Comic Review: IDW Friendship is Magic #44 (SPOILERS) · 2:13am Aug 9th, 2016

It's time to continue the Dark Water storyline!

If you remember last issue, the Mane Six have gone just a teeeeeensy bit evil, and the CMC, Spike, and Luna are trying to save Ponyville from them.

Twilight has gone insane with power and declared herself god-empress of Ponyville. She's also decided that the ponies she rules over don't really need to think, so in her quest to become the smartest equine that ever lived, she's designing the Riddler's "Box" from Batman Forever.

The CMC are running through the Everfree to reach Zecora, but they have a problem: Fluttershy has become the evil mistress of the forest, and her legions of critter minions are on the rampage. When Scootaloo accidentally steps on Angel Bunny, Fluttershy shows up with a whole critter army and attacks the CMC.

Back in Ponyville, the citizens suddenly find gift boxes all over town, and are stupid enough to start opening them. Every single one explodes--the work of Evil Pinkie, who has made herself over as the Joker. Her exploding gifts drive everypony into the empty theater, which is a trap! Her evil plan is to...

...put on the corniest one-pony comedy show ever, and the audience can't leave because they're glued to their seats.

She may be evil, but she's still Pinkie.

Meanwhile, Raridoom is opposing Twilight's new regime--because of Twilight's horrid fashion sense. Of course, she's distracted by any crimes of fashion she encounters--which she destroys with extreme prejudice.

Incidentally, the Dark Water evil magic upgrade has made the ponies affected more powerful--even Rarity's magic is on par with Luna's.

The CMC finally make it to Zecora's place with a whole animal army on their hooves. They tell Zecora the whole story, and Zecora says they need to go back to Ponyville to investigate the problem. Naturally. Makes sense. Except they barely got there in one piece in the first place.

Luna's battle with Raridoom crashes Pinkie's comedy show. Pinkie gets mad and pulls out her Party Cannon, with which she does a variation of Joker's gun fakeout trick.

Zecora and the CMC arrive. After some questions about how things happened, Zecora takes Spike to examine him, hoping to find out why he wasn't affected by the springs' curse and that perhaps a cure lies in his hide. (Nuuu don't skin the fax machine!) Luna and Raridoom go back to fighting, but Twilight breaks it up because their fighting disturbs her order. Raridoom decides she needs to depose Twilight before anything else.

Overlooking the chaos in Ponyville, Fluttershy decides that the ponies' village is a blight on the peace and tranquility of the forest, and it's time for the forest to reclaim the ponies' land.

Zecora and the CMC hear the animals' war drums and wonder what else could possibly go wrong. That's when Pinkie Pie shows up with water balloons and rhymes...

EVIL water balloons. Filled from the evil spring. Ponies that get splashed turn evil immediately, and the chaos expands exponentially.

And worse still...Luna gets hit with one of the water balloons.

On top of everything else going wrong, Luna has about two seconds to lament what's coming before she turns back into Nightmare Moon.

Next issue is supposedly going to wrap up this storyline. It really seems like it should be a four or even five-parter, but whatever. I'll be on this crazy train ride for however long it lasts.