Hello & welcome back to Trotting Through Life. And today, we continue The Great and Powerful Retrospective. Yeah, I took the word mini out as this has been taking a bit of a while. Today, we continue our look at the world of MLP comics as we look at the sixth issue of Friends Forever as we see what happens when the coolest pegasus in Ponyville teams up with THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Trixie. Now, you kinda consider this a preview to my next Mane Character retrospective, A Dash of Awesome. I don't have a tentative start date for that one yet, it might be June or July. With that outta the way, let's begin.
Cover
Now, there are actually two covers for this comic but the digital copy that I downloaded from the IDW app only has this cover and I LOVE it. While, I haven't read every MLP comic out there, this is easily in the top 10 of my favorite MLP covers from IDW that I've seen. I'd probably put this right behind from the Rarity Mirco, How Rarity Got Her Groovy Back.
I think the big thing that makes this comic cover work for me is the watercolors. It just is so pretty and I love it and would love it as a poster.
Staff
Thom Zahler - Writer
Looking through the reviews that I've done of the IDW MLP comics, it doesn't appear that I've reviewed any comics that were written by Zahler. In that case, I have to say that he did a good job of capturing the feel of the characters especially Trixie as he perfectly caught the loud and boisterous nature of THE GREAT AND POWERFUL one wonderfully.
Agnes Garbowska - Artist
The art is just great in this comic and we've already seen that with the cover. And while the art isn't much like the comic, it's still great and I really enjoy the look of it.
The Plot
We open in Ponyville with Dash swaggering through Ponyville with praise being heaped onto her. And we learn why as Dash has been summoned by the Queen of the Kingdom of Dimondia. We learn that it's far away and it'll take Dash a day to fly there and she thinks that it's for the queen to see her skills. Dash flies there and arrives and sees that it is a kingdom of Diamond Dogs. Yeah, remember them. But we soon learn from one Diamond Dog, that not all Diamond Dogs are not like the ones that the ponies have encountered before and they were kicked out a long time ago. Dash decides to stay and meet the queen and we learn that the queen is Trixie. We learn that Trixie has asked Rainbow Dash to come here as she wants to get out of this place.
I was on my way to a performance in Seaddle when I spilled my magic trunk. Along with everything else all the costume jewelry and gems I had for my coal-into-diamonds trick fell into the mud. I was bearing the situation with my usual grace and poise, of course. That's when I found myself surrounded by diamond dogs! For some reason, they seemed taken with me. I can't explain why. Then they did what was really the only logical thing they could. So they made me their queen. Now they won't let me leave.
Yeah, what really happened is that the Diamond Dogs became enamored with Trixie's theatrics and bought into what she was selling. Trixie loved it at first but has since grown bored of being queen and now wants to leave Dimondia. But there is a bit more to it than that as the Diamond Dogs seems to think that THE GREAT AND POWERFUL one has the ability to track diamonds but she's no Miss Rarity and has been stalling. Dash is taken aback by the fake invitation but Trixie does say that it was real and that she decided to appeal to Dash's ego to get Dashie to come to her rescue. Man, Trixie is smarter than people her credit for. Dash, even with her dislike and distrust of Trixie does feel that she can't just leave Trixie in this kingdom. So, they start to fly away but it's to no avail as the crown that Trixie is wearing is keeping them from leaving the kingdom. The crown is on Trixie's head so tight that she can't take it off. So, it appears that THE GREAT AND POWERFUL ONE is trapped here. Dash agrees to help Trixie figure another way out, even if she does think it is against her better judgement. So, she starts by tricking the Diamond Dogs into building something for their queen. She then tricks the Diamond Dogs into giving more information about the queen and the crown. And we learn that the crown is actually a magic leash that keeps the queen tethered to the kingdom. And she can't take it off....
Unless we diamond dogs start to lose faith in her as our queen. True executive power is, of course, derived from the people. A chief executive serves at the pleasure of the electorate.
Dash reports the information to Trixie and we get a funny exchange between our two lead characters.
Trixie: That's going to be hard. Who wouldn't me as their queen?
Rainbow Dash: I could give you a list. Now, what could we do to get to stop believing in you?
Yeah, I'll just say it right now. I love the way, Dash and Trixie play off of each other. And they soon get an idea involving the diamonds and we see that the plan involves Dash showing off her flying skills for the kingdom and we see Trixie opening the vault that holds the diamonds and performs a magic trick with them. And Trixie is most impressed with Dash's performance and decides to give her the diamonds and we start to see the crown slip on her head. But she takes it a bit too far by saying that they will no longer hunt for diamonds and will instead hunt for mushrooms. And Dash notices that Trixie is doing too good of a job and that gets the diamond dogs to turn on Trixie and by creating a Sonic Rainboom (though used to seem harder to make) , Dashie and Trixie are able to escape. And they head off on their own way.
This comic is really good and shows what happens when two characters with big egos put their egos aside and are able to work together. Though granted, there is a bit of a difference here as Dash has the skills to back up her ego whereas Trixie is all talk and no skill. (However, we are starting to see progress in that regard with the second episode of season 7),
Characters
Rainbow Dash
Dash was great in this issue and she really put a lot of work into the plan here and did a lot of the heavy lifting but with a character like Trixie, that is to be expected. Still, she was quite fun.
Trixie
Trixie was a bit more of the comic relief in this duo but Dash and Trixie really did play well off one another with Trixie being perhaps the funniest that I've seen her in a while as this comic contained quite a few moments where she caused me to laugh quite a bit.
My Final Thoughts
This comic was quite fun and showed how well these two characters worked off one another and is probably one of my favorite IDW MLP comics that I've read. It just makes for a fun lighthearted read that is always fun to return to. Join me next time as we look at the 37th issue of Friends Forever as we see what happens when.... Trixie teams up with Miss Rarity.
No comments:
Post a Comment