IDW Main Series #29 Review

With Main Series #27 and #28 having aliennated most readers, IDW announced that the month of April would be dedicated to a new series called Fiendship is Magic, promising to show the backstory of several major villans. But before that could happen, IDW decided to break tradition, and have a one shot slice of life story in their main series. Did this decision work out for the best, or did it only further drag the comics down?

Well, let's find out.

We open up with the girls attending a masked wrestling match in Manehattan, and Rainbow Dash reveals that it was Soarin who got her the tickets. I might as well get the big gripe everyone has with this comic out of the way now. It uses the same artist as Friends Forever #11, and the way it's drawn makes the adult characters look very distorted and child like. It's not completely bad, but it is very distracting and out of place. It feels like a chibi artstyle gone wrong, and it makes it hard to tell the main characters apart from the kid characters. Now, if this was from the perspective of a kid character, or even from the perspective of The Cake Twins, I could buy things looking a bit weird. But that's not the case here.

Rarity leaves to go powder her nose, and bumps into Cheerilee, who looks awfully similar to The Masked Mare. It turns out that The Masked Mare is Cheerilee's sister Cherry, and they haven't seen each other in years. Rarity decides that this little sibling issue is nothing tea can't fix, and decides to bring all of her friends along when Cheerilee and Cherry meet. But I'm not entirely certain that's a good idea, this often leads to one sibling attracting all the attention, and angering the other sibling.

The next day, Cheerilee and Cherry meet at the tea party, but they don't seem very happy to see each other even though they knew they were going to be meeting. Cheerilee storms off, claiming to Cherry that they're through as sisters, and Cherry follows after and falls and lands on her leg wrong.

At the hospital, it turns out Cherry has suffered a bad sprain and will need bed rest for about six weeks. Unfortunately, the championship match is in three days. It is then that Cherry suggests Cheerilee take her place, since only the wrestling staff and fellow wrestlers know who The Masked Mare is. Cheerilee isn't too keen on the idea at first, claiming that she and her sister are so different, but Rarity encourages her to give it a shot. We end this scene with a funny image joke where Cheerilee is convinced wrestling can't be much harder than teaching, but in said image she's about to be attacked by a huge wrestler. I have to say, that this is the kind of Rarity potrayal I really like. She's determined to try and solve a problem, and help a friend out of the goodness of her heart, even though it's not really something she likes or enjoys. It's the kind of Rarity that we need to see more of in the comics.

Cherry coaches Cheerilee on how to do her moves, during which time Cheerilee learns that a fellow wrestler Cherry defeated in the last match is actually a friend that acts as the bad guy (it's a pretty well known fact that today's wrestling is all a staged event, the outcome is determined in advance, and no one's actually suppose to be hurt). Cheerilee is told that in order to win, she'll have to perform The Masked Mare's signature move, The Appleloosa Roundhouse, and she's not convinced she can do it. It is then that she meets Iron Hock, The Masked Mare's arch-enemy (who looks an awful lot like a pony named Clover that was introduced earlier, you probably know what that means). Iron Hock mocks Cheerilee, which only serves to make her more nervous.

On the night of the title bout, Cheerilee is convinced she can't get in the ring. But Rarity comes to her aid, by having her dress up as The Masked Mare, and then meet The Masked Mare's fanbase. Rarity explains to Cheerilee that she and her sister both have the same end goal of making children smile (though the smiles are for two different sort of things, knowledge for teaching and entertainment for wrestling).

Her confidence restored, Cheerilee gets into the ring, and ultimately manages to take down Iron Hock, winning the one on one fight. But now it's time for the tag team match, and Iron Hock's partner is a massive pony (or possibly) donkey. Cheerilee's partner is Rarity, disguised as a masked wrestler. Unfortunately, we don't get to see the match, we instead cut to its ending with Rarity and Cheerilee emerging victorious (a lady must know how to defend herself).

After the fight is over, Cheerilee and Cherry reconcile their differences, and it turns out that Iron Hock was Cherry's friend Clover the whole time. And that she was in on the "act" to get the two sisters to bond. The comic ends with Twilight asking Rarity how she made the costume for the wrestling match she participated in, and Rarity simply replies by saying that it never hurts to be prepared. Meanwhile, in the background, Pinkie Pie brings Applejack to the ground with a wrestling move that seems to have Rainbow Dash surprised.

And that's the story, so what do I think of the issue? Well, it's alright. Aside from the questionable artwork, there's nothing really offensive or annoying about it. Everyone is in character, there's no misinformed political rant, and it teaches a good moral. But there some moments that feel a bit out of left field that just get shrugged off, such as Clover and Cherry being friends, yet posing as enemies in the ring. And Cheerilee not being aware that there would be a tag team battle prior to the championship. But if you can look past those considerable flaws, you'll find a nice little story that's worth picking up. You may want to enjoy it, it's one of the last really good comics to come out of IDW as of this blog post. The Fiendship series started off strong, hit a snag, bounced back, then went downhill. Sort of like the overall quality of the comics as of right now. Friends Forever #16 and Main Series #30 and #31 proved to be disappointments in many ways. And #32 and #33 were poorly made attempts to cash in on the popularity of Flutterbat.