IDW Main Series #39 Review · 4:33am Aug 25th, 2016
With information about Season 6's airdate popping up early on in the month of Feburary, the fandom rejoiced and started the count down to the new season. Meanwhile, the IDW comics went back to their regular schedule after a shipping problem in Feburary 2015 resulted in both comics being pushed back to March. While Friends Forever hit twenty five issues with a TwiDash story that got a lot of people talking, the main series resumed the second and final part of a pre Crusaders of The Lost Mark story involving the CMC, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, and Snips and Snails stranded in the mountains. With the main series seeming poised to get back on track, was this issue able to restore faith to it, or sink it back down to the lows of 2015? Well, let's find out.
We begin right where our cliff hanger left off, Diamond Tiara is struggling to hold onto her branch, and Apple Bloom is struggling to hold onto Diamond Tiara's tail. With both leaders out of comission, Silver Spoon immediately takes charge, orchestrating a plan to rescue the two. It involves Scootaloo grabbing hold of a nearby branch and pulling it down, but she needs a boost from Silver Spoon, and a lift from Sweetie Belle, Snips, and Snails, to reach it. The rescue is a success, despite a moment where it seems like it will fail and drag everyone down with it. Firmly on solid ground, the kids have little time to rest before a freak rainstorm starts to wash away the cliffside!
Making a run for it, the gang continue their hike up the mountain, with Apple Bloom leading the way. She soon admits she has no other ideas, but Diamond herself says she doesn't have any either. Fortunately, at that moment, the rain stops. Now high up on the mountain side, the gang has no idea if anypony is searching for them, and Snips and Snails shouting causes a ton of snow to come down and bury them. Soon after that, they find a cave and decide it'll have to do for the night. Diamond goes in first to prove a point, and Scootaloo says she's waiting to see if anything tries to eat Diamond Tiara (to which Diamond replies "I heard that!").
The cave is unoccupied, and everypony heads inside. But it soon gets dark, and it seems no one knows how to make a fire (if the sun were still up, Silver Spoon could try that old trick they use in movies where the one with glasses reflects the sun's rays onto the wood to start a fire). Luckly, it turns out that Snips and Snails can do that, and Diamond and Silver are quite surprised at the two's usefulness, and so are the CMC (no doubt we're all feeling the same way right now). One by one the group whips out their food stash, and Apple Bloom suggests they go the obvious route and split everything up equally (Starlight Glimmer would approve), but Diamond and Silver reject Snips and Snails food (including chocolate frogs, maybe that's a Harry Potter reference, and maybe it isn't). Apple Bloom asks the two rich snobs why they have to be so mean all the time, and Diamond and Silver say they have lots of demands placed on them by their families (probably the ONLY Spoiled Rich foreshadowing in this entire story), but they don't expect everypony else to understand (I could maybe buy Diamond thinking that, given what was shown of her up to this point in the show, and many abuse victims do have problems with empathy and think that others would never understand their struggle). Naturally, Apple Bloom responds with what we're all thinking, and the CMC and Snips and Snails both complain about the expectations they have to live up to. Though Snips and Snails are soon reminded of the fact they almost caused Ponyville to be destroyed, and that gets everypony in the cave to laugh.
Then we get a largely pointless scene in which Diamond and Silver try to strike out on their own, disgusted by the food, but come running right back in when they hear an unfamiliar animal cry. A long night passes, and the next morning Diamond is surprisingly standing outside the cave. Apple Bloom goes up to her, and the two discover The Turul, but Diamond mentions nothing about this to anypony. Soon afterward, a bunch of pegasi, as well as The Wonderbolts and Twilight show up to finally rescue the group. And a celebration of sorts awaits them when they come home safe and sound (I guess on the way home they got a lecture about wandering off from the school group without telling anyone, that's a very serious mistake that can often spell certain death for inexperienced adventurers).
And then on the last page or so this issue falls apart, as the status quo is hastily reset with no mentioning of anything related to "Crusaders of The Lost Mark", as if the IDW staff either hadn't seen it, or had seen it and just decided to ignore it for some reason. In addition, Snips and Snails say they're not going to hang out at school with the CMC, even though they did very little to them (and to be honest, Snips and Snails at worst were reminded of a very serious mistake they made that they got off practically scot free for).
And that's the story, so what do I think of the issue? Well, up until the last page it's pretty solid, though at times there are scenes that feel like they're padding out the length. Someone on this site suggested that this story could've been a one-shot "Friends Forever" story and with a little tweaking I think it could've been so (heck, maybe it was like Main Series #29, but was rejected becasue it didn't have enough friendship?), and Friends Forever #25 could've been bumped up to a two parter. I think the problem with this story is that it came out too late, by this point we'd gotten "Crusaders of The Lost Mark" and practically everyone was in love with the reformed Diamond Tiara (and honestly, she works much better now that she's reformed, instead of being the desginated antagonist we're supposed to hate. Not every story needs to have a bad guy to have a conflict), and there were also those in love with Spoiled Rich for some odd reason (I'm not one of them despite the two stories I've written redeeming her or I should say semi-redeeming her, as I just can't imagine somepony like Spoiled completely changing for the good, at this point she's too set in her ways). So this two parter NEEDED to at least foreshadow such events, and when it didn't it fell apart. It really irks me because had that last page been done differently, this story probably would've been solid. But the ending really drags it down, especially when the advertising for it claimed the key to survival may lie in Diamond Tiara, only for her to not do anything of importance throughout the whole story. It's Silver Spoon who actually does more of the leading, and even Snips and Snails do more to help than Diamond ever does, meaning this story was another case of false advertising. I'd still say you should pick this one up, but I won't blame you if you decide to skip it even if you have the previous main series issue. This part needed some serious tweaking (or maybe an extra part) to live up to the expectations placed on it, but it did manage to somewhat redeem the main series going into its next issue which everyone was both looking forward to and dreading at the same time.
We'll get to that one tomorrow, so check back then. It's the last of the comics I got for my birthday, but you can be darn sure I'll post more comic reviews as soon as I get my hands on more of them.
Yeah. Thanks for sharing this review. I mean, I get that the comics' writers tend to be between four to eight months behind the show's writers, but all the same, I also get what YOU'RE saying. That's one of the reasons I mentioned a possible rewrite for Issues 38 and 39 when you do a comics edition of your "What If?" series (re-look over the reviews for your "Amazing Spider-Mare" sequel to see what I mean): to actually include the foreshadowing elements YOU mentioned (such as Diamond being worried about what her mother will think if she doesn't come out on top AND showing semi-reluctant, but still sincere gratitude).