| My Little Pony 40th Anniversary Special | |
|---|---|
| |
| Published: | July 12, 2023 |
| Writer: | Sam Maggs (pp. 1-60) Jeremy Whitley (pp. 63-72) Tony Fleecs (pp. 75-84) |
| Artist: | Keisha Okafor (pp. 1-60) Amy Mebberson (pp. 63-72) Brianna Garcia (pp. 75-84) |
| Colorist: | Rebecca Nalty (pp. 1-60) Amy Mebberson (pp. 63-72) Heather Breckel (pp. 75-84) |
| Letterer: | Johanna Nattalie |
| Editor: | Riley Farmer |
| See also | |
| Credits • Gallery • Allusions | |
| Issue guide | |
| Previous N/A |
Next N/A |
My Little Pony 40th Anniversary Special is a special-edition comic released by IDW Publishing to commemorate the My Little Pony franchise's fortieth anniversary. It is a collection of three stories, the first and third of which take place in the real world and the second of which is set in Generation 5 Equestria.
Summary[]
Friendship is Forever[]
The first story takes place in 1984; elementary school girls Julie, Melanie, Kelly, and Tiffany are best friends that share a mutual love for My Little Pony. During the summer before they start middle school, they regularly visit a nearby barn so they can play with the horses in the stable. While grooming the horses one day, the girls overhear a phone conversation between barn owner Mr. Pine and land developer Hugh Mann; Hugh is offering to buy the barn and surrounding land to build a shopping mall.
Shocked and upset by this news, the girls vow to do whatever they can to save the barn. However, when they start middle school the next week, even after Melanie, Kelly, and Tiffany give all their pony toys to Julie as a show of solidarity, the four girls start to drift apart due to increased school work, trying to fit in with new friends, and pursuing extracurricular activities. Julie still visits the barn from time to time but fears its inevitable closure. Unable to reach her friends by phone, she waits for them to call her, eventually falling asleep during one evening of waiting.
When Julie wakes up hours later, she comes up with an idea to save the barn. She races to the barn, locates a magic book under a pile of hay, and reads a spell incantation from it. Nothing happens at first, but when Julie wakes up the following morning, she discovers her pony toys have come to life and grown to the size of actual horses. Julie calls her friends and tells them to come to the barn right away, but they are unable to drop what they are doing to come by. As soon as Julie hangs up the phone, someone off-panel catches her.
The next day, Melanie, Kelly, and Tiffany meet up during recess and discover Julie never showed up for school. Getting the nurse to excuse them from the rest of the school day, the three head over to the barn. There, they find Julie tied up to a chair and their living pony toys magically captured by Hugh Mann and his henchmen. It is revealed that Hugh is originally from Equestria and that he was banished to the human world for attempting to tear down the ponies' homes to build his shopping mall; some of the ponies followed him to the human world and took the form of toys to keep an eye on him. However, when Julie found his spell book, it reactivated his magic and returned the toy ponies to physical form.
Unable to get the ponies to do his bidding, Hugh tells the girls to command the ponies to reopen the portal to Equestria so that he can finish what he started; in return, he agrees to let the girls go and leave the barn alone. The girls refuse Hugh's offer and set the ponies free from his clutches, and after defeating him and his henchmen, the girls and ponies trap Hugh inside his own spell book.
Suddenly, Julie wakes up, her entire magical adventure having been just a dream; she and her friends are still split apart, and the barn is still in danger of being sold. Julie is about to talk to her mother about this, but Julie's mother enters with positive news: the barn owners have decided not to sell. What's more, Julie's mother has brought over Melanie, Kelly, and Tiffany so they and Julie can have a sleepover and celebrate their precious barn being saved. Their friendship rekindled, the girls take this chance to start over and face the hardships of middle school together.
Tales of Dream Valley[]
The second story takes place in Generation 5 Equestria; at the Crystal Brighthouse, Sunny Starscout, Izzy Moonbow, and Hitch Trailblazer are bringing Sunny's father Argyle Starshine's old research books out of the basement so that they can learn more about Equestria's ancient history. Among Argyle's books is a very old and unfamiliar book titled My Little Pony: Tales of Dream Valley.
