History YMMV / MylittleponyFriendshipIsMagicIDW

* BadassDecay: Played with. While Chrysalis is still a powerful and ambitious schemer as in the show, the comics portray her as ''much'' more comical, and sometimes her antics can be downright silly: in "Siege of the Crystal Empire" for instance, she pouts and sticks her tongue out at Twilight, and later cheering excitedly when she overpowers her in a battle. This is in sharp contrast to the show, where whenever she appears she is a completely serious character whose sparse moments of comedy come from being a DeadpanSnarker. The result is that while her threat level remains high, she can be difficult to take as a serious threat sometimes. Considering her sorry state as of Season 8, this portrayal is [[VindicatedByHistory sorely missed by fans]] who want their badass bug queen back.

** "Siege of the Crystal Empire" (issues 34 to 37) has also been getting this after Sombra made his return to the show in the season 9 premiere. It's generally agreed that, for all its flaws, the comics gave us a far more interesting portrayal of Sombra than the GenericDoomsdayVillain he ultimately was in the show.

* ItsShortSoItSucks: Many feel the real reason the Kelpie got of so absurdly easily in issue #23 is because there wasn't enough pages left in the story to deal with her better. The following issue, while lacking stand out criticism, wasn't long enough to give Discord's time-travel shenanigans what fans felt was justice.

* VindicatedByHistory: The Nightmare Arc (Issues 5-8) was [[ContestedSequel controversial when it came out]], but future issues were even more so, with criticisms this arc [[FranchiseOriginalSin adequately contained]], meaning it's now viewed as one of the comic's best stories. Helping is that its biggest criticism ([[FanDislikedExplanation the nature of the Nightmare Forces and their relation to Nightmare Moon]]) was [[AuthorsSavingThrow retconned into something more palatable]] in ''Fiendship Is Magic''.

* DontShootTheMessage: The 2014 Equestria Girls Holiday Special is anything but subtle about the seriousness and dangers of cyber-bullying, which should be for the best. But those picked it up expecting a fluffy ChristmasEpisode weren't in the mood for something so grave, to say nothing of [[CluelessAesop the resulting execution]].

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: The 2014 Equestria Girls Holiday Special is not exactly subtle about the dangers of cyber-bullying... but that's probably for the best.

* ContinuityLockout: The later comics aren't really kind to newcomers as it already assumes your familiar with the characters of the TV show, thus it doesn't bother explaining canon material outside of small nods.

** The "Reflections" arc. A lot of fans were really excited at the prospect of getting to see a mirror universe with evil versions of the mane cast and good versions of the bad guys. Unfortunately, the bulk of the arc ended up revolving around [[RomanticPlotTumor Celestia's relationship with Mirror Sombra]]. The alternate versions of the Mane Six get very little screentime, leading a lot of readers to feel that the alternate universe premise was wasted even among those who genuinely liked parts of the arc. This is [[https://derpibooru.org/661397 potentialy lampshaded within the story]].

** Radiant Hope is a example where an EnsembleDarkhorse becomes this. In Sombra's Fiendship, she was regarded as a fan favorite and had some decent amount of fan art. Then the story picks up in the Crystal Empire invasion storyline, where starts recruiting villains of various shades of evil (including someone who ''isn't even a villain'') to go invade the Crystal Empire and revive Sombra, [[WideEyedIdealist all under the assumption that he's still the good, kind-hearted pony he once was]]. \\
While it's later shown [[UnwittingPawn she was being manipulated]], [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone horrifying her]] and leading her to redeem herself, there remains debate over how well it was handled and if it's too little to late. She's definitely suffered a net decrease in popularity, though.

** Princess Celestia in the Reflections Arc (Issues #17-20). For some, her actions have driven away any amount of sympathy she might have had while others are fond of her relationship with Mirror Sombra regardless. What prevents her from reaching full-on [[TheScrappy Scrappy]] status was her MyGodWhatHaveIDone moments throughout the comic... [[spoiler:That is until it's revealed that her travels to the other world is causing the destruction of ''both'' worlds. For most, this just brought her to the scrappy heap. Whether her willingness to [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice herself to fix this]] and losing Mirror Sombra (who took her place) as consequence redeemed her is hotly debated]].

