IDW Main Series #84 Review · 4:35am Dec 27th, 2019
When November rolled around, fans of the show had to contend with the fact that there were now nomore episodes or season to look forward to. Equestria Girls would itself wrap up with a series of shorts bundled into a "special". So the comics were left to fill the void while fans were waiting for the anticipated Season 10 to start in 2020. The main series comics had seemed to hit a dry spell consisting of issues that felt rushed or lacked polish, and the side series had a three parter Student Six focused set entitled "Feats of Friendship" that was to wrap up after delays. Because of all of this, an issue like this once again slipped through the cracks. But did it deserve that reputation? Or like #81 does it have enough charm to justify being picked up? Well, let's find out.
We begin with Twilight announcing midterms (alongside finals they are the bane of student existence during school), but instead of memorization for a test she instead announces a midterm project. Each student must put on a creative display or performance that shows what friendship means to them. Ocellus isn't too thrilled with this at first since she's the kind of student that excels at memorization, and even Gallus and Smolder ask if they just can take a test, but Twilight says no. Even Spike seems shocked by this.
So the students are given two weeks to come up with a project that they will show off to the whole class, and Yona is able to get hers done already. She'll be making yak friendship bracelets but with the colors reflecting creatures of different species. Ocellus is still at a loss as to what to do for her project, until Smolder points out that Ocellus is a changeling and could just change into other creatures. That gives Ocellus an idea.
There's a sudden passage of time that isn't conveyed, and we learn from Silverstream that Ocellus didn't come back to the dorm last night because she was too busy studying. It's odd to see Silverstream be the most concerned, but considering we know she's an older sibling and given her fear of the Storm King in "What Lies Beneath" I think it's easy to see that she can be something besides bully and quirky. Anyway, Ocellus begins to fall asleep during classes, not even Fluttershy having a bear in her class or Pinkie Pie letting off party cannons in her class can wake Ocellus up. I would question how none of them seem to notice what's going on with Ocellus, but at the same time they have several students to be responsible for all at once and only have so much time to work with them one on one. Silverstream suggests talking to Twilight (who they oddly refer to solely as "The Headmare" and not "Headmare Twilight") while we learn that Smolder will be making a display of the Tree of Harmony out of crystal, and Gallus is going to recite a poem (we never learn what Sandbar is going to do for his project).
That night, Silverstream decides to stage an intervention with the help of her friends. Twilight let Ocellus use one of the empty classrooms to rehearse, and they find Ocellus practicing transforming during an interpretative dance. She transforms into the pillars in order from left to right on how they were depicted together at the start of "Shadow Play, Part 1" (starting with Mage Meadowbrook and ending with Starswirl the Bearded), but messes up because she's exhausted. Silverstream whispers to Yona to get Twilight while the others try to talk sense into Ocellus. But she just gets back up and insists that she can do it, but after a few more transformations she admits that she's scared. Fortunately, it's at that moment that Twilight shows up for a one on one talk with Ocellus. She learns that although the presentation could only last ten minutes, Ocellus planned on transforming into 346 different creatures.
Ocellus reveals that she didn't want to leave out any part while covering the importance of friendship to Equestria. But Twilight is able to reveal to Ocellus how she would've probably done something similar before the school, and that she created the project as a way to try and prevent students from taking on such much work, to give them a break. She convinces Ocellus to do something a little bit smaller, focus on a different friendship. We then cut to two weeks later and the end of Gallus' poem, it seems he choked up a bit but managed to make it through. We don't learn how the other projects went, but Ocellus is up next. Her dance tells the tale of Twilight's friendships, continues on with Thorax's, and ends with the Student Six's. However, the one that's basically re-telling "To Where and Back Again" kind of messes up because they lay out the transformations from right to left when the comics are from left to right (we know Thorax is the end result when Ocellus turns from him into one of her friends), and interestingly she ends on Smolder (make of that what you will). And then, with the midterms over, Twilight invites students and staff to take a well deserved break.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the issue? It's really good, it feels very much like an episode we should've gotten in Season 8, the kind of portrayal the School of Friendship sorely needed to seem like a good idea. Think about it, in the show we only ever saw it when it was demonstrating how the mane six didn't know how to run it or were horrible teachers/professors, it was always about showing off the worst of other characters (with the exception of Starlight and perhaps Spike), and it seemed to restrict plots instead of expanding them. This allows us to see a member of the mane six actually be an effective teacher, while also letting the Student Six develop on their own (except for Sandbar who's just kind of there to be part of the group). It is a bit odd that Silverstream is the voice of reason here, anyone else it probably wouldn't be unnatural: Yona is the heart of the team, Gallus is the unofficial leader, Sandbar would parallel what he does with Yona in "She's All Yak", and Smolder wouldn't turn her back on a friend in trouble. But I like that we get to see a more serious side to her character and it fits within the realm of "OOC is Serious Business". Even moreso than "What Lies Beneath" this really indicates how much Ocellus feels pressured and defined by her species' past actions, and how she's trying almost singlehoofedly to change their reputation. Not being able to see the other presentations (besides Gallus') does feel like a bit of a cop-out, especially when they made a big deal out of showing us what Yona and Smolder were gonna do, but I understand that wasn't the focus of the issue. All in all, it's definitely worth picking up and it shows that the main series comics can be something more than okay at best, though again don't go outside the five to ten dollar range because no issue in this series is worth that much.
And there you have it.
I thought that MLP #84 was a very good stand-alone comic. Ocellus obviously was the star in the comic, and she shined very well throughout.
Notice the plot shots?