IDW Comics Revisited - Main Series #8 · 3:10am Sep 24th, 2020
So another comic arc had to wrap up in four issues, and this one was just full of problems and questionable continuity nods/errors. But considering the previous arc was able to kind of get back on track at the very end, maybe there was hope for this one to do the same? Well, let's find out.
We begin with Princess Luna flying back to Ponyville, feeling guilty for abandoning her friends and acting as if she left them to die even though they specifically told her to go and get help. All of Ponyville has been rallied to help fight, but Luna is still filled with regret. Meanwhile, up on the moon, the Nightmare Forces reveal to Spike that a part of Rarity is still inside of Nightmare Rarity despite no evidence of it existing up to this point (show, don't tell), and all it takes to escape their clutches is for Spike to use some camouflage slugs.
Down in the prison cells, meanwhile, the rest of the mane six start to get into a fight that somehow causes Twilight to remember how great a bunch of friends they are. And they suddenly start to glow. This feels very Care Bears esque, the kind of sugary happiness that FiM was praised for not being all about, and it just comes out of nowhere. Spike then comes in yet somehow doesn't think of trying to melt the bars with his flame breath. The solution instead involves Pinkie Pie having the key inside her mane because she managed to have it get stuck in there while wiggling with one of the Nightmare Creatures. And the one tasked with watching over them has a change of heart when it turns out he's just ignored and not even named by the others.
Yet the attack on Ponyville has already commenced as Princess Luna thinks she has to fight alone against Nightmare Rarity. The Nightmare Forces sadly don't amount to much, they are easily defeated by the Ponyville citizens just doing their usual thing. There are a lot of background references and fandom nods, and among the participants are Babs Seed and Lightning Dust, so that means this has to be taking place sometime in Season 3, which only makes Princess Luna's Season 1 appearance all the more confusing. And when she is defeated in a moment of hesitation only to be told by Celestia and everyone else that she's one of them, that's when she suddenly powers back up to her design from "Luna Eclipsed" onward. Lauren Faust did say that Luna's physical state was tied to her losing her powers and wanted the design from "Luna Eclipsed" to be a transition, so maybe this is the handwave they're going for in this comic arc but it's never properly explained.
The rest of the mane six and the Nightmare Creature they befriended (alongside Spike) show up, and the beams of light coming from the five ponies is able to overpower Nightmare Rarity. Rarity begins to struggle to break free but is still plagued by her unexplained self doubts and everyone has to think of what they like about her to get her to break free fully. Quite honestly "Shadow Play" would do this the best and even "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" had a better idea for this (it just didn't need to have the tantibus be a Luna creation and needed the pep talk to be from Princess Celestia). Rarity is soon freed and Princess Luna reveals that the Nightmare Forces are these creatures who lived on the moon and were somehow corrupted into becoming her servants (no word on how they can corrupt someone else if they themselves don't have the power). She leaves for the moon to give them homes and the arc ends.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the issue? Although there's some good moments here and there, for the most part it just ends up confusing and undermined by the decisions made at the beginning of the arc. After all the build-up, Luna's secret turns out to be nothing and is brushed aside, and the resolution feels like it was taken almost directly from Care Bears. The fight in Ponyville is the best thing about this issue even if it makes the Nightmare Forces look weak. This arc as a whole feels unpolished. It had a really cool concept but didn't seem to know how to utilize it. You could literally just replace Nightmare Rarity with Nightmare Moon and have any mane six member be taken prisoner or disappear and nothing would be lost. Nightmare Rarity only acts different from Nightmare Moon right before her defeat, and the Nightmare Forces fall apart when they turn out to be corrupted creatures who lived on the moon before Luna. I really have to wonder why they didn't push this whole arc back, because it clearly needed more time on the backburner. "The Return of Queen Chrysalis" was decent, this is just a mess of continuity and characterization, though "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?" fixed a few problems with this arc while adding some not so minor flaws of its own.
Whew, and there you have it, come back tomorrow when we'll look at the first non four part arc with Main Series #9.
I agree, one of things I do like in this arc was Spike's characterization. Even though he was too obsessive at Rarity in the majority of the arc, he had some great moments that I appreciate about him, for saving everyone with the nightmare clouds, doing whatever it takes to save everyone in the second half, and being the hero of the arc. I gotta respect for all the things he's done. The entire concept was good but it kinda sucks that it handled poorly, the final act was pretty cool, and the artwork was amazing. It was illustrated by Amy Mebberson, and for the entire lineup of MLP comics, her artwork is really underrated.
Ask for the rest of this arc, I really don't like. The Mane 6 weren't good especially Rainbow and Pinkie (seriously, they never shut up), the whole purpose of Nightmare Moon possessing Rarity doesn't make any sense or wasn't fully explained why, never explained why there's "life" on the moon, Luna was such a pushover, the writing was boring & cliche, the jokes were hit & miss, and the resolution was a bit forced. Ask for Nightmare Rarity herself, aside for having a cool design, the best way I could describe her is that she's a typical Saturday morning cartoon villain, but not very good one either.
5363983 Nightmare Rarity isn't even original in personality or presence, because by having Rarity be completely dormant inside of Nightmare Rarity the character is basically just like any other villain the mane six have to defeat, and that in turn makes the entire plot centered around Rarity's abduction meaningless since it only serves to cut her off from her friends until the climax.
Another problem with this arc is specifically how it shifted focus multiple times throughout the issues, from the mane six to Princess Luna to Spike to even Princess Celestia and Ponyville. It creates a protagonist problem since we don't know whose story they're trying to tell.