My Little Pony: FIENDship is Magic #1: Sombra

My Little Pony: FIENDship is Magic #1

by Jeremy Whitley, Brenda Hickey (Artist), Amy Mebberson (Artist)

What caused Sombra to become one of the most feared ponies in Equestria's history?

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Unicorns

24 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 1, 2015

About the author

Jeremy Whitley is the son of two teachers and the husband of a third.

Born in La Mesa, CA, Jeremy went to high school in Lenoir, NC and college at The University of North Carolina. He graduated with a Bachelors in English, and a minor in Creative Writing.

Jeremy lives in Durham, North Carolina with his wife Alicia and his two daughters Zuri and Amara.

Jeremy is the writer/creator of the comic series Princeless, Raven the Pirate Princess, School for Extraterrestrial Girls, and The Dog Knight. He is also the writer of the acclaimed Marvel series "The Unstoppable Wasp". His other works include extensive work for Marvel, the "Sea of Thieves" comics, and over sixty issues of My Little Pony comics.

Awards and Nominations:
3 time Glyph Winner
5 time Glyph Nominee
2 time Eisner Nominee
2 time Cyblis Nominee
2 time Bloomer Nominee
1 time Most Likely to Succeed Winner

Reviews

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

This left on such a cliffhanger. Loved the back story. It made me feel for one of the worst written characters in the series.

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

I loved this comic it was amazing and on page 14 at the bottom there is a attack on titan poster!!!!!!!

[Stefanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Always loved Sombra and this comic shows another side of him, that he was not always evil, but still couldn't run from his destiny.
Great comic!

[Carmín González · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me encanta esta trama, definitivamente; Sombra mi "villano"/antagonista favorito

[Tyrone Bryant · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'll be blunt on this. I refuse to believe that this is King Sombra's origin.

The "story" starts with Sombra being a foal, going to school. He's treated as an outcast but is eventually befriended by another, one Radiant Hope. During Hope and Sombra's first day at the Crystal Fair, it gets to a point where they approach the Crystal Heart. It gives them both visions of their possible futures, Hope's basically being granted a seat by the two Royal Sisters, Sombra's being of the monster he'd become. Enter Princess Amoré, who basically explains that the premonition is uncertain and that she's here to talk to. Unaware the princess is opening her heart to him, Sombra becomes too fearful to open up in return. A year later, the magic of the Crystal Heart causes Sombra loss of mobility, followed by excruciating pain year after year until he becomes unstable. When it nearly kills him—by which I mean "cause him to disappear"—Hope reverses the effects, healing him and earning her cutie mark in the process.
Eventually, Hope's letter arrives. Sombra guesses (keyword: "guesses") that it's an invitation to sit beside the Sisters, that the visions have all but come true, and in due time his time will come next. This causes him to run off into the Arctic North, completely dejected, where he encounters a talking formation of red crystals claiming to be his mother and explaining that he was vulnerable to the Crystal Heart because he was an umbrum, "shadow ponies" sealed underground by the magic Amoré crafted into the Heart itself. Instantly taking her word for it, Sombra is granted a ton of power, converting his visage into the season 3 premiere aesthetics and establishing that.
He then returns to the Crystal Empire to relieve it of the Crystal Heart but then gets caught by a concerned Princess Amoré. She claims to have known what Sombra was all along, and Sombra promptly gets furious of the fact she never told him. Amoré tries reaching out to him once more, only for an enraged Sombra to immediately petrify and shatter her.
Radiant Hope, outdoors after hours for some reason, witnesses this and tries to dissuade Sombra from his newfound evil ways, to no avail; she runs off, distraught. And instead of catching her before she could snitch on him, Sombra just lets her go and declares himself "King of the Monsters" (because that's how we remember King Sombra—monologuing how powerful he was, not being the strong silent type from which fans defending him made the educated guess that he was the most subtle and insidious MLP villain). Hope informs the Two Sisters, and it leads to Sombra's eventual dethroning. And the story ends with Sombra basically having cursed the empire to spite his girlfriend for rightfully telling on him, and NOT as contingency for alicorns crossing him.

