** SPOILERS **
I must admit, I was surprised that an issue focusing on Spike did NOT have anything to do with his crush on Rarity. That would seem to be a logical hook for further development. Instead, Anderson takes a cue from the episodes "Dragon Quest" and "Just for Sidekicks." Having returned the baby Phoenix Peewee to its parents, Spike wants to burnish his parenting/pet-care-taking skills and buys some "Sea Beasts" (read: "Sea Monkeys") that were advertised in his DARING DO comic. (I thought that Daring Do was a character who appeared in novels, but whatever.) After absorbing the inevitable disappointment experienced by all those of us who actually invested in those "magical critters," Spike tries various means to make his pets grow, gliding over "small details" at every turn. The Beasts not only grow, they actually evolve, and Spike finds himself having a hard time keeping up with their evolution. After overhearing a conversation between a mother pony and her impatient foal, Spike decides to help his charges along in a more organized fashion, and the Beasts, with his assistance, ultimately mutate into a weird combination of sentient frogs, Hare Krishnas, and the Little Green Men from the Toy Story movies. Alas, Spike must let them go into the world to seek further "enlightenment." But he HAS earned his pet-care-taking spurs.
I'm told that The Simpsons and Futurama did plots similar to this, which wouldn't surprise me at all. The MLP version is OK, though the Beasts' growing legs immediately after leaving Spike's aquarium was a bit much (and that certainly wasn't the only suspiciously convenient moment in the story). Spike's lack of patience and carelessness are a major focus here, but, just as the Beasts grow and evolve during the story, so too does the baby dragon "evolve" in the sense that he learns something about accepting responsibility above and beyond taking care of Twilight Sparkle's bibliographical needs and keeping the library clean. The slightly clunky art, unfortunately, undercuts the impact of the Beasts' growth.
4 comments:
In the interest of “Fannish Fairness”, I must insist that, for every “My Little Pony Friendship is Magic” reference you invoke in your reviews of Carl Barks and Floyd Gottfredson products, that you employ an equal number of Barks and Gottfredson references in reviews such as these. :-)
Though, for now, I’ll take the Simpsons and Futurama references! I’m assuming the Simpsons one is where Bart hatches an egg with a fierce reptile in it. What was the Futurama one? It’s not coming to me. …Or, is it just a general reference to the character of Leela’s so-called-pet “Nibbler”?
I just got the second my Little Pony comic book... the one with Luna and other ponies traveling to the Moon to fight their fears and Rarity tursn into Nightmare Moon #2. Pretty good stuff :D
Pan,
It sounds to me as if you are getting the collected story arcs. They haven't done a four parter since the Nightmare Rarity story. That doesn't bother me much, because I'd rather they did a good two parter than a poor four parter.
Chris
Joe,
You know FUTURAMA better than I, so I'll have to defer to you on that score.
Chris
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