** Mirror Sombra was generally well received for being TallDarkAndHandsome, having better development then most of the characters originating from the comic, plausible romantic chemistry with Celestia and [[spoiler:getting a emotional powerful heroic sacrifice]].

** The Reflections Arc. Some like Celestia's romance with Mirror Sombra, others feel it was a case of StrangledByTheRedString due to being poorly written, or that romance shouldn't be in the series. Some loved the ending as a tragic end to the romance, others cried it was a DeusExMachina and seems to be an inter-dimensional invoking of StatusQuoIsGod. There's also the Mane Six [[{{Flanderization}} being Flanderized]] and shoved aside to focus on the Celestia and Sombra romance, Star Swirl's personality not fitting what the cartoon established about him (particularly Celestia's claim "he did not understand friendship"), and the alternate world actually not being explored much, with the alternate incarnations of characters beyond Sombra, Luna and Celestia only being inconsequential cameos. There are also fans that thought the first issues were fine, but the final issue was an AntiClimax and wraps up with no significant CharacterDevelopment for Celestia and the mentioned DeusExMachina ending.

* InternetBackdraft:
** Ted Anderson caused this in several forums, including IDW's own, with the revelation that he, in the 2014 "Power Ponies"-themed Annual issue canonized dragondicks, a rather polarizing figure in the fandom, known for her vocal criticisms of it, specially men in the fandom. It was aggravated when his defense was that dragondicks' work and political views are just satire.
** Though there were initial claims that IDW had let Anderson go after finishing off two already-in-progress scripts, IDW editor Bobby Curnow has [[http://boards.idwpublishing.com/3/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=12770&start=1650 affirmed]] that Anderson is still on board, considered the situation a large mis-communication, though has instituted a "no OC" policy for future issues to prevent this from happening.
** This has not stopped some fans from avoiding any issue penned by Anderson, or in some cases, to stop buying the comic outright.
** Some have taken the 2014 Holiday EQG written by Anderson, which involves cyberbullying done by a online handle named Anon-a-Miss, as Anderson's TakeThat to the 4chan crowd's reaction to the 2014 Power Ponies Annual and criticism around that. Even though the Holiday issue was already in the works before the Power Ponies annual was out (based on [[https://derpibooru.org/716623 Tony Fleecs' tweeting a work in progress from the issue]]). It didn't help that a majority of the plot was also based around a [[BrokenBase very polarizing]] [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E23PonyvilleConfidential episode]].

** In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic Comic Book [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicIDWIssue74 Issue 74]], when Zephyr Breeze appears, he and Fluttershy's relationship seems to be much better than it was previously, with the two having affectionate nicknames for each other and playfully joking around. She even calmly helps pull him out of a panic attack. Come Season 8 episode "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS9E4SparklesSeven Sparkle's Seven]]" when Fluttershy mentions him to Spike, she says that he (Zephyr) could learn a lot from Spike about being a good little brother.

* BadassDecay: Played with. While Chrysalis is still a powerful and ambitious schemer as in the show, the comics portray her as ''much'' more comical, and sometimes her antics can be downright silly: in "Siege of the Crystal Empire" for instance, she pouts and sticks her tongue out at Twilight, and later cheering excitedly when she overpowers her in a battle. This is in sharp contrast to the show, where whenever she appears she is a completely serious character whose sparse moments of comedy come from being a DeadpanSnarker. The result is that while her threat level remains high, she can be difficult to take as a serious threat sometimes.

** Princess Celestia in the Reflections Arc (issues #17-20). For some, her actions have driven away any amount of sympathy she might have had while others are fond of her relationship with Mirror Sombra regardless. What prevents her from reaching full-on [[TheScrappy Scrappy]] status was her MyGodWhatHaveIDone moments throughout the comic... [[spoiler:That is until it's revealed that her travels to the other world is causing the destruction of ''both'' worlds. For most, this just brought her to the scrappy heap. Whether her willingness to [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifice herself to fix this]] and losing Mirror Sombra (who took her place) as consequence redeemed her is hotly debated]].

** The idea that Cosmos was secretly responsible for ''everything'' that happened in Discord's initial rampage while Discord never actually ''hurt'' anyone and [[TheScapegoat even took the rap]] to [[UnPerson erase her from the history books]] which effectively rendered Discord's character arc in the show redundant as he was GoodAllAlong.

