The Many Tales of Queen Chrysalis (FIENDship is Magic # 5)

Hello & welcome back to our Nightmare Night celebration here as we conclude our look at Queen Chrysalis.  In 2015, the MLP writers and artists at IDW gave fans a five-week limited series FIENDship Is Magic.  And these five issues would explore the past  of some of Equestira's most feared villains including King Sombra,  Tirek, The Sirens,  Nightmare Moon and the subject of today's review, Chrysalis.   Now, we've already looked at the 4th FIENDship issue back in 2015 as we looked at Nightmare Moon





Cover

This cover is really cool and shows a graceful side to Chrysalis.   Each of the covers for FIENDship was based on famous paintings.



The Plot



The team of Cook & Price returned for this comic, which I think helps out as it is a direct sequel to The Return of Queen Chrysalis.  Kinda,  you see as this is actually an anthology comic exploring the many exploits of Chrissy with the wraparound story serving as the sequel.  And it also has one of Twilight's dumbest moments ever.  But we will get to that.   Let's begin, how this will work is that I'll talk about the wraparound as they give the set up and then talk about the stories.  And considering that this is an anthology comic, characters aren't exactly key to the comic. 



We open on the Mane Six returning to the castle from the end of the first arc and we see that Twilight has mapped out a thousand year punishment plan for Chrissy.   We also get the return of Pinkie's costume from that arc.  We also get our first look at The Changeling Queen and it's clear that she has started to wither away as she refuses to eat anything that the guards present her.

And this leads us to the first story of the comic after Rarity comments on how Chrysalis was the reprobate that ruined the cloud city of Timbucktu. 




Timbucktu




This happened 1,000 years ago.   And after a rather funny comment from Spike.

Spike: Why is it always 1,000 years ago?  That must have been one heck of a year... 

And we then get the story from Rainbow Dash as she can add more to the story than  Twily.




King Orion  was loved by all of his subjects and he was on top of the world.  And we soon  see that The Changelings are ready to attack as they Chrysalis and her Changelings attack Orion's guards and Chrissy takes the form of one of Orion's guards.

Chrissy  did to drain the love out of Orion and his subjects and proved to be a success. Orion had nothing left im and becoming a husk of his former self.  And according to Dashie,  he flew so high that he turned into starlight.  That was one of Dash's embellishments but Chrissy admired that as everyone desires to be remembered. 

 
















This leads us to our second story,  The Siege on Trot.   




The Siege on Trot


Yeah, there is not a whole lot to this story as it's just the Changelings in a Trojan horse going after Emperor Incitatus,  who I am convinced is an ancestor of Blueblood.  He is just so oblivious to everything going on around him, when The Changelings attack and that makes it easier for the attacks to take place.  Turns out that Celestia had to come in and save the citizens that this idiot were meant to protect. 

Before, getting a story about the Changelings being imprisoned in a volcano and a cute moment of Pinkie Pie with her third grade Volcano from that year's science fair, we are  given a pointless story about Rarity thinking that a date that she went on was with a Changeling because of how boring the stallion was.   We will be skipping that story as it overall has no relevance to what we are looking at.

The Changelings were trapped in the volcano and it was smoldering hot and Chrissy is concerned as dragons are the one creatures that do not feel love.

 (Spike interjects on that point)  We get a short conservation between the dragon and Chrissy as she tries to figure out how to escape that she starts to mind control the dragon and we get one of the coolest panels in this comic.     

By doing this and feed off the dragon's ego, Chrysalis uses her Changeling army to attack the dragon and knock him over and that is how they are able to escape.  And they knock the dragon onto the volcano.




This leads to our last story, Twilight has become curious about Chrissy's origin.  And Chrissy says that she would if she could have Rainbow Dash's book.  And yes, it's a Daring Do book.  And Dash is not keen on giving up her book but Twi says that she'll buy her another one.  The book won't fit through the slot on Chrissy's door and she suggests that Twilight could open the door a little to bring it in.  And this is where we get to the dumb moment as Chrissy was playing Twilight and use this moment to escape.

In a dialogue free story, we a squirrel toss a rotten acorn into a swamp that grows into a tree and that tree eats a fly and Starswirl The Bearded comes by and accidentally knocks a potion into the swamp and that's how the Changelings are born. 

Yeah, turns out that Chrysalis was making this all up and she was just born this way and in a rare moment, this comic ends with the villain getting the upper hand on our heroines as she and her Changelings escape and boy, do the Mane Six look peeved.  (So, sorry about the language) Especially, Fluttershy.

My Final Thoughts



I think doing the comic, this way for Chrissy was the best way to go as she is such a fascinating figure that while you do want to know more about her past, Chrysalis is a villain that doesn't need a definitive origin.  She's more fascinating, when you leave that part of her past mysterious.   Still, it was fun to go into this comic and explore some past exploits of one of the most feared MLP villains.    

