Hello & welcome back to Trotting Towards Nightmare Night as we continue our look at Tempest Shadow. Now most years except for the Flutterween event, I tend to look at a one-shot comic featuring the villain that we are looking at. Most years, it's usually from the FIENDship is Magic miniseries but obviously, Tempest wasn't a known villain when IDW was putting that series out. However, leading up to the movie coming out last year, a series of Prequel comics focusing on characters such as The Storm King, Capper, Captain Celaeno and the fourth and final issue focusing on Tempest were published. Which is great but the cover for the trade is a bit baffling.
Queen Novo and Princess Skystar are featured on the cover for the trade but alas they never received a prequel comic, which is a bit of a shame as their story out of all the new characters is perhaps the most fascinating. Ah well, we did get a taste of their life before the movie right in The Stormy Road to Canterlot.
Speaking of, this comic does cover similar ground as that book. This comic goes over a lot of what the middle section of this book. With that outta the way, let's begin. Seeing as I'm looking at at this from a trade that collected 4 issues of the MLP Movie Prequel, I won't be looking at the cover for this but if you're a Star Trek fan, you'd probably like it.
Thought you guys might like this. With that outta the way, let's move onto the plot.
The Plot
The story opens with Tempest, who much like in Stormy Road doesn't seem to be going by a name just yet narrating by writing in her journal about how far she has come. And you get the sense that Tempest feels alone and out of place in the world of Equestria. This is something that we've discussed throughout our look at Tempest. She took the negative experience with the Ursa and let that consume and define who she is. This ties back into how we discussed how Tempest is a disabled villain and she only saw herself as her disability.
I think the idea of getting these inner thoughts from Tempest help make her a much more sympathetic figure than she is in the movie and takes an already great character and adds more layers to her to show that she is more than just the hard exterior that she presents herself as. This helps ties into the idea with characters that have a hard exterior, they are fragile on the inside. Obviously, this isn't the case for how hard-shelled characters but hard-shelled exterior and soft-centered interior is very applicable to Tempest and how she is presented in both the movie and the media that expands upon her character.
That's when Tempest comes across from a rather horrifying airship crash that belonged to comics only character Chummer that was shown to be Capper's best friend and this is great as this helps ties into the previous issue as they found to interlock the stories and give them an anthology like feel that helps to immerse the reader into the story and world of the movie even more than one might think needed.
This is also when Tempest comes across something that has been a driving force throughout the prequel miniseries, the Misfortune Malachite. This was first seen in Issue # 1 of the prequel series, where The Storm King found out in Panthera, Abyssinia, Capper's hometown. And as described in that issue.
The Malachite brings bad luck and woe to any who possess it. Whoever holds it for too long or uses its power, will come to ruin!
The Malachite is the thing that has been holding the stories together. And I like again, how the comics have found a way to make the stories interconnected without forcing characters in from previous stories. Finding a way to tie all these stories together in a way that feels natural was important for another reader as none of The Mane Six appear in these prequel comics and for some fans that follow the IDW comics, this was most likely their introduction to the movie characters. So, the writer. Which there seems to be some confusion as the trade lists Jeremy Whitley as the writer but other sources I have looked at on other sources such as the MLP Wiki list Ted Anderson as the writer but either way, whoever wrote these prequel stories had a daunting task as they had to take these yet-to-be established characters and build fascinating stories around them and not only did they have to find a way to make the characters interesting.
They also have to be consistent to a certain extent with how the characters are portrayed in the movie. This ties into the idea that authors/writers usually face an issue when writing about characters in a movie that has yet to come out, they can sometimes be way off base and I think that this shows how daunting writing for licensed characters can be. One can look to something such as the novelization of Back to the Future to see how the written adaption of a piece of visual media can greatly differ from the movie and how the writers for licensed material can sometimes get wrong, if they aren't given a full grasp of the characters and setting that they are working with. Thankfully, the case for the IDW MLP comics is that they have captured the spirit of Equestria and it also helps that when it comes to the staff writing the pony comics, it helps that they had been working with these characters for years.
Anyway, getting back to the plot of this comic, after Tempest looks at the Malachite some more and wonders what it is, she is ambushed by Grubber and attacks off the Storm Guards. Leading to a really cool panel showing off Tempest running away.
This one-shot really captures the fear, anger, and confusion that has been going through Tempest's mind ever since she left home and has felt out of place ever since she left home. As the comic continues, we see Tempest go through different locations such as Klugetown and we get to see Tempest attempt to use the Malachite as she learns is that it's real and as she opens it, hears echoes from the previous holders of the Malachite and how using it made their lives all the worse. We later see Tempest meet up with a cowboy pony named Rambler which also happened in Stormy Road and offers her a ride in his caravan. And this is when the audience is given a flashback to that horrific moment in Tempest's life as she explains to Ramble that she had lost the thing that she defined herself by.
I lost what I defined myself by. Then I lost those who stood by me and now I'm simply Lost!
These words help to paint the idea that Tempest felt as though after the incident with the Ursa, she had lost her identity and she has let that consume her and now only see herself as her disability and not as a pony. And that is all she thinks others will see as that as well. And I know that this is something that I've touched on quite a bit throughout this event but looking at Tempest and her disability is such a key part of her character that it's something that I feel can't be ignored. It's such a key part of her character that can't be ignored. In much the same way that one can't ignore the political nature of Zootopia when talking about that movie.
Soon, the caravan is attacked by The Storm King's guards as they are looking for Tempest and she is able to escape using Rambler and she soon comes into contact with The Storm King himself and much like Stormy Road, he makes her offer that if she comes to work for him, he'll restore her horn. This is is after The Storm King tells young Tempest that he'll need the Malachite, which she is hesitant to give up as she thinks that it's the only thing that will restore her horn. But after some talking and convincing, Tempest soon becomes The Storm King's commander and the comic ends there as they strike a deal to attack Equestria.
Character
Tempest Shadow
As good as Stormy Road was, I think this comic did a better job of depicting what Tempest was feeling after leaving home and how broken she is. I could be off-base in my reading here but I think that there is a symbolic nature to her broken horn represents the broken nature of how Tempest is feeling on the inside. I think that the big reason, this comic is able to portray this better as they are just focusing on one moment in her life whereas Stormy Road was telling the story of her entire life up until the start of the movie and while that did a good job of telling that story, focusing on one key moment in Tempest's life is more fascinating.
My Final Thoughts
All in all, this comic did a fantastic job of exploring who and where Tempest was before the events of the movie. Up until this point, we have looked at, stories that have shown Tempest before the events of the movie. Next time to close out this event, we will look at a 2 issue arc from the main comic series focusing on Tempest after the events of the movie but she will have to confront her past.
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