A new creative team and a new adventure for everyone’s favorite ponies!
Reviewed by Andrew Mathieu
Comic Written by Heather Nuhfer, Drawn by Amy Mebberson, Colored by Heather Breckel, Lettered by Neil Uyetake, and Edited by Bobby Curnow
After a wonderful first arc featuring great character work, amazing art, and the delightfully sinister villain in Queen Chrysalis, this ongoing series receives a changing of the guard with a brand new writer Heather Nuhfer, and artwork by series cover artist Amy Mebberson. The story begins with Twilight Sparkle being plagued with nightmares. After finding out her best friends, save for Spike, have also been plagued with similar nightmares, they all decide to have a sleepover at Pinkie Pie’s. However, evil forces are at work, one of the ponies is in major danger, and a visit from Equestria royalty ushers in a new adventure.
The issue as a whole is well written. Heather Nuhfer has a nice handle on all the ponies, especially Rainbow Dash. Dash gets a large amount of dialogue, making me believe the multicolored pony has a fan in Nuhfer. She’s mostly true to Dash’s character, but I don’t think Rainbow should be this talkative and random to the level of Pinkie Pie, something Pinkie amusingly comments on.
(Spoiler Alert: Skip following paragraph if you’d like to experience the story for yourself)
Another character Nuhfer writes well is the criminally underused Princess Luna. In the animated series, she has not gotten that much screen time, so it’s nice to have this comic arc utilize her to such a degree. Nuhfer’s Luna is somewhat subdued and somewhat reclusive, yet intelligent and authoritative. Her design definitely represents her nature with her dark color palette that is in stark contrast to the other ponies. I look forward to having her play a role in this story arc, and I think Nuhfer does a good job of fleshing her out.
On the artistic side, things are looking good. While Amy Mebberson’s art isn’t as detailed and intricate as Andy Price before her, it’s full of personality and a nice storybook quality. With less on the page, she’s able to give the characters some details in expression and movement. There is this one scene in the issue that looks into each pony’s personal nightmare, and some are absolutely heart wrenching, despite most only taking up a single panel on the page. Her style is very attractive, and the colors from Heather Breckel continue to make this one of the most pleasant-looking comics I read.
All in all, this story is off to a good start. Only time will tell if this arc can live up to the extremely high standards of the previous one, but I have high hopes. This wasn’t the best issue I’ve read, but it was still really good.
Story: 3.5 out of 5
Artwork 4 out of 5
Overall: 4 out of 5
To Be Continued 