NEW IDW has announced G5 comics

[Dragonflitter]

I haven't read the G1 crossover either.  It would be ok to me if they took on one art style or another but combining them... eh.  It would have been fun to make them all look like G1 when they entered the G1 universe. 

I agree, that would have been a cute idea! And then when the G1's went to Ponyville, they would have changed to the G4 style! If we had spent equal time in both places--so we would have got to see more of both styles--that would have been fun.

[Carrehz]

I haven't seen any IDW bashing in this thread? Just people trashing the "crossover" and point out the tracing. (Which, EESH, I had no idea it was that bad! Especially the fanart ripoffs, ugh If it was just one or two stock poses I wouldn't think too much about it, cause I get it, horses are difficult to draw - even super-stylized ones like this! you've still got to get the style down - and there's only so many poses you can do.. that sort of thing happens all the time, as others have said... but copying that much? @_@ really hammers home how little effort seems to have gone into this one...)

I haven't read the G1 crossover either.  It would be ok to me if they took on one art style or another but combining them... eh.  It would have been fun to make them all look like G1 when they entered the G1 universe. 

I agree, that would have been a cute idea! And then when the G1's went to Ponyville, they would have changed to the G4 style! If we had spent equal time in both places--so we would have got to see more of both styles--that would have been fun.

I would've loved this!! This really would've been soooo cute.

[Taffeta]

Even if you took the original premise of a new generation of witches and the volcano, which ok, I'm not sure how that worked, having not read all of it and having not made much sense of it from the bits posted here...but would it be so bad if for example the G4 ponies were tossed into the volcano by the new witchs/evil ponies and ended up being protected somehow by friendship magic/the rainbow of light or whatever...and found themselves in the original movie world with the smooze?


...I dunno. That seems a better premise for a crossover than G1 ponies suddenly appearing for no apparent reason in G4 world and then infodumping a (wrong) account of their own encounters with the smooze...? (Also I think given by a pony that wasn't there).

I get that back in time is a cliche. But...you know. At least it gives options. And that would give the opportunity for the promotion of the so called 'retro' versions of the G4 as well, wouldn't it...if they drew them a bit G1ish...

[Carrehz]

And that would give the opportunity for the promotion of the so called 'retro' versions of the G4 as well, wouldn't it...if they drew them a bit G1ish...

That would've made sense when the Retro Rainbow ponies were first released, as it is I'm not sure how available they are right now? I only ever saw them briefly at The Entertainer, over a year after their US release, and they only got 4/6 of the set in. Took me the better part of a year to hunt down the last two online. I'm not sure how wide a release they got?

'course, if they were smart, that would've been a great tie-in. Re-release the Retro Rainbows and have the comic put the G4 chars in the G1 style.. that would've been rad.

[Taffeta]

And that would give the opportunity for the promotion of the so called 'retro' versions of the G4 as well, wouldn't it...if they drew them a bit G1ish...

That would've made sense when the Retro Rainbow ponies were first released, as it is I'm not sure how available they are right now? I only ever saw them briefly at The Entertainer, over a year after their US release, and they only got 4/6 of the set in. Took me the better part of a year to hunt down the last two online. I'm not sure how wide a release they got?

'course, if they were smart, that would've been a great tie-in. Re-release the Retro Rainbows and have the comic put the G4 chars in the G1 style.. that would've been rad.

Not having been to a toy store more than maybe 2x in the last 2 years, I can't really comment on that either, tbh. Not that I was looking for them. But yeah, I'm sure Hasbro would've been up for that tie in to get sales up too.

Not that they really look like G1 ponies. But G4 people probably don't care too much about that.

[LadyMoondancer]

So I had a lot of feelings about the crossover comic . . . I loved the shenanigans of the smooze ponies, especially the unicorn, but I thought it could definitely be improved.  I made a list of things I would've done.


1. Edit down the plot. Dump all the stuff about the Mane Six being overworked, WHO CARES. Start in media res with these strange ponies already teaching classes, and we don’t know who they are but they’re obviously evil and have devious plans.  The G1 ponies should enter the plot by the end of the first issue.

2. Less villains.  Cut out the young witches and the pet rat, just have the smooze ponies.

4. More personality for the G1 ponies (and G3 Minty.  Whose presence I was fine with.)  In the comic they functioned as a collective. But why? I don’t even care if they match a past cartoon personality.  Like they could’ve used Sunlight, Seashell, and Hippity Hop, who were never animated, and given them whatever personality they needed to drive the plot forward.

5. Different moral ‘cause uhhh that one was weird. The G1 ponies were like “Congrats, we are letting you free because you aren’t bad like your moms. ” And didn’t express remorse for jailing children because of something their parents did. Even if it was an accident--which is understandable, because I too was surprised Reeka and Draggle both found guys to bang--they could have said sorry.

Like I said, ideally I would cut the Witches entirely so this wouldn’t be an issue. The climax would be the smooze ponies making friends with the other ponies.

6.  I would add some multiverse shenanigans.  They visit the G3 world, they visit the Tales world, etc.  The reason would be, like . . . “We have to collect different items for this recipe to defeat the Evil Plan of the smooze ponies, and THIS plant is only found on G3 Butterfly Island” etc.  GO BONKERS. Have a montage of them traveling through the worlds of Transformers ponies, D&D ponies, Ghostbuster ponies, etc.