Trotting Towards Nightmare Night: The Return of Queen Chrysalis (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic # 3 - # 4)

Hello & welcome back to the Nightmare Night celebration as we look at the second two issues in The Return of Queen Chrysalis.   We didn't look at covers last time and considering that we are once again covering 2 issues,  I think it best to skip that portion and dive right into the plot section.  With that outta the way, let's begin.

The Plot

We open with a recap of what happened in the last issue.  And  this is a nice little touch.  

When the story proper opens,  we see Chrysalis and her Changeling army invading a land of fluffy kittens and annihilate them.  Okay, then.  That got dark.

And we soon learn that Chrissy is after revenge.   

I want Celestia's little pet.... Twilight Sparkle.  Perfect little Twilight Clever little Twilight. Brilliant little Twilight.  She saw through it all... it's all her fault that we aren't rebuilding Canterlot into our newest conquest.  ....   I'm going to bring that purple menace here.... put her and her friends through trials that will band them together. Then, when their emotions are peaked, I'm going to drain Twilight Sparkle. 

Yep, The Changeling Queen wants revenge against Purple Smart.  And we see that Chrissy is starting to regret the capture of the CMC as their constant talking is starting to drive them crazy.  And then, we catch up with the girls and see that they are broken up still. As we see Fluttershy and Twilight.  Hmm, this comic showed this pairing long before the show as we didn't get a Flutters and Twily episode until season 5.  Which is fascinating as this comic came out in 2012 and season 5 didn't air until 2015.  Oh, and then, we get a Star Trek reference from Best Pony after Fluttershy says that they may have been too harsh on the others.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... even if the few were big meanie heads.  We need to look past this and work together to save those fillies. 

Beyond, the Star Trek reference, this is also funny as IDW has the Star Trek comics license.  We catch up with AJ and Miss Rarity and things aren't going much better.  We go back to the Changeling Hive and see that Chrissy is losing their patience with  the CMC.   We also see that Pinkie and Rainbow Dash aren't having much luck either as Dash is trying to start a fire with sticks but, ponies have hooves and can't exactly hold sticks to rub them together.   Where's Spike, when you need him?  We also see that Dashie is starting to get annoyed by the Pink Party Pony as she is about break out into song.  And we are introduced to the most horrifying things in this arc.

Rainbow Dash and I have the same exact facial reaction as those things are just creepy and I'm pretty sure, that they show up in a future MLP comic.  And it get evens worse, when we see Pinkie and Dash in them.

We see Twily and Flutters falling through a hole  in the forest after a check-in with Chrissy and  are almost attacked by a ferocious looking creature.  Rares and AJ aren't having much luck either as they fall down a waterfall but they get out of it by using giant flowers to float away.  And Dash and Pinkie, now out of those costumes are attacked by a pair of vicious fluffy bunnies.   And we see Pinkie and Dashie escaping as the future Wonderbolt takes flight and the cowpony and the fashionista are behind the Party Pony and 20 percent cooler.  The 4 girls wallop the bunnies and head off and fall over the cliff of a mountain after catching up with Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle.   All the girls apologize to one another and that costume makes a comeback.   And this gives me one of my favorite moments with a facehoof from Dash.

Applejack: Er. are just going to ignore that costume?

Rainbow Dash:  Please don't ask about it.  

The girls are closer to The Changeling Hive and that brings them closer to saving their sisters.   And for Chrissy,  it can't wait for it be over.   And this issue ends the same way, it started with Spike and Angel Bunny previewing what's to come.   And that brings us to the 4th issue. 



As we open on the final issue, we see that the Mane Six have arrived at The Changeling Kingdom.  And silly me, I forgot to bring this up but Chrissy is hoping a magical surgem thanks to something known as The Secretariat Comet.  We saw the girls make their way through the kingdom.  Oh, and Pinkie still has that scary costume.   And as they go through the castle,  it seems that the Escher of the Changeling Kingdom was Chrissy's interior designer.  We also see the girls go through the castle and get a fun montage of fun and funny references from a pony version of the Temple of Doom villain, a Pony Pennywise (I'll be hiding under my covers to finish this review),  pony versions of the twins from The Shining and a pony version of The Phantom.

 





For anyone that doesn't think that MLP can't be scary, look at this.

And of course, Pinkie is upset that she didn't get the door with the clown.  She instead got a floating head, I think may have been a reference to Madam Leota but she's not a villain and all the other references seem to be famous villains.   And let it sink in, that there are two Stephen King references in this montage.   For anyone not convinced that isn't Pennywise, there is a balloon and the clown's line is.

Hey Georgie!

