Written By: Jeremy Whitley
Art By: Brenda Hickey & Heather Breckel
Published By: IDW
One of the better things to come out of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is the expansive lore in Equestria and the surrounding countries. For a kid-friendly property about rainbow colored ponies, there’s really a lot here to dissect, and even a casual glance will yield characters and structures of interest. Nothing is here without a purpose.
In the case of Legends of Magic, the purpose is to examine some of that lore. Not fully by any means, but little vignettes and glimpses. Our first look is at Starswirl the bearded, Twilight’s favorite wizard and someone she’s cosplayed as at least once in the show. He’s a figure that has cropped up a few times in the comics, though I’ve yet to see him as a main character. That running gag continues here.
MLP:LoM #1 isn’t about Starswirl but Cellestia and Luna. They are young princesses, still learning magic, and in general, act like disgruntled siblings. Starswirl is the exasperated teacher. When some heavy teasing turns into spell that opens a portal to a different dimension, everything goes south.
Though it’s a self-contained story, so nothing goes south for very long.
At face value, MLP:LoM #1 is a cute story about sibling rivalry going too far. From a character perspective, I like the development of Luna and Cellestia’s relationship, with Cellestia being the mean older sister. She’s bigger, better at magic, and maybe prettier but I don’t clop to this stuff, just analyze it. Neither are good, but one is certainly better than the other.
From a lore perspective, however, I don’t particularly care for what I’m seeing. The portal that opens isn’t a nice one, and it fills Luna with precluding thoughts of Nightmare Moon. Evil is there, and evil is where she’ll be.
The thing is, it removes the fault from Luna herself and places it on this evil portal and the monsters that live inside of it.
I like the Luna => Nightmare Moon change. It shows that teasing and insecurities can grow and fester into something awful, and it shows that power corrupts. It shows, well, quite a few things, all of which turn Luna into an interesting character and throw some shade over Cellestia’s sun. I don’t want to believe Luna just woke up one day and was evil, and I don’t want to believe some evil forces took her over, either. That removes agency and character.
It might remove even more, but it’s late, and I’m still a little drunk. Suffice to say, this comic attempts to retcon something I actually like.
The good news is that Brenda Hickey and Heather Breckel are as on point as ever. The team conjure up some cute looking characters, great facial expressions, and bright colors. The monsters in the portal are maybe a little drab given the context, but everything else is fun enough. I enjoyed the touching moments and the laughs, even if both were further between than I’d maybe like.
I’ll conclude this pretentious rambling about a children’s cartoon with: If you’re a fan of the property, Legends of Magic #1 isn’t a bad read, though it’s also not a great one either. It is an adequate, cute journey that could have been a hair better than the sum of its parts.
At least Sunburst is in it. Remember Sunburst?! I didn’t until he showed up. I like him well enough though, so bonus points for Sunburst!