The book tells of a place called Ponyland and features simplistic descriptions of the ponies who lived there, including Butterscotch, Snuzzle, Blue Belle, Minty, Cotton Candy, and Blossom. The book also features illustrations of Dream Valley and its grand Dream Castle, and mentions various creatures like Flutter Ponies, Sea Ponies, Grundles, and Bushwoolies.
As the ponies read more about Dream Valley, Sunny begins to believe they are just stories of fiction. Since Pegasi are also said to have lived in Dream Valley, Sunny, Izzy, and Hitch deduce that there may be more information about it in the Zephyr Heights library. They seek out their Pegasus friends Pipp Petals and Zipp Storm and their mother Queen Haven to find out more.
Bonnie[]
The third story takes place in the early 2020s; eight-year-old Bonnie is a fan of My Little Pony Generation 4 and Generation 5. On the night of a particularly bad thunderstorm, Bonnie is using several electronic devices at once to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and My Little Pony: A New Generation, read the My Little Pony comics, and access the official My Little Pony Wiki. She offhandedly mentions to her aunt Vicki that she and her friend Kristen are having a fight.
The thunderstorm causes a blackout in Bonnie's neighborhood, and with her electronic devices all running low on battery power, Bonnie is unable to watch My Little Pony. Vicki attempts to talk to Bonnie about the fight she and Kristen are having, but Bonnie says she does not want to talk about it. In an effort to cheer Bonnie up, Vicki gets her old Generation 1 My Little Pony toys out of the attic and shows them to Bonnie.
As Vicki recalls what happened to her old Twilight toy, the story flashes back to 1983. A young Vicki got into an argument with her best friend Jessie because she found out Jessie had a sleepover with someone else and did not tell her. When Vicki realized Jessie making new friends did not mean they would no longer be best friends, she made amends by giving her Twilight toy to Jessie.
Back in present day, Bonnie admits she and Kristen got into a similar argument when Kristen went rollerskating with a new girl at school. When she expresses a desire to apologize, Vicki gives her an old landline phone to call Kristen. Some time later, the thunderstorm stops, and Vicki texts her old friend Jessie, who still has the Twilight toy Vicki gave her when they were little.
Quotes[]
Friendship is Forever[]
- Butterscotch: Ponyville is in trouble!
- Blue Belle: Oh no! What can we do?
- Butterscotch: I do not know, Blue Belle. The world is going to end.
- Snuzzle: Does it have to end now? I was hoping I could take a nap.
- Julie: Hey...are you guys still gonna be my friends? In middle school?
- Melanie: Duh.
- Kelly: Totally.
- Tiffany: Don't be a dweeb. Obviously, we will.
- Mr. Pine: So what's on the table?
- Hugh Mann: Three million.
- Mr. Pine: Dollars?
- Hugh Mann: Yes. It's a small price for Grogar Developments to pay for such an ideal location. This barn is the perfect place... to build my biggest ever mall!
- Julie: We pinkie-swear we won't let anything happen to this barn.
- Kelly: Pinkie-swear.
- Melanie: Pinkie-swear!
- Tiffany: Okay. Pinkie-swear.
- Julie: Virtue equitus universil... hae creatura vitam adduseer... mitteret in domum soum!
- Julie: You're all here?! That's what the spell did?!
- Blossom: You take such good care of us, Julie. Now it's our turn to take care of you.
- Julie: I don't know what to do. They won't listen.
- Minty: It's okay, Julie. We'll convince them.
- Hugh Mann: Oh, I have no doubt.
- Melanie: Have you seen Julie today?
- Kelly: I heard she didn't show up today. That's what we were just talking about. I know we haven't hung out a lot, but... she never skips school.
- Kelly: Oh.
- Melanie: My.
- Tiffany: Gosh.
