dying, he tells them to visit Algos Island for Trellis. The remaining three stonekeepers arrive in the real world and save a ship full of Elf King followers that was about to explode, and are able to make them faithful to prince Trellis. They then encounter Riva, who explains what happened to Navin.
Firelight: Emily, Trellis and Vigo travel to Algos Island, where they're attacked by Gabilan. They manage to restrain him, and he explains that he can help them. He takes Emily and Trellis to a forgotten underwater city, where he hides all the memories he's stolen. They enter memories of Trellis' childhood that his father had Gabilan take away from Trellis, and learn that the "dark shadows", whom the Voice is one of, were created by refugees from a dead planet who are intent on taking over Alledia. Emily is lured by the Voice into a memory that turns out to be from the man who was inadvertently responsible for her father's death. There, Emily partially gives in to feelings of hatred and revenge, enough so that the stone's power appears to completely take over her as it did with Luger, turning into a firebird and escaping into the real world so it can use her as part of the shadows' plan. Some part of Emily is still intact, and before her transformation she orders Trellis to help restore her, as she once did for him. The shadows use striker fish to bust the dome and the whole place gets flooded. Trellis escapes and reunites with the crew, but Gabilan is nowhere to be seen (although he assured Trellis he could survive). Meanwhile, Navin and Alyson work at a restaurant to get enough money to buy tickets for airships in order to get to Frontera, but they are pursued by bounty hunters of the Elf King. Riva Ash's friends help them escape to Frontera. Navin and Aly reunite with Miskit and Leon, and together with other members of the Resistance's clandestine space program, blast off into space to enter the Resistance's other base and to fight the shadows from there.
Supernova: Emily's amulet takes over her, by acting as if the voice is her late father, imprisoning her in the Void. Emily travels inside the Void to search for a way to escape it, where she meets some new friends...who hide some dark secrets. She meets a boy named Moze and an old lady. When she is about to leave, she realises that the old lady with an Amulet is herself Emily. Then when she leaves, the voice, Ikol, throws the old lady and it is revealed that she is Moze's mother. Meanwhile, Navin and Aly travel to the Resistance's base on a new planet, and are quickly assigned to an apparently easy mission...until the stakes are heightened and they have little time to escape the planet.
Main characters
Emily Hayes
Emily Hayes is a stonekeeper and the successor of Silas Charnon, her great-grandfather; she is a leading member of the remaining Guardian Council. She is the daughter of Karen and David, and older sister of Navin Hayes. She has bright red hair, and later uses a long walking stick to channel the stone's power via Leon's advice.
Described as a "natural born leader", she has demonstrated herself to be a very skilled and adept fighter and stonekeeper, even if she has much to learn about the true nature of her stone. Her goal upon entering Alledia was to find a cure for Karen when she was poisoned after she was stung by an arachnopod, but she remained in Alledia after her mother was cured in order to lend support in the fight against the Elf King and later the Voice.
After the death of her father, Emily and her family move to her great-grandfather Silas' house near San Francisco. After saving her mother, and curing her from the arachnopod's poison as well in the second book, she became more comfortable with being a 'hero', and claims even if she did intend to go back to Earth, the amulet would stop her, but in the third book this is revealed to be false. In the same book, she recruits Trellis and becomes one of his only initial friends. In the sixth book, when Max Griffin accepts his fate of dying, she tries to prevent that, which shows another decision affected from her compassionate side. Emily is usually very resistant to the Voice's attempts to control her, except in the seventh book; when the Voice finds out about her longing for her dead father, he causes her to give in to her desire for revenge against the man that accidentally caused the death of David Hayes, and she turns into a firebird (that is, an enormous phoenix) and becomes an unwilling servant of the Voice. Then she is turned back by a trip to the void and mets her future self.
Navin Hayes
Navin is Emily Hayes’ younger brother. Navin is initially childish and a little immature, but matures over the series. Navin seems to be naturally talented at controlling robots and automatons, stemming from his love for video games as a child. This talent has helped him perform feats that help the group. In the first book, Navin flies a plane while other members of the group. Navin learns how to control the Charon House, and in the second book, he defeats Luger and saves Emily with his control of the house-robot. In the third, when Enzo's robot loses control of the Luna Moth ship, Navin quickly takes control and prevents them from falling. In the fifth book, Navin attempts to defeat Max in one of the ships, but ultimately fails. In the sixth book, Navin helps defeat the shadows in the cleaning mech suits.
