IDW Friends Forever #33 Review

As the IDW comic series was devoting its main series to an unwanted "Trump v.s. Hillary" parody just before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Friends Forever series was on borrowed time with the announcement that come Spring 2017 it would be replaced with Legends of Magic. With the issues having bobbed up and down in quality for a while, and the last three catching flack for their stories (though #31 was praised for its artwork), this issue faced the task of keeping interest in the series afloat for a while and keep the IDW comics from floundering as their quality continued to look bleaker and bleaker. With Applejack's relatively strong showing for Friends Forever comics, was this issue focused on her and Cheery Jubilee able to generate new interest in a series wrapping up in less than ten issues, or did it only leave pony fans with little new content to entertain them going into the hiatus between Seasons 6 and 7? Well, let's find out.

We jump right into Applejack working on Cherry Jubilee's orchard at Dodge Junction, because all her workers are sick with a strain of Equine Flu. Applejack, thankfully, is immune since Sweet Apple Acres was hit earlier in the season and Big Mac is handling things in her absence. But just as Cherry leaves Applejack to work the fields, a performer shows up from a traveling western show, requesting permission for the troup to rest as they're all sick with the Equine Flu. Applejack agrees, learning that the troup is none other than Buffalo Bill's Wild Western Show, and the performer she's talking to is Calamity Mane (the names of real life stars in an actual western show that toured the U.S. in the later half of the 1800's and into the turn of the century). And all of this is a healthy dose of:

Applejack goes to Cherry Jubilee to inform her of the troup, but when Cherry learns it's Buffalo Bill's troup she gets mad and demands that they leave. Applejack talks some reason into her, since Buffalo Bill himself is sick too (very sick in fact), but she still insists that they all have to leave by morning. Talking to Calamity Mane produces no answers, and it seems he and Cherry Jubilee have some bad blood between them. So Applejack goes into town, asking herself what would Twilight do in her situation? Passing by the Dodge Junction library, she gets an idea. She goes in and checks old newspapers for a hint as to when Buffalo Bill's show was last in town. But she dozes off for a while when her search doesn't yield results in a few hours. However, when she wakes up, she soon finds the answer and rushes off.

Applejack approaches Cherry and reveals that she knows about the fact that she was the original Calamity Mane. Cherry explains that she wanted to get out and see all of Equestria, and when she met Buffalo Bill she got that chance. She became smitten with him, as he took her under his wing and taught her everything he knew. They became world famous, but when they returned to Dodge Junction, Bill popped Cherry the question right then and there. She rejected him though and ran off, discovering the future home of her cherry orchard. But she remains bitter at the fact that Bill up and left without her, and subsequently replaced her as Calamity Mane.

Applejack sees Cherry storm out and tries to talk some sense into her, arguing about the importance of not letting pride get in the way. It's a nice callback to the lesson Applejack learned in "The Last Roundup", but I feel like the moral is undercut a bit when you consider that Cherry was replaced in show by her mentor without her consent, and Bill never asked her or wrote to her, he just left her behind when she rejected him and that was it. Anyone in that situation would be rightfully upset, because to them it would feel like they never meant anything to that individual, if they could be so easily replaced.

Cherry heads to the wagon where Bill is resting, still very sick with the Equine Flu. Cherry gives Bill a piece of her mind, and Bill just accepts it and both sides apologize for their hasty actions in their youth. It's not bad, but it could've been expanded a bit and I think it wouldn't have hurt for the two to not fully forgive each other, those kind of wounds don't heal easily. Anyway, Bill gets better and strikes a deal with Cherry to bring her back on stage as herself for his show, and the two thank Applejack for helping them overcome their bitter past.

And that's the story, so what do I think of the issue? Well, it's a basic Friends Forever story (albeit not one focused on the characters it advertises, Applejack helps to solve a problem between Cherry Jubilee and Buffalo Bill, as opposed to her and Cherry working together) and there's nothing about it that stands out particularly strong except for the part where Cherry acknowledges her past and that she was wrong too. It's a simple story about forgiveness, with Applejack drawing on her strengths as a supporting character to move the plot along and lead to the moral. It's an improvement compared to the past three issues that preceeded it, but it's still easily eclipsed among better issues and it pails in comparison to what came immediately after it. Still, I'd say pick this up if you can find it cheaply, for this one stay between five and ten dollars. I should mention that I don't have anymore comics to review right now, but rest assured that when I do you'll know.