** In issue 34, [[spoiler:when Radiant Hope uses a really powerful healing spell to revitalize King Sombra, that appears very intense and painful. However, it's hard to take it seriously when Sombra starts yelling "The pain!"]]

** The Cattle Rustlers arc (#25-26) quickly establishes that Twilight will not use her powers directly against any non-magical citizen of Equestria, otherwise the situation would be resolved in just a few panels (this is even lampshaded in the second issue). This has created debate if that's a legitimate approach to considering her magical strength. Not helping this is the fact that in a previous issue from the "My Little Pirate: Friendship Ahoy" arc {Issue's 13-14} actually did have her use magic on hostile ponies, with claims of self-defense being debatable.

** TheReveal that the Cosmos was secretly responsible for ''everything'' that happened in Discord's initial rampage while Discord never actually ''hurt'' anyone and [[TheScapegoat even took the rap]] to [[UnPerson erase her from the history books.]] While one side supports this idea which makes Discord more likable, the detractors of this idea criticize that the writers effectively pushed the DracoInLeatherPants trope too far for Discord and made him GoodAllAlong, effectively negating his own growth and trivialising his HeelFaceTurn in the canon show, some even going as far as to label the whole arc FanonDiscontinuity just because this reveal. This is effectively the Nightmare Forces scenario all over again, where a comic-exclusive character is revealed to be the cause of a show villain's fall from grace and acts of terror while the show villain in question suddenly is absolved of all blame.

** Issues #75-78 with Cosmos got this from the mere ''announcement'' due to describing Cosmos as 'making Discord look like Harleyquin compared to the Joker' and other such things. It doesn't help that similar to how bad fanfics like to hype up villains.

* TaintedByThePreview: The "Siege of the Crystal Empire" Arc got this for some because of the preview showing Iron Will being part of the VillainTeamUp, something many consider completely out of character for someone who, until now, has never once had an actual negative confrontation with the mane six or any villainous status at all, as well as his reason (ponies not fearing Minotaurs anymore) having never been a factor with his character in any of his previous appearances. However, it's downplayed as he manages to be something of the TokenGoodTeammate, especially when rather gently subduing Applejack.

** Some readers don't like that Luna behaves in a much more childish and less serious way than in the show. Others find it makes her more endearing and humorous to contrast the straight-laced Celestia better.

** The Siege of the Crystal Empire Arc is this to Fiendship is Magic: King Sombra. While it does [[spoiler:continue Sombra's storyline with Radiant Hope]] and many readers enjoy it for that, it also partakes in... [[RonTheDeathEater questionable interpretations]] of several members of the VillainTeamUp that turned off many other readers and even many who liked the story were left scratching their heads over. Whether it's good or bad seems to be up to how hard one finds the latter issues to swallow.

** ''Siege of the Crystal Empire'' was criticized for the [[RonTheDeathEater excessively evil characterizations of Flim and Flam]]. Come the Season 5 finale, it's revealed they caused a BadFuture ''worse'' than Sombra's or Chrysalis', [[NotSoHarmlessVillain causing one to second guess if it wasn't on to something]].

* RonTheDeathEater: Many feel this about Iron Will in Issue 34. Not only is he suddenly a villain (something he'd ''never'' been before), he physically subdues ponies and ''proudly'' [[spoiler:steals the Crystal Heart.]] This is on top of teaming with ''Queen Chrysalis'', who is a wanted criminal who'd be serving a thousand years in a maximum security prison if she hadn't escaped, which would ruin any credibility he has as a motivational speaker. Gets worse in Issue 35 were he [[spoiler:teams up with ''King Sombra'']] and helps imprison Applejack. When he actually shows regret, he [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse inexplicably vanishes]], losing the chance to redeem himself.

* TaintedByThePreview: The "Siege of the Crystal Empire" Arc got this for some because of the preview showing Iron Will being part of the VillainTeamUp, something [[RonTheDeathEater many consider completely out of character for someone who, until now, has never once had an actual negative confrontation with the mane six or any villainous status at all]], as well as his reason (ponies not fearing Minotaurs anymore) having never been a factor with his character in any of his previous appearances. However, it's downplayed as he manages to be something of the TokenGoodTeammate, especially when rather gently subduing Applejack.