I mean yeah,  MLP has done references to adult material before but Stephen King references aren't exactly what you would think of.  I know focusing so much on King here but Phantom and Temple aren't that shocking to me to see in an MLP comic because as while they are rather dark, Temple is still remembered as a movie that you can show kids and Phantom has been around for so long, that it just feels different.   But with King, not so much.  To be fair with both of these references though,  they are most likely referencing the original adaptations more than King's books as Pony Pennywise,  Ponywise (?) looks like Curry's version of Pennywise.

Jeez, for someone that is terrified of clowns, I sure spent a lot of time talking about this particular moment.  You know, when I first joined the Brony community,  I thought I was going to get fun and cute stories with pastel ponies going on adventures and learning the meaning of life.  Not scary pony clowns.  I've spent so much time on this particular aspect.  So, after facing down the embodiment of all evil for this review, let's get back to the plot. Unless someone wants to take over the review from here.  Any takers?










I guess not!!!  Fine then,  Twily opens the final door and that leads here to Queen Chrysalis and The Changeling Queen is ready to take down the future Princess of Friendship.   The rest of the girls attempt to fight the Changelings but they are soon trapped alongside their sisters.   And we do get a pretty cool fight between Twilight and Chrissy.  And the Comet is coming and Chrissy can feel it's power.  But Twilight also feels it's power as it also gives her a magical surge. And Chrissy tries to Vader Twilight into joining the Dark Side, I mean the Changeling Hive.   Become her pupil.   But Twily says that she'd rather be a drained husk of herself before joining her.   Chrysalis gives her a second option,  Twilight stays and teaches her  and she'll let Twilight's friends go.   It seems that Twily is in a no-win situation but she soon feels a surge in her magic and we get one of the coolest moments as we Celestia's Most Faithful Student take on The Changeling Queen.

The fight last a couple pages until Twilight sends Chrissy blasting off again and everyone is reunited  and it appears that Spike and Tia had quite an adventure of their own.  (it's a back story in this issue, so we won't go too much into it)  And the issue ends with a defeated Changeling Queen telling her hive to just shut up.   



I'll be honest,  I was not a big fan of this arc, when I first read it as I had felt Chrissy was overhyped at the time but going back and re-reading it,  you could not have had a better arc to start off IDW's  extensive and generally well-regarded run of My Little Pony comics.  Plus using one of the most popular villains and exploring more with her was a great idea.   This arc is just simply fantastic. 




Characters



I realize that I didn't speak much about the characters in the first part of this review as it was more about the journey than the characters.  The second half of the arc does focus more on the characters and giving them all time to shine but once again, there really isn't much to say here.  Except for the strong standout being Queen Chrysalis as they really expanded upon the personality that we saw of her in the season 2 finale.  And also showing that not only is she a formidable foe for the Mane Six, this comic made her even more terrifying. 



My Final Thoughts



This arch is just fantastic.  It starts a little slow in the first two issues but when you get to issues 3 & 4,  you get a lot of great moments.  And the ending is just great.  If you are a fan of MLP and haven't read these comics, do yourself a favor and check them out as you will not be disappointed.  Join me next time as we conclude our Nightmare Night celebration as we look at FIENDship is Magic # 5

Trotting Towards Nightmare Night: The Return of Queen Chrysalis (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic # 1 - # 2)

Hello & welcome back to our Nightmare Night celebration here. Let's return to a simpler time of 2012.  Season 3 had just aired and at this time,  the grabber of all media licenses picked up the license to print Pony comics and as of now, they are up to 59 comics in the main line.  And they have gone through three spinoff titles, the Mirco-Series,  Friends Forever,  and the current Legends of Magic and one miniseries that I do wish had become an actual spin off series, Fiendship is Magic.  Now,  these first 4 issues hold a special place in my heart as before 2012, I had read a comic here & there but it was thanks to ponies that I became a comic reader, well okay, an IDW reader.  IDW through these comics became my favorite comics publisher as they made it so easy for someone like me to dive into comics as they had licenses to so many characters that I already knew from things that I had loved before. Whether be it, Ponies, Ghostbusters, or it came after I became an IDW fans, Back to The Future. 

 




So, in many ways,  these characters that I loved from things that I was already a fan of felt like a safety net to enter uncharted territory for me as someone at that time wasn't familiar with comics.  And while, I have read a Flash comic here or there, I often find myself going back to IDW and their licensed comics.  Is it because I know these characters? Yes, of course but also because the writers at IDW have told great stories with these characters.  (Still hoping for a Ghostbusters/Back to The Future crossover though.  C'mon, they've teamed up with the Turtles,  The Real Ghostbusters and the 2016 team).  So, in many regards,  The Return of Queen Chrysalis opened the door for me to comics.  Linkara is fond of saying that every comic is someone's first and that was the case here for me. 