The robots made by Silas consider Navin as their chief.
Navin is caring for his friends and family, and always gets worried when Emily is in danger. In the second book, when a Gadobah tree predicts Emily falling from a cliff, Navin recklessly goes to rescue her, showing his care for his family.
Navin is shown to have brown hair, resembling his father.
Trellis
Trellis is the son of the Elf King and younger brother of Luger, as well as a stonekeeper and intended successor to the throne of Gulfen. After failing to capture Emily and having his act of interception at Gondoa Mountain seen as treason, Trellis and his brother Luger abandon the Elf King, eventually joining Emily and the Resistance after Emily defends them from the Elf King's soldiers.
Originally, Trellis played the antagonist in the first two books, but in the third his purposes were revealed. In the first book, he had attempted to force Emily into defeating his father, the Elf King, through the kidnapping of her mom. In the third book, Emily saves him from the Elf King's guards when they attempted to arrest him, using a stunning staff to electrocute him. He tells Emily that his father is being possessed by something, and that he wanted to destroy whatever was controlling his dead body by destroying the amulet of the king. In the fifth book, they find out it was the Voice. In the sixth book, Trellis becomes warmer to the crew of the Luna Moth, especially Luger, playing a game of Othello together and exchanging witty banter. Both did not know they were brothers until book three, since Gabilan stole their memories. Trellis starts trusting Emily after her step to save him in book 5, eventually developing a strong bond of trust with her and becoming close.
Like most elves, Trellis has grey skin, but with a lighter tone. He is shown to have long white hair, and in the beginning of the series had sharp teeth, but that was removed after the fifth book. He has a long stitched up scar on his left eye. When he and Emily enter his stolen memories in the seventh book, he finds out that he got his scar when the king, who had abnormally sharp and long fingernails, scratched his eye with it. Trellis is especially talented in defending with the amulet.
Trellis believes his father has long been dead and is under the possession of his stone. His goal is to destroy the stone, and prevent any further harm to his nation, Gulfen, and the rest of Alledia. Trellis has very few memories from his childhood. Many significant events from his past are revealed to him when Trellis tries to enter the Void in book 5, as he finds out he was primarily raised by his mild historian uncle and when he entered his memories in book 7, learning about how he received his scar and the fate of his late uncle.
Leon Redbeard
Leon Redbeard, like many other citizens of Kanalis, came under the effects of a curse during his human childhood, causing him to become a humanoid fox (with others in the city becoming different animals). Leon’s father was a guard of the jail where the Elf King was kept imprisoned, and was killed when the Elf King lost control of his powers. After this event Leon decided to avenge his father and worked for the Guardian Council to defeat the Elf King, and so looked for Emily per their request. In the second and third books, Leon is able to teach Emily basic lessons on how to wield the amulet's power, teaching her to channel her energy through a staff and how to protect items and beings using her Stone. In the fourth book, Leon helps Enzo and Alyson Hunter free Trellis and Luger from Cielis jail. He makes short cameo appearances in the fifth, sixth and seventh book.
Vigo Light
Vigo first appears in the fourth book, when Cogsley and Miskit fall off the Luna Moth and he rescues them and brings them to his house. As a child, he befriended Max Griffin, who often had no friends due to his respect to elves, even though the specific elves he respected did a lot to help the city of Cielis. Soon after he joined the guardian council (the protectors of Cielis) he left because the council only made its decisions based on its fears. When he grew up, Vigo married someone, but after his wife died, his son made in attempt to travel into the past to revive her, a technique of using the power stonekeepers possessed that Silas had made a theory of, when really he was just entering his memories. He stayed in his memories for months, never waking up, then died, causing much grief to Vigo. In the other books, he tries his best to help the crew of the Luna Moth. He originally disliked Trellis, but became neutral to him in the sixth book. In the seventh book, he mentioned that he didn't like leaving Emily with Gabilan as, by his once being a father, he had a father's instinct. He has a grey beard, and wears a blue overcoat. Interestingly, his stone is green and does not have the Voice's symbol on it, like all the other stones do.
