IDW Comics: MLP Friendship is Magic #45 & Friends Forever #31! (SPOILERS) · 11:17am Sep 3rd, 2016

Couple new comics to review!

Friendship is Magic #45

The conclusion of the Evil Mane Six storyline, which last left off at Joker Pinkie throwing evil water balloons which turned Luna into Nightmare Moon.

Fluttershy proves once again that she is absolutely TERRIFYING when she turns to the dark side.

I forgot to mention this last time, but for whatever inane reason, deer have gone from being sapient to being wildlife again. Inconsistency much?

So while Nightmare Moon starts randomly blasting Joker Pie, Zecora figures out how to make a cure by scraping off some of Spike's scales (ouch) and grinding them down into an antidote. One by one, they cure the Mane Six of their evilness, and Rainbow Dash, once cured, creates a rainshower that dumps the cure on all of Ponyville. Unfortunately, Twilight and Rarity weren't out in the rain and are still evil and still fighting to rule the world.

Rarity and Twilight's battle for domination is interrupted by Nightmare Moon, who sheds some evil wisdom on their petty battle for control and proposes they split Equestria up between them, each taking a third of the country. But it turns out to be a trick--Nightmare Moon was already cured by Rainbow Dash, and planned to trick them into drinking cure water in her toast to their evil alliance. Rarity fell for it and was cured, but Twilight knew Luna had already been cured.

As the rest of the gang arrive, Twilight goes off on an evil rant: she saw all of this coming, she predicted every possible course of action, she knows how the water changed her, she doesn't care, she intends to stay evil and rule Equestria, nobody can stop her because she's the smartest pony alive, yada yada.

And then she falls victim to the old bucket-on-the-door trick courtesy of Pinkie Pie, bringing this arc to a very abrupt close.

This issue has some fun jokes in it, including borrowing a joke from an old episode of Futurama (and putting a slightly different spin on it so it doesn't look like a stolen joke).

Then we have this:

"My name is Rainbow Dash, and I am the fastest pony alive!"

On the whole, though...this arc was full of wasted potential. This could easily have been expanded to six or seven issues, but instead they rushed to end it in three, and it hurt the story itself badly.

Friends Forever #30

Rainbow Dash and Little Strongheart!

What do you even call that ship? Strongbow? Whatever you call it, I'm sure it involves a lot of cider.

Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Tank are out for a fly in some high-up fluffy clouds when they see a huge plume of smoke coming from Appleoosa. Thinking the town's on fire, Rainbow Dash rushes off to save the day. The smoke turns out to be a smoke signal from Little Strongheart, and Appleoosa is most certainly in trouble, but it's the exact opposite of being on fire.

Rainbow Dash going on and on about the Apples' Cutie Marks is kinda funny. Especially when she lampshades some of the headscratchy fan reactions to Apple Bloom's Cutie Mark.

So anyway, the problem in Appleloosa is that an unseasonable cold snap has hit, it's snowing, and the soil is frozen. The crops that normally grow this time of year are dying, and the storms can't be cleared with pegasus magic. Rainbow Dash and Little Strongheart have to find the Great Rainbow Crow and retrieve some of her feathers in order to end this out-of-season weather.

Yep, generic vaguely insulting poorly-researched Native American mythology episode. Also, Rainbow Dash is holding onto the idiot ball pretty tightly in this issue.

This issue is boring. The humor is flat and lifeless. Rainbow Dash is dumb for the sake of being dumb, for no other reason than to cause unnecessary conflict when she refuses to listen to Little Strongheart out of some inane desire to "win" a "race" that's all in her head. Instead of, you know, taking Appleoosa's problems seriously and letting LS lead her to the Rainbow Crow's nest, which is what Rainbow Dash would do if a competent writer was handling this because Rainbow Dash may have her moments, but when it counts, she's not dumb.

Oh, and the main conflict between RD and LS? Is RD disrespecting the ~~Indians'~~ Buffalos' ways and traditions and LS being offended by her disrespect. In the end, Rainbow learns to respect the Buffalos' ways ~~and helps drive out the white man in a bloody frenzy of carnage and murder~~.

Bonus insult points: Little Strongheart actually calls Rainbow "kemosabe" (in a sarcastic tone) in this.