My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic #39 Review

The ‘lost in the mountains’ storyline reaches its conclusion! How does it fare? Let’s take a look.

Here’s the official description from IDW:

The lost in the woods plot has been a staple in fiction for decades. Done right, a story doesn’t have to be a retread of what has come before. The main draw of this two-part event was to pit unlikely fillies working together. Interestingly, this arc takes place before Crusaders of the Lost Mark, since the Crusaders don’t have their Cutie Marks and Diamond Tiara is still a bully. The story is pretty formulaic, but it is still MLP so there’s at least a lot of fun dialogue.

It’s always great when you get a sense the writer enjoys the property he/she is working with. From the opening scene with the fillies begrudgingly helping one another to the dialogue in the cave, the reader has a sense that Christina Rice is having a blast crafting the story. One of my favorite aspects is how Apple Bloom is portrayed. She has always been an unspoken leader, but is still very young and subject to not knowing what to do in certain situations. So it was great to see this bit of a conflict here. The main negative would have to be that the story petty much moves along as one would expect it to. The description makes this big deal about Diamond Tiara supposedly saving the day…but she doesn’t do anything resembling the sort in the actual pages. One scene which felt off was when they arrived at the cave. Diamond says, “Aren’t you glad I thought of this?” yet it was Apple Bloom who mentioned first about it. I’m not sure if this was a mistake or written the wrong way.

The dialogue in the cave overdoes it a bit on the exposition. Still, these are comics aimed at everyone, so the blunt words work for the younger readers. While I did like the overall message of how a lot of us really aren’t that different and we could work together, the ending felt a bit off in some aspects. Snip and Snails saying, “This doesn’t mean we’re gonna hang out at school or anything” wasn’t really necessary for example. Agnes Garbowska’s art is solid throughout. Her drawing of the Turul was fantastic. (It’s a shame it was there for really only 1 splash page.) Lauren Perry’s colors are extremely vibrant throughout, a true pleasure to look at. The main cover by Garbowska captures the essence of the story pretty well. The subscription variant by Lea Hernandez makes for a very clever Valentine’s Day gift. The retailer incentive might just be the best, proving once again that Sara Richard is one of the greatest cover artists of our time. (If only the Turul had a bigger role within!)

Overall, “Don’t You Forget About Us” ends pretty solidly. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, but still a pretty fun adventure in the mountains for the fillies.