Going to the Dogs · 4:53am Jun 3rd, 2021
So it's time to complain about comic shipping again. For one thing, I once again found this comic folded up in my mailbox. At least I got almost eight months out of that post-it note in the mailbox, but I was hoping for more. But there's also the issue that I found this comic folded up in my mailbox yesterday, after shipping on the 20th, after being released on April 28th. And sure, I don't check the mail every day anymore, so it may have been delivered on Saturday or maybe even Friday. And sure, I'm probably possessed of too much inertia to do anything about it. But even so, what the buck? Why does the process take a month?
But let's talk about the 2021 MLP annual before everything falls apart.
The moral of the day the month the month before last is that the difference between a virtue and a vice is moderation; in this case, a lack of moderation turned loyalty into rigid blind obedience to tradition and generosity into an abandonment of prudence in favor of fulfilling desires.
I agree with Mage Meadowbrook that the question of why they got two invitations for two queens is important, but the more important question is why they need to speculate about that on their journey. I fear that Twilight has picked up her mentor's bad habits (wait, didn't I already say that somewhere or other?), and withholding relevant information even when it clearly doesn't provide a learning experience is among them.
Maud is so exuberant in this comic! She uses an entire one exclamation mark.
Seriously, though, it does bother me. Was the intention to momentarily conceal who said "gangway" by punctuating it as a character other than Maud would pronounce it, even though Rarity had just asked about the whereabouts of the sole member of the party who wasn't already on-panel? Who do they think they're fooling?
If I'm going to nitpick, I should also point out that the top of the go car should have been made visible at some point before it was launched. As it is we never see it connected to the upper cable—there's only one panel where we can even see a bit of the upper cable at all—and so it looks far too much like the car was doing its best coyote impression and failing to fall until closing the door made it notice it didn't have any ground beneath it.
For the record, I checked, and I'm pretty sure that diamond Jenn gives Rarity is bigger than Tom. It's a good thing that this time she doesn't feel the need to carry it with her everywhere she goes.
I did some research on galena and decided that the new vein that the liberal sisters found may have been full of anglesite, if we don't concern ourselves too much with the color. I didn't find anything about gemstones that tend to be found within galena on its Wikipedia page (I did learn that it often contains silver ores, but precious metals aren't what diamond dogs seek), but anglesite is a lead sulfate mineral, and as you would expect it can form from the oxidation of galena.
I'm a bit surprised that illness dogged Jenn for years. Surface research suggests that the effects of lead poisoning in an adult such as Jenn would tend to stop after lead exposure ceases, even without treatment, and she looks like she shouldn't be in any shape to go down to the new cavern on a regular basis even if she's too stubborn to consider the possibility that Katherina might be right and that choosing to avoid that cavern might help. Although I suppose it could just be that nocreature mentioned that Jenn's illness comes and goes periodically . . .
Okay, yes, I'll say it: "We named the dog Indiana."
I'm shocked and disappointed that Rarity would forget her manners enough to interrupt a queen while serving as an emissary. If you can't trust Rarity to remember high-class protocol, who can you trust?
I think Queen Katherina and the Equestrian delegation could have had an interesting discussion about the advantages and risks of closer relations with Equestria. From what I've seen it's a pretty good deal; Equestria usually deals with its messes on its own (the broad coalition that ended up responding to the invasion at Twilight's first second coronation notwithstanding) so there actually aren't many obligations you need to worry about. Still, I'm sure we could learn something from a deeper understanding of Katherina's view of the subject.
It's a shame Maud had to get us back on track.
It's interesting that the rock tortoises (and by the way, Rarity, Fluttershy wants to remind you about the difference between turtles and tortoises) here are named after kappa despite bearing little resemblance to aquatic human-like demons. They could have been called "chalcechelonies." It would have confused a lot of people, but I like it.
One will note that this echoes "The Mare in the Moon" less than the quest for the previous tree did. We've still got six individuals going together into danger because circumstances demand it, even though they don't all initially want to be together, but a lot of that is an inevitable consequence of needing six characters to go somewhere unexplored in order to make the plot work. And this time we don't have time for a proper set of trials; we must make do with simply a single trial of making up, even though it leaves four of them untried.
Also, this time they get harmony superpowers. Nocreature else got superpowers. The Mane Six didn't even get superpowers.
I want to expect the best of the Knights of Harmony. I really do. I mean, what kind of an evil organization would even call themselves the Knights of Harmony?
A sneaky one, that's what kind. I want to expect the best, but I just can't.
Thank you for the point on anglesite. I'd been wondering why the lead-rich rocks were green.
The humans did. But yeah, this one was rushed. On the other hand, seeing set after set of trials for the same virtues could get old fast. On Ahuizotl's tail, maybe they should've thought about that before proposing this whole storyline.
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I'd say there's a balance to aim for. It would be bad to have the trials get repetitive and boring, but they're also a strong tool for establishing the characters. Even if these characters presumably aren't going to appear much outside of their respective arcs (I assume they'll all get to at least appear briefly in the finale) it would be nice to have them established to some extent. We should be able to look at them and agree that yes, we see how they are to some extent echoes of the Mane Six like they're supposed to be. Otherwise we're just being told about a central component of the story which we should be shown instead.
To be clear, this issue does still achieve the minimum bar of character establishment in my opinion. But I do have some things to say about the next issue (which was not quite as severely delayed) when I set aside the time to write about it . . .
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Can I ask you and Borg to look at your issues and tell me what the last panel in the Knights of Harmony temple looks like? My issue (physical, just picked it up yesterday because 'non-essential' shops reopened) has *six* lights, when previous issues had five. And I read someone else's review where their last page shown had only five lights, to match.
It must have been fixed in the digital release, or something
*insert Picard screaming gif here*
My comic is here. Below it is the one from another reviewer.
i.imgur.com/wT2gkFg.jpg
popgoesthedarkeraven.files.wordpress.com/2021/04/wp-1619655165186.jpg?w=500
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I can confirm the reviewer's five-light setup in my own digital copy, and in shots of that room in other issues.
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Sorry I'm unreliable about responding in a timely manner, but I can confirm that you're not going crazy and that my physical copy has six lights (only two of which are lit). Which as I recall seemed off, but not enough so to get me to actually direct attention to it.
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I was sure I wasn't going crazy, but thanks for the additional confirmation! I suppose so close to the end, they're phoning it in now.