Now, admittedly there were a few parts I could appreciate, hence rating this 1 additional star.
First is Radiant Hope. As a character, Hope was friendly and playful—irresistible traits in any character, particularly females. When Sombra was shunned by the rest of the school and left isolated, Hope befriended him. After which, it's kind of natural that Sombra wouldn't take it well if she left him to learn in Celestia's school while he stayed in the Crystal Empire, lonely again. But here's the problem: she had yet to depart then; Sombra only guessed what would happen next. Granted, he was right, but instead of communicating with her he just stormed out and sulked out in the middle of nowhere, and then betrayed her because he was told to by talking crystals claiming to be his mother. Exactly how gullible was he?
Another character I liked was Princess Amoré. She felt like the alicorns who weren't Princess Luna if they were likable (albeit 1. she was established to have founded the Crystal Fair in this issue AND the Journal of the Two Sisters, despite Twilight reading aloud from a book in the season 3 premiere that it was founded by a queen; and 2. is NOT an alicorn... for some reason, but one story at a time). She was wise, caring, noble, and friendly also. As I mentioned earlier, she offered Sombra help after he'd seen an unpleasant premonition that he had no idea how to prevent. He didn't know she knew he was an umbrum, and she never told him until he was proceeding to do something he could regret later. Granted, she could have sat him down and told him about, but on the other hand Sombra could have at least approached with caution, leading to Amoré reaching out to him. The latter of which happens when she catches Sombra stealing the Crystal Heart, and he lashes out at her anyway. I'll give you one guess as to which one WASN'T in the right.
And finally, I kind of already had the interesting idea that Sombra becoming shadow wasn't really from being dethroned. Unfortunately, Jeremy's presentation wasn't quite what I had in mind.
And that's it. Two secondary characters and my headcanon half-realized are where the positives end for me.

Now, I may not be much of a King Sombra fan, but fans on other social networks have explained why they like him, because of which I can get the appeal. Sombra was an ambitious unicorn who abused magic, conquered an empire, cursed it to disappear once his alicorn foes crossed him, and set traps even smart ponies born 1000 years later would fall for. These characterized him as resourceful, subtle and insidious. But usurping the Crystal Empire then easily losing a battle because of mere assumptions he'd made that I knew from the get-go weren't true—where's the character quality in that?

And being the official comics tie-in to the series is no excuse. In fact, from my point of view it's an insult to both the source material and fans' intelligence. As a story itself, likable secondary characters don't necessarily offset an unlikable main character; Sombra's only traits were being clueless and gullible, hasty and quick to judge, all of which inferably became his downfall. And again, what exactly am I supposed to get behind there?

But whether King Sombra needed an origin story or not, there are less jarring and more ambitious ways to write stories of this kind. But Jeremy failed to find them, thus the issue we got did Sombra even less justice than the Crystal Empire two-parter did. And that's just sad.

[Christina (is in a reading slump) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually feel bad for Sombra, and can we just acknowledge that a new race of ponies have officially become cannon #SHADOWPONIES, why haven’t they gotten a reformation episode! Also lowkey - CONTINUITY!!! In the beginning when Twilight is asked if she had really gone down king sombras later on her own. I loved it

[Minnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Die Geschichte von Sombra habe ich grad erst in einem anderen Comic gelesen, dennoch war es auch toll sie aus seiner Sicht zu hören.


***
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[Edgar · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's so good

Honestly I loved the way they made sombra backstory its so well written and it made me feel more for the king or monsters I do reccomend reading it if you want probably the most official sombra backstory

[Frank J. Foust]

I have never heard of this book!and I'm sure I will love it!😍😍😍😍😍💕💖💗❤💓👌✌

[Brittany Putzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sambra will always hold a special place in my heart. Especially after reading his back story

[sofiacoppola · Rating 3 out of 5]

tengo más dudas que respuestas

[Sarah Lu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where to start? We get the origin story of King Sombra in this first installment of the five part series My Little Pony: Fiendship is Magic.