- Melanie: They're real.
- Hugh Mann: You fell for my trap. Predictable.
- Hugh Mann: The ponies won't listen to me. But they will listen to their true owners.
- Kelly: We're not their owners. We're their friends. And we fight for our friends.
- Julie: Here's the thing about us and our ponies... When we come together... we really can save the world.
- Julie's Mother: The barn decided not to sell. The developer pulled out of the deal!
- Tiffany: We're so sorry we haven't been better friends.
- Kelly: We came so close to losing the barn.
- Melanie: We didn't keep our pinkie promise. And that's really, really gnarly.
- Julie: [narrating] You know... middle school is scary and sometimes life is hard, but with my friends and my ponies... I think everything is going to be just... magical.
Tales of Dream Valley[]
- Sunny Starscout: Steadyyyyy! Steady now!
- Hitch Trailblazer: Sunny, I haven't even started lifting yet. You can at least wait until I start before yelling "steady."
- Hitch Trailblazer: Don't forget who you're talking to! I was Maretime Bay's junior cart-pulling champion two years in a row.
- Izzy Moonbow: Wow, I've never even heard of some of these places. The Crystal Empire? Yakyakistan? Zebrat? What's Fillydelphia?
- Hitch Trailblazer: Why do they all look so sad?
- Izzy Moonbow: Maybe that's just how they used to look?
- Hitch Trailblazer: Where is "Ponyland"?
- Izzy Moonbow: What's a "gymkhana"?
- Sunny Starscout: Maybe they were an ancient hunter-gatherer culture! Maybe this was before we had farms!
- Izzy Moonbow: Was Minty always her name or was it a nickname she got?
- Hitch Trailblazer: A flower garden? So much for them being hunter-gatherers.
- Sunny Starscout: That was the only good theory I had! I need to do more research!
- Izzy Moonbow: Sea Ponies, Sunny! Ponies in the sea! I want to meet them!
- Sunny Starscout: Okay, let's think about this. These could just be stories. They might not be real.
- Sunny Starscout: We have to go tell Zipp and Pipp!
- Izzy Moonbow: Maybe Queen Haven knows something!
Bonnie[]
- Bonnie: I'm reading the Wiki on your laptop and then on the tablet, I'm looking at the pony comics. Did you know they have stories that aren't even in the show? Then I'm talking to Kristen on my phone. She's watching My Little Pony at her house, too. Except we're not friends right now.
- Vicki: Did you say you two were in an argument?
- Bonnie: I don't want to talk about it.
- Vicki: This is Applejack!
- Bonnie: That's not Applejack! She's got too many apples for her cutie mark! And where's her hat?!
- Vicki: These ponies are different from the ones you watch, but there is a Twilight somewhere...
- Bonnie: Twilight Sparkle?
- Vicki: No, just Twilight...
- Young Vicki: You promised that we were going to be best friends forever!
- Young Jessie: Yeah? And?
- Young Vicki: And then you had a sleepover with Caroline and Chelsea and didn't even tell me!
- Young Vicki: Are they your best friends now?
- Young Jessie: I don't know? They're nice.
- Vicki: Jessie was right. They were nice. And we weren't less friends just because she made new friends. We learned friendship wasn't something you could run out of. And the more friends we made, the more we appreciated our friendship with each other.
- Bonnie: That's like what Kristen and me were arguing about. She went rollerskating with this new girl in class, and I thought we... I wish the power wasn't out so I could call her.
- Vicki: Bonnie, come look! A rainbow!
- Bonnie: I'll come look in a little bit! I'm telling Kristen about your weird ponies!
- Vicki: My niece said our ponies are the coolest thing she's ever seen.
- Jessie: Your niece has impeccable taste.
- Vicki: Can you believe these are 40 years old?!
- Jessie: 40?! That's impossible!
- Vicki: It's true. My niece read it on a Wiki.
- Jessie: I promise to be your best friend forever if you promise not to say how old that makes us.
- Vicki: Ha! Deal.
