Random Art Dump: The Beginning and End of Everything · 3:22am Feb 18th, 2020
Howdy, folks! First and foremost, as always, Adorable Applejack:
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Wholesomeness personified
Warning: this blog contains spoilers for several of the IDW comics. Also, this is going to be one of those "long-winded, rambling" blogs. Ye be warned. Now then...
Super Spicy Hot Take: the IDW comics handled King Sombra infinitely better than the show did.
Do not look up this artist! *shudder*
It's not surprising, honestly. The team of writer Katie Cook, colorist Heather Breckel, and the absolute mad lad artist Andy Price—seriously, "Andy You Magnificent Bastard" is probably the best tag on Derpibooru—is responsible for the best comics to come out of the IDW pony series. The Return of Queen Chrysalis, Zen and The Art of Gazeebo Repair, Neigh Anything, the Luna Microseries (which gave us Tibbles), and the Chrysalis issue of FIENDship is Magic are the best things to happen to the canon, in my humble opinion.
Getting back to Sombra, the comics handled him with more care and attention than the show ever did. In the show, he appeared four times: The Crystal Empire 1&2 in Season Three, and The Beginning of the End 1&2 in Season Nine. In those episodes, we learned next to nothing about him. Oh sure, we learned he was a tyrant who enslaved the Crystal Ponies, but that was it. Hell, in his first two episodes, he didn't even say anything beyond growling about crystals! Even when he did talk in Season Nine, we got nothing. We learned he's a smart tactician, sure, but who is he? Where did he come from? How did he rise to power, and what drove him to such evil? No clue. And he wasn't the only one. I will never forgive the show for giving us such a fun villain in Cozy Glow, but not bothering to give us a single shred of information about her back story.
That all changed in 2015 with the release of the first issue of the FIENDship Is Magic comic series. That whole series is great, by the way. Chrysalis' issue about her tragic origins and Tirek's fall from grace due to his lust for power were both fantastic. Anywho, the first issue revealed the dark origins of Sombra, how he wasn't even a real pony, but merely a creation of the Umbra, evil spirits who wanted to take over the world of light. It showed how he betrayed the one pony who was ever kind to him, Radiant Hope, and how he killed Princess Amore and rose to power. It was tragic and heartbreaking, but wholly enjoyable.
To bring this back around, in Siege of the Crystal Empire, Cook, Price, and Breckel delved deeper into Sombra as he returned due to the actions of Hope. He succeeds in retaking the Empire, even turning the Royal Sisters to stone. However, Hope makes him doubt his evil ways. Eventually, we get one of the best sequences in the comics, where Sombra sacrifices himself to banish the Umbra and free the princesses. However, Hope refuses to let him go, and with the help of all four princesses, brings him back. The two then set of on their own adventures. It truly was an amazing story, and I'm hardly doing it justice. Seriously, go buy the comics and read them, they're amazing.
Now, where am I going with this? Well, the subtitle of this blog comes from a quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald.* In a letter to a friend, he wrote of his wife, "I love her, and that's the beginning and end of all things." This is important because we're now going to the first time the Cook/Price/Breckel team used King Sombra, my all time favorite series of the comic: The Reflections Arc.
Gotta love how there is literally no difference between normal Spike and Mirror World Spike. Dude's a bawss in any dimension.
I won't run down the entire plot, but the gist of it is your typical Star Trek scenario: a mirror universe where everyone's moral compass is flipped. The Mane Six—"Seven!" as Spike keeps reminding people—travel to this alternate reality where they have to free the land from the evil Celestia and Luna. However, despite how big a Trek fan Andy Price is, the girls never meet their own doppelgangers. But the first big reveal is that in the mirrorverse, Equestria is ruled by this absolute Chad:
Emperor Steal Yo Girl
Yup, in this reality, Sombra is good and kind, a ruler with the best interests of his subjects at heart. Seeing the Mane Six(Seven!) trying to process this is hilarious. However, the biggest reveal comes at the end of Issue 18, when they realize that they can't harm the evil Tia and Luna without also hurting our princesses.
Again, I won't go into it all, but yeah, Canon!Tia and Mirror!Sombra were lovers, are lovers. The series shows us their courtship, and it is romantic as hell, probably one of the best angles the comics ever used. This makes the ending, where Sombra sacrifices himself to save the multiverse and his beloved—this was before the Siege arc—heartbreaking.
You know, for as much as I hate tragedies, I can't help but love a good tragic romance. It's why I love DisLestia as a backstory for Discord so much: the idea of two characters who are deeply, madly in love, but due to circumstances beyond their control, or due to their inherent natures, can never be together is a concept just rife with dramatic potential. And when you combine that with the "Heroic Sacrifice" I said I loved in my last blog, it's no wonder why the Reflections arc is one of my favorite things to ever come out of MLP.
So, I figured I'd share some of my favorite "CelestiBra" art. Fate made to keep them apart, but in the eyes of every good soul—and every die-hard shipper—hope springs eternal!
Also because the artist behind this first picture is one of my new favorite artists and I want to showcase his work don't @ me haters gonna hate.
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Andy, You Magnificent Bastard...
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* Know how I know I'm retarded? When I read the name F. Scott Fitzgerald, my first thought was, "Oh, hey, it's the guy who wrote the Star-Spangled Banner!
A good king? That is fucking bullshit, Jake. Kings can’t be good in Equestria. The best they can be is incompetent and not evil like Thorax and Rutherford. And for emperors, hah! There is definitely no room anywhere for a good emperor. All emperors are Palpatine or Caligula.
The pairing is my kind of pairing. Heroic, not just cutesy, and naturally opposed to Twilestia. It deserves a better name than CelestiBra. That sounds like women’s underwear that Anthony Sullivan might sell you.
I'll admit, Reflections hit it straight out of the park, but much of the Crystal Empire Sombra arc just didn't seem to jell well for me.
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I mean, compared to all the other royalty in this show, their intelligence seems about par...
And wait, what's wrong with Thorax, besides being a Nervous Nelly when he first gets the job?
... And ya had to remind me that CelestiBra is a thing. Why must you crush my hopes and dreams of TwiBra? Why? Seriously though, these are two of my favorite arcs in the comics. Season 9 was a clusterfuck of inconsistent and poor writing. (Plus that voice for Sombra just...Uuugh. TFS DBZA Vegeta voice FOR THE WIN!!)
And just because I can:
Spike: "Sombra no!"
Sombra: "Sombra YES!"
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As for The Empire Arc it could have probably used a bit more fleshing out, maybe one additional issue to cover it and get all the parts to work a bit more cohesively. Still though, it's a mess load better than what they gave us in Season 9.
That arc did do a lot right. The ending's a desperate swerve back to status quo, and they really shouldn't have teased the mirror!Mane Six when they weren't going to do anything with them, but the romantic tragedy elements were done very well indeed.
Sombra's FIENDship issue is fascinating... though Amore is an even worse communicator than Celestia, which is truly impressive. As for Siege of the Crystal Empire, that's a thoroughly mixed bag. Better pacing than the Season 9 premiere's imperial conquest speedrun, but some very dubious character work for heroes and villains alike. (Funnily enough, both include Element-free Harmony magic.)
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Well, he's from Mirror Equestria where everything is backwards, so it all works out.
Those opening words are fighting ones. (And honestly, neither handled Sombra well; his initial appearance aside. RIP.)