Friendship is Magic #78
Well, the Cosmos arc has come to an end. Overall, I'm not too satisfied by this arc, but one thing I'm happy about is that unlike previous big stories by Cook, this doesn't all come down to one character solving everything by themselves. Though this does mean that Cosmos at full power oddly comes off as much weaker than her, well, weaker versions from previous chapters.
The art remains a delight as ever, though, including some horrifying imagery from Cosmos's transformations.
Still, this arc really doesn't feel like it deserved four (really five) issues of material as is, given how much padding it turned out to have in the end. Discord makes a joke about having to explain everything to Rainbow and the others when they could have just read the arc, but the characters involved in the final battle
not actually knowing what's going on seems like it'd undermine everything happening. Hell, I completely forgot Capper was in this arc until he appeared at the end. I don't think it even had anything particularly interesting to say about Discord and Cosmos's relationship. Discord stands up to her at the end, and that's the extent of their development.
I would recommend this arc for its fantastic art, but nothing else really.
Silver Quill's review points out that with the alicorns out of the way, the other Mane Six are left leaderless during the final fight, which allows for more interplay between them than usual, which actually was interesting to see. Plus I forgot to bring up how Spike is the key to saving the day.
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I mentioned not posting some news yesterday, but
it's popping up on Buzzfeed now too, so might as well. Scootaloo's lesbian aunts will appear in Saturday's episode, and they're lesbians there! The article contains no spoilers beyond that fact (which was the big issue with the article from yesterday I chose not to link).
EDIT: Huh, this is a pretty unexpected cover, since IIRC Wubcake doesn't watch the show anymore. Still, pretty good, especially her Cozy Glow voice.