Max Griffin
Max Griffin makes his debut in the third book to take Emily to Cielis after she activates a beacon. In the fourth book, he, Emily and two other young Stonekeepers were transported to the caverns of Cielis instead of the void. The four complete multiple tasks, and found themselves the main chamber containing the mother stone. He steals it, revealing his true loyalty to the nation of the Elves. The fifth book shows his tense relationship with his father, and friendship with a young elf called Layra, whose family was persecuted against because they were elves, despite their help in building Cielis. When he destroys a city airship in anger for shooting down Layra's family, he's sentenced to fifty years in prison. His partially successful escape and subsequent death results in the stone taking over. His last appearance was in the sixth book, when he spies on the resistance by hiding in an illusion of clouds while Navin is learning in the colossus program. He sends a servant to request the Guardian Council's help, when he talks to them asking them to help him fight off the voice. Then they all enter the void and talk to the voice where it promptly undoes all that it has done, killing him. His final words were to Trellis that were important: "Forgive your people. They did not know... That you are the king." This meant that Max had been a false prince of the elves for his life and Trellis is the true king.
The Elf King
The Elf King is mentioned in the first book and makes his debut in the second book. He the evil ruler of Alledia and was originally an elf child until he lost control of his powers and became a monster. He was reverted to normal by a group of stonekeepers including Silas Charnon, and was locked up. His stone returned to him as he died and reanimated him, allowing him to escape. He took over the Elf nation of Gulfen and led an army to attack the city of Cielis. At some point, his wife (who apparently died) gave birth to Trellis and Luger. He was annoyed by Trellis' rebellious streak and he eventually allowed a shadow to possess his son. When Emily came to Alledia, he first attempted to recruit her, then tried to kill her when she refused to join him. In the fifth book, the thing controlling him was revealed to be the Voice. In the eighth book, Emily ripped off his mask, revealing the Voice's symbol branded on his face. The removal of his mask killed the King.
Volumes
| Volume | Title | Release Date | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Stonekeeper | January 1, 2008 | 9780439846806 (HC)
9780439846813 (TPB) |
| 2 | The Stonekeeper's Curse | September 1, 2009 | 9780439846820 (HC)
9780439846837 (TPB) |
| 3 | The Cloud Searchers | September 1, 2010 | 9780545208840 (HC)
9780545208857 (TPB) |
| 4 | The Last Council | September 1, 2011 | 9780545208864 (HC)
9780545208871 (TPB) |
| 5 | Prince of the Elves | September 1, 2012 | 9780545208888 (HC)
9780545208895 (TPB) |
| 6 | Escape from Lucien | August 26, 2014 | 9780545848992 (HC)
9780545433150 (TPB) |
| 7 | Firelight | February 23, 2016 | 9780545839662 (HC)
9780545433167 (TPB) |
| 8 | Supernova | September 25, 2018 | 9780545850025 (HC)
9780545828604 (TPB) |
On October 3, 2014, Kibuishi confirmed on Twitter that the series will have nine volumes.[4] He estimates the final volume will come out in 2021.[5]
Film adaptation
In 2016, 20th Century Fox and Temple Hill Entertainment announced production of an adaptation of the graphic novel. The project had been previously set up at Warner Bros with Will Smith and James Lassiter’s Overbrook Entertainment and Akiva Goldsman’s Weed Road shingle, with Smith’s kids, Willow and Jaden, being previously attached to star. Aron Eli Coleite was selected to write the script.[6]
References
- John Holbo (November 28, 2008). "Kazu Kibuishi's Amulet". CrookedTimber.org. Retrieved February 26, 2011.
- "Scholastic Gets Kazu Kibuishi's 'Amulet'". ICV2. August 10, 2005. Retrieved February 26, 2011.
- Vincent Janoski (August 26, 2008). "The Geekly Reader: Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi". Wired. Retrieved February 26, 2011.
- Kibuishi, Kazu. "Amulet was always going to be a finite series. I can finally say how long the series will be. 9 books. A trilogy of trilogies, like Bone". twitter.com. Twitter. Retrieved 17 April 2017.
- Kibuishi, Kazu. "To be honest, not until 2021". twitter.com. Twitter. Retrieved 11 June 2020.
- Jaafar, Ali (20 June 2016). "Aron Eli Coleite Tapped By Fox To Adapt Iconic Japanese Graphic Novel 'Amulet'". Deadline. Retrieved 12 July 2017.