7. Put the poor forgotten G2 ponies in there, at least for a cameo.

8.  My origin for the smooze ponies: the witches created them to do housework. Then they decided to move, but they left the smooze ponies behind. We know the witches are still fine because they send the smooze ponies postcards from time to time (because that’s comedic.) The smooze ponies, who feel purposeless, are like “oh my gosh, I’ll bet if we spread darkness and misery, they’ll come back!” and the plot kicks off from there.  At the end of the story they realize the witches have been taking advantage of them the whole time and they learn to think for themselves.

Also, even though I keep calling them "smooze ponies", they wouldn't actually be made of smooze.  They'd start as clay statues, which the witches bring to life with a spell.  I wouldn't have any mention of smooze at all, because then the plot drags to a halt as a character must explain the difference between G1 smooze and G4 smooze for the benefit of the audience.

9. I would also have the smooze ponies concocting a different sort of plan.  Maybe something environmental, like they start a magic spell that extends the Everfree Forest into Ponyville, which causes wildness that the G4 ponies aren't used to.  But it IS something the other gen ponies are used to, so they use their expertise to help out.  Then as the plot progresses the smooze ponies begin to have a change of heart, but the spell is so potent that even they can't stop it once it's started, which is why the ponies' only hope is a magical invention or even more powerful spell, etc.

[MJNSEIFER]

I had things to say about this series (despite still not reading it) but it kept turning into stuff about my own project, so it would likely fit in better when I post about that.  I am sorry for anything I didn't respond to as well, such as the "everypony" thing (that may have been it, actually.)

From the sounds of things this comic series ended up being not what I thought it was at least twice over - I thought at one point (I think at first) that maybe it was some kind of "farewell to IDW G4", and they were going to crossover with the "Concept Six" G1 ponies specifically (i.e. only those ponies) and the point would be that the Mane Six's final adventure (on IDW) would be with the G1s they were somewhat inspired by, or at least were supposed to be, which alone sounds like a nice idea to me (yes, I know they are only the "Concept Six" when specifically referring to the unused G4 version of them.)

However, the comic ended up using several G1s (as well as at least one G3), implying it was at least supposed to be a pre-G4/G4 crossover of sorts, but from the sounds of it they did their own thing with the pre-G4s, which... is fine I guess, if they were just going by their own interpretation of them, but if they advertised it as a big crossover thing, it would make more sense to include at least one canon version of each pre-G4 pony.

It is also isn't their final time with MLP as there's going to be a G5 comic from them, though that could be different people and either way this was still their last(?) G4 comic, so at least the idea of it being some kind of grand finale still stands, but I feel it would have made more sense if they'd done either of the things it looked to me like they were going to do.

To LadyMoondancer: I like your ideas for how you would have done the comic, particularly point six and seven, which would have been excellent for a crossover storyline.

[starscout]

7. Put the poor forgotten G2 ponies in there, at least for a cameo.

G2-who? Never heard of her 

[Taffeta]

I also agree that LM's edits would have made it work far better.

I'm not really averse to reinventing the characters of g1 ponies as G1 did that itself over and over, but just the completely all over the place aspect bothers me.

The only things, as I said before, that make me genuinely twitch, are 'everypony' and the potential use of Bon Bon to represent G2 (although that may be my overthought - since the G5 special did not fall into that trap.)

The rest is kind of resignation that they didn't bother to look anything up properly or do any major research.

Old person cranky coming up here but that's symptomatic of the world as a whole. Google does not hold the answer to every question.

[MJNSEIFER]

7. Put the poor forgotten G2 ponies in there, at least for a cameo.

G2-who? Never heard of her 

That would be My Little Pony Tales.

Put those tomatoes down - it was a joke!

But yeah, the G2... the actual G2s need to their moments in the spotlight (I'll be sure to make sure they do.)

[Taffeta]

7. Put the poor forgotten G2 ponies in there, at least for a cameo.

G2-who? Never heard of her 

That would be My Little Pony Tales.

Put those tomatoes down - it was a joke!

But yeah, the G2... the actual G2s need to their moments in the spotlight (I'll be sure to make sure they do.)

On this forum, a joke like that merits very, very mouldy, smelly and squishy tomatoes.

You have been warned.

...Some things are just not jokeworthy.

[LadyMoondancer]

The general vibe I got from the comic was the writer was scared of misinterpreting anything, so they tried to speed anything G1 through as QUICKLY as possible to get away from it, almost.  And I think that's the wrong attitude.  Better to spread your wings and crash hard than not to try to fly at all, you know?

I think they just referenced anything that had a TV show / special.  Now if it was me I would've looked at the G2s lack of canon and just made a bunch of stuff up.  OR, better yet, have a recurring gag where the G2 who is tagging along with the gang gets interrupted every time she tries to give the specifics about her home.

"So who founded Friendship Gardens, Ivy?"

"Well, interestingly enough it started as--"

"LOOK OUT, FALLING BOULDERS!"



"Ivy, do all ponies in your world have magic?"

"Believe it or not, we--"

"AHHHH, THE FIRE DEMONS ARE ATTACKING!"

Oh, my imagined montage would also include the Takara ponies, Dream Beauties, and the Petite ponies.  (I know the Petite ponies coexisted with the G1s in the UK comic, but I would put them in their own world and have a panel of them tying down Twilight Sparkle and Lofty or whoever with lots of tiny ropes, like that classic scene in Gulliver's Travels.)