** Naturally, anyone who watches the show has claimed they can easily hear [[Creator/TaraStrong Tara]], [[Creator/AndreaLibman Andrea]], [[Music/HeyOcean Ashleigh]], [[Creator/TabithaStGermain Tabitha]], [[Creator/CathyWeseluck Cathy]] and other voice actors from the show when reading their respective characters' lines.

* TheScrappy:
** Cassie the Kelpie, starting from how [[StoryBreakerPower overpowered]] her ability to brainwash all of Ponyville (including the Mane 6) was, and ending with her [[KarmaHoudini getting away scot-free after being "defeated"]] and explaining her motives, without getting called out for not doing so sooner. That she debuted around the same time as [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks the Dazzlings]], whom had the same, but weaker, powers, and proved more likable in spite of [[LoveToHate (or because of)]] their being eviler made Cassie come off as shallow and undeserving of how well off the story put her.
** ''Twilight Sparkle'', if you can believe it, in ''The Good, The Bad, and The Ponies''. It seems that with the comics' more action-oriented stories, the only way they can think to avoid having Twilight's magic become a StoryBreakerPower or her status as Princess to [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem solve any social problem]] is to make her LawfulStupid and arbitrarily refuse to use it because of some rule [[{{Asspull}} the writer just made up]]. Her road to scrappydom began an issue or two earlier with her forgiveness of the Kelpie, which was at least in-character; more than can be said here. Worse, this had an easy, obvious fix of [[DeusExitMachina writing her out of the story like Spike was]]. One has to wonder if her presence [[ExecutiveMeddling was forced]].

** While the {{Retcon}} to [[DemonicPossession Nightmare Moons nature]] has been mixed, her latest incarnation, [[spoiler:Nightmare Rarity]], is easily the most popular thing to come out of the comics, impressive given she only appears halfway through her story and is a [[WalkingSpoiler huge spoiler]]. Helping is that she has a [[EvilIsCool cool]], [[EvilIsSexy attractive]] character design; [[LampshadeHanging is savvy enough to know it]]; and some of the comics most epic and emotional moments came out of her confrontation. She eventually was added to [[VideoGame/MyLittlePonyGameloft the Gameloft game]] in 2017's Nightmare Night event, and was the first comic character to do so.

* BadassDecay: Played with. While Chrysalis is still a powerful and ambitious schemer as in the show, the comics portray her as ''much'' more comical, and sometimes her antics can be downright silly: in "Siege of the Crystal Empire" for instance, she pouts and sticks her tongue out at Twilight and then cheering excitedly when she overpowers Twilight in a battle. This is in sharp contrast to the show, where whenever she appears she is a completely serious character whose sparse moments of comedy come from being a DeadpanSnarker. The result is that while her threat level remains high, she can be difficult to take as a serious threat sometimes.

* BadassDecay: Played with. While Chrysalis is still a powerful and manipulative schemer that poses a great threat to Equestria, the comics portray her as ''much'' more comical than in the show, to the point she can be downright silly at times (such as pouting and sticking her tongue out at Twilight in "Siege of the Crystal Empire"). This has the side-effect of making her seem less menacing, in contrast to the events of "A Canterlot Wedding" and "To Where And Back Again" where she was more serious and rarely directly provided any humor.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap:
** Angel saves the whole town, which he'll never get any recognition for. We can probably consider his Scrappy moments paid back in full after this.
** Radiant Hope pulls a major MyGodWhatHaveIDone in #36 and tries to stop Sombra from releasing the Umbrum, resulting in her TakingTheBullet for him and averting the KarmaHoudini status that other UnintentionallyUnsympathetic characters have gotten.

* HypeBacklash:
** ''Reflections'' was looked forward to as a MirrorUniverse conflict that could have been its most epic story to date. This... had little to nothing to do with the story we got. The failure to live up to [[CoversAlwaysLie the covers hinted to]] caused damage to the comic series reputation it has yet to live down.
** The 2013 Annual wasn't received well, but neither was ''Equestria Girls'', which it was a prequel to, so it wasn't that disappointing. Coming after the EG series GrowingTheBeard of ''Rainbow Rocks'', the 2014 Holiday Special was met with very much disappointment.