Cadence and Twilight find Sombra's diary and read through it to try to understand the history of the Crystal Empire better. It turns out that Sombra was an orphan, found by the guards in the Crystal Empire in the outskirts. Sombra is raised among the Crystal ponies, though never gets his cutie mark. He is not liked by anyone, save a unicorn by the name of Radiant Hope. They grow up together, and yearly, as Sombra becomes sick on the day of the Crystal Faire, she stays with him, refusing to leave his side. One year during his illness, his body begins to break apart, and he is becoming nothing but smoke. Hope uses her magic to put him back together, gaining her cutie mark in the process. She continues on the road of healing ponies, and due to the sheer amount of power she has, she is unvited to study to be a princess under the guidance of the Two Sisters. Sombra is torn by this idea, and runs back to the outskirts, the snow fileds where he was found. By doing this, he finds the dark crystal that created him, for the purpose of raising the other umbrum and taking over the Crystal Empire and dwstroying the Crystal Heart. Sombra takes the power given to him and attempts to destroy the Crystal Heart, however, he cannot touch it, or it will start to shatter his pony exterior. Princess Amore finds him, and she tries to talk him down, but Sombra is enraged when he finds out that she knew all along what he was but didn't tell him. He turns her to stone and then shatters her when Hope comes onto the scene, trying to talk him down and saying that she can help both the princess and Sombra. Hope runs to the Two Sisters, and they leave to defeat Sombra. Sombra knows that he cannot stand against the power that the Sisters have, but he leaves a curse for Hope, since she betrayed him, stating that she will not have a home left. The diary ends there and Twilight and Cadence leave, as the story unsettles them. the last panel we see that Sombra's horn has fallen into his study, and darkness swirls around, taking the form of the supposedly beaten King of Monsters.

Oof. This was interesting. First, I'm glad that Sombra did not get the trope of 'girl he likes doesn't like him back, so he goes evil' thing. The idea of him being made for a purpose, and all those years out with the ponies could have changed his destiny, it is interesting. Two, not a fan of the destiny thing, as usually it makes everything into a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it did with Sombra here, but I guess we needed a reason as to why Sombra felt that he needed to run away after Hope's destiny seemed to come true. Third, holy crap, what Sombra did to Princess Amore. Now it did note that he scattered her pieces, and shattering her didn't actually kill her, but that if someone found all of the pieces around the world, they could heal her. I would love to see that happen. I know it probably wouldn't, but it would be interesting to see that Princess from long ago, thought to be lost forever, to come back. Fourth, there is the thought that Princesses do not have to all be alicorns. Princess Amore is a unicorn, not an alicorn (if she had wings, they were very well hidden, but pretty sure she disn't have them). This is a nice deviation from other things that we have seen, as it seems a little odd to have the ruling monarch always having to be an alicorn, and never actually the same as their subjects anymore.

There is definitely more to discus on this comic, but those are my first impressions from just finishing it. I might add more to this review later.

[Ash Reads Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh.

[Kerri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, this is one of the best comic books I have ever read. It is by far the best literature revolving around my little pony's setting. The morals of choosing your own fate and going against your family to do what's right are clear and relevant. It was lovely to get a deeper understanding of Sombra's personality and psyche. Radiant hope was also a lovely addition to the world's repertoire. The explanation of Cadence's mother was a nice bonus, especially considering the story kind of sort of hinted that maybe she could be resurrected. I only wish they gave more of an explanation for Sombra's family and emphasized how he was not born evil. Overall, a fun read.

[Dexter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Villain origin stories are usually good, and Sombra doesn't disappoint. Seeing as how he got so little attention on the show, I'm very pleased with a comic devoted to him. It might be a cliché story, but it is such for a reason. It's effective.

But why could Sombra only say "Sombra"? Also -- I really want to see more of the shadow ponies at some point. That's pretty awesome.

Also, kid Sombra is adorable.

[AshleyiSee · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent and intense origin villain story that kicks off the mini-series "Fiendship is Magic" off right! When I got to the last page I was hungry for more. What happened to Radiant Hope? Each panel had my attention—amazing!

[Rush the nerd · Rating 5 out of 5]

King Sombra

I had always wondered if Sombra was always evil, and I finally have my answer. The ending was really cool. Are all the villains going to make a comeback? Queen Chrysalis apparently is! If you like MLP, this is a must read!

[Blackfeltfedora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love it

This is amazing the drama! The sorrow! The pain! It really shows another side of Sombra. In this book he was more gentle. I wonder if the pieces of princess Amore created Cadence they do look alike....

[Sarah E B ʚ♡ɞ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I gotta say bravo to the writers. because the writing of the comic book stories pretty much are on the same level as the show and I think in this case this story surpasses it.

[Mel Georgiou · Rating 5 out of 5]

The backstory of a MLP villain - in comic form. Surprisingly good.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome

Super Awesome! My kids love these books. Thank you! What I think you should improve on is making your books longer, if you could.