Having said that, I will not look past the flaws of this arc as you can tell from the issues that there are some things that writer, Katie Cook, and artist, Andy Price needed to work out.  So many people love them as the dream team for the MLP comics and it's not hard to see why but going back to the beginning, there are some things that were going to be ironed out.  And also, I will not be looking at the covers for these issues as there were 6 individual covers for each member of the Mane 6 for Issue # 1.  We'd be here all day, if I looked at the covers and this introduction has already gone long enough. With that outta the way, let's begin.




The Plot


We open on the CMC in Fluttershy's backyard as they attempt to get their cutie marks in zoology.   And then we get this funny moment, where Sweetie Belle reading a dictionary and points out that the studying of ponies is called Hippology and Scoots says that they don't look like ponies.  Then they meet this fine young lady.

The opening panels  aren't bad but one problem I noticed throughout this first issue is that there were almost too many panels on one page.  I don't know if it was because I was reading this on my IPad but it seemed crunched together.   Almost,  like the pages were trying to squeeze too much action onto the pages. This is when we get the reveal of the title for our first arc.  We then see the girls hanging out with more animals in Fluttershy's backyard including a dancing grizzly bear on roller skates.   And they are then attacked as something has happened to the animals and it's actually pretty creepy spread.

And that brings us to something else about this arc, that you might notice.  It's very similar to last year's season finale, To Where and Back Again.   I bring this up because all 3 of the CMC's sisters noticed them acting crazy, much in the same way that Starlight picked up on Twi's friends acting weird. 

 

The sisters meet up with Twi and Twilight points out that everypony has been acting rather strange after walking past a zoned-out looking Lyra. That's when the girls are almost attacked by more zoned out looking ponies and Twilight decides to head to the library.  (Pour one out)    Back at Golden Oaks, Twily pieces together that everypony has been replaced by Changelings. 

Twily has Spike take a letter but it doesn't seem to be of much help as they get an automatic return message that Princess Celestia cannot be reached at this time.   They realize that they need an idea and this is when Pinkie gives them the idea to act like the others and we get a lesson in how to act like zombies Changelings.   And it is easily, a highlight of the first issue.

Our girls head out on their adventure and see Derpy almost caught by a Changeling.  Strike that, she is and the girls face off against a Derpy Changeling.  And we get a cool fight as we see that the ponies are being kept in cocoons and about to have a big Changeling fight.

The fight lasts a good while until all of the ponies are freed and the girls get a message from The Changeling Queen as she has taken the CMC and they are starting to drive her crazy.  And the girls head off to save their sisters. 

And that leads us to the second issue.  We open the second issue on Twi pointing out how to get to The Changeling Kingdom. 

The girls are nervous and Dash being impulsive wants to fly over the mountain but AJ points that not all of them can fly. So, the best way to find the CMC is go through the mountain.   They soon come through a mine, that is the first part of their journey and there,  they come across a cave troll that wants to add a ponay to his collection.   He decides to stick Dashie to his collection but Rares saves by giving the cave troll, some pony dolls made out of items that she found in the cave. 

The cave troll has a good time with new dolls and looks like he has something else to play with besides his Optimus Prime.  (Yep, he has an Optimus Prime.  Kinda weird)   The girls get out of there but we see that Chrysalis has been watching the girls and that's when she gets the idea to have some fun with Twilight and her friends. 

The girls end up going through a creepy cave but there Changelings there ready to pounce and pounce, they do.   As they separate the girls from each other.   As the Changelings have replaced their friends and disguised them as the Mane Six and try to break one another.

And we get quite a bit of a montage of this going for quite some time.  But all of this comes to a head, when they comes across a giant spider. Fluttershy tries to reason with it but it is to no avail. 

Using a lot of her magic, Twilight is able to fight off the spider but it isn't until the cave troll shows up and saves his ponay friends as he takes the spider home to add to his collection.   Oh, and we find out from Pinkie that the troll's name is Jim.     Even though, the girls are now freed, the girls are angry at the things that the Changelings said while pretending to be them and decide to to disband and go to The Changeling Kingdom their own way.  And this brings us to the end of the second issue. 




Characters




Now, there isn't a whole lot to say about the characters in these first two issues.  If you know the show,  you'll pick up on whether or not the characters are true to that of those in the show.  This is something that I also observed in my review of Manehattan Mysteries as like that arc,  it's more about the story than the characters and that is the case here as these first two issues are more invested in the journey of getting the Mane Six to The Changeling Kingdom. 




My Thoughts On These Issues




These first two issues did a decent job of setting up the journey and let the readers know what to expect.   Join me next time as we look at Issues 3 & 4 in this arc.