Fillies, gentlecolts, and foals of all ages, welcome once again to another edition of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic recap/review. For a franchise about pastel colored horsies, it’s safe to say that this show has broken many of the preconceived notions for a show supposedly aimed towards only young girls. So it’s safe to say that when an episode about a pony superhero team was announced back at the 2013 San Diego Comic Con My Little Pony Panel, it was met with both a lot of excitement, and a bit of concern as to just how well they’d handle such a story. Did they pull a super success? Let’s find out with “Power Ponies”.
Our heroes become the mighty power ponies
The episode opens in Twilight Sparkle’s library as Spike wakes Twilight in the middle of the night while he’s reading a comic about the superhero team known as the power ponies, who have to defeat a psychotic villain by the name of the Mane-iac, who was a former hair product company owner who fell into a vat of chemicals and turned insane. Spike also complains about Humdrum, the sidekick of the power ponies, who only seems to make things worse for everyone by getting in the way. This seems to parallel the real world as we see Twilight and the rest of the Mane Six restoring Celestia and Luna’s old castle, and despite Spike wanting to help, the other ponies tell him that they have the situation under control without him.
Spike finishes his comic, but notices some tiny print on the back page. He reads it, which causes the book to create a portal that sucks him and the mane six inside the world of the comic book. Now in Maretropolis, the mane six have now become the power ponies. Twilight is Masked Matterhorn, with the power to emit energy blasts of any kind with her horn (so nothing really new). Pinkie is Fillisecond, with the power of super speed. Rainbow Dash is Zap, who can summon weather attacks with the lightning bolt around her neck. Applejack is Mistress Marevelous, who can use her psychically linked lasso to tie things up. Rarity is Radiance, who can use her magic bracelets to create anything she thinks of. And finally Fluttershy is Saddle Rager, who can turn into a powerful monster when angry (which she can’t seem to do)
It’s safe to say you can guess which superheroes they’re based off.
The Menacing Mane-iac
They don’t have too much time to assess the situation as they’re confronted by the Mane-Iac, who’s stealing an energy orb to power her doomsday device. The Mane-iac has the power to manipulate her mane and tail hair to do pretty much anything, from swing on lampposts, pick up objects, and even walk for her. She’s also pretty much insane. And, since our heroes are trying to get adjusted to their new powers (or in Fluttershy’s case, trying to find a reason to get angry), they’re easily defeated. Spike also realizes that he’s Humdrum, meaning he has no powers, and is just the comic relief. This causes a blow to his self esteem, which has him down in the dumps for the majority of the episode.
But since he’s the only one who knows the way around Maretropolis, and they have to defeat the Mane-iac to make their way back home, he’s leading the way. They find Mane-iac’s hideout, which is a shampoo factory (go figure), and the power ponies have to do battle with her henchponies. The group begin to improve, beating back the goon squad. However, Mane-iac uses her hairspray ray of doom, freezing the ponies in place, but sparing Humdrum Spike because he’s not worth the effort to capture.
Fear the Flutterhulk... that is, if you want to.
The mane six captured, and are soon to be guinea pigs for Mane-iac’s giant hair drier cannon which she plans to use to cause the manes of everypony in the world to go crazy. Spike sneaks into the factory, and after hearing Twilight tell Mane-iac that Spike always comes through when they need his help, he manages to help free the team as they battle with more of Mane-iac’s goons. Except for Fluttershy, who’s still unable to get angry. That is, until Mane-iac ends up swatting a firefly, injuring it. This sets Fluttershy off into a rage, morphing her into a giant musclebound monster.
The Flutterhulk deflects a blast from the doomsday cannon, knocking it into Mane-iac, causing her mane to go even more wild, and tying her up. Flutterhulk destroys the cannon, and the day is saved. This causes the mane six and Spike to be sucked back into reality. Spike learns that even though he isn’t always needed, or that he doesn’t have superpowers, it doesn’t mean he isn’t important to his friends. We also learn that Spike picked up this comic book conveniently at the Canterlot Store of Enchanted Comics. And the episode ends with the comic book vanishing into thin air.
This was a super episode, but does it get a super rating? Let’s smash into the pros and cons.
PRO
The last time the show tries a superhero story, it was the extremely clunky The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well. But this time around, the concept was handled better. All the characters were given awesome powers fitting of their mannerisms. The best of them easily being Rarity and Fluttershy. It was fun to see them learn how to use these powers, and use them against their foes.
Speaking of foes, I love the Mane-iac. She was a fun villain. It’s like what you’d get if you crossed The Joker with Doctor Octopus, and put them in a horse’s body. I especially loved her extremely over the top monologue to her henchmen-err-henchponies.
For an episode focusing primarily on Spike, this is probably his best outing in the series so far. Some can complain about his constant moping in the episode, but it makes sense in the context of the story, and it does make sense. Spike is usually just the show’s comic relief, and he isn’t as useful in the heat of battle like the mane six. It would only be a matter of time that a fear of self worth would catch up to him. Some people say this feels a lot like the moral plot of Owl’s Well That Ends Well, but that one was more Spike’s fear of being easily replaced, while this is more about how truly important in the grand scheme of things he really is. While a little similar, it does feel different enough to be considered fresh.
CON
I would say that while the powers were cool, Rainbow Dash and Twilight feel the most lost in the shuffle. Dash barely gets many cool moments with her powers, and Twilight’s just feels like something she can already do without a super suit on.
And I will say the whole “enchanted comic store” ending does feel a bit contrived. I mean, who would be stupid enough to sell magic comics to youngsters, knowing very well the dangers that this would lead to? I guess it’s really the only way to make some sense of the story, but they could have come up with a better excuse.
Power Ponies was a fun episode. It stuck with a lot of the stock superhero cliches, but despite that never felt too boring, or too rushed. It does feel a bit weird to see a show like My Little Pony try so much of this type of action (even to the point of giving this episode the first Fantasy Violence rating in the show’s history), but for what they could do, they pulled it off well enough. This was super fun.
RATING: 9 out of 10
Next week, Sweet Apple Acres is going batty. When a vampire fruit bat infestation threatens to destroy Applejack’s orchard during bucking week, she asks for her friends help to get rid of the varmints. But when her methods of ridding the farm of the bats clashes with Fluttershy’s, could this cause tension between the friends? Find out when My Little Pony has a bad case of Bats! next week.
Until next week, everypony!