The comics have already made the shows impressively dark villains even worse. Once the spotlight is on them, we find more reason to be afraid…
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# 1 King Sombra
- The Umbrum, once they’re revealed, make this a borderline Cosmic Horror Story. Mysterious and powerful beings, Sombra proceeds to Go Mad from the Revelation upon learning his connection to them. Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu? Stopping them cost the Crystal Empire per canon, Radiant Hope lost everything she cared about for her role in stopping them, and the actual Umbrum are still out there. The ending shows that even the seemingly decisive defeat of Sombra on the show was but a delay for both Sombra and the Umbrum, and sets them up to return on unsuspecting ponykind.
- Child Sombra becoming cripplingly, agonizingly ill once a year, every year until he was a young adult, when it got so bad he exploded! It’s all too easy to see why learning the reasons for this would break him such.
- Sombra’s crystalizing Princess Amore in a fit of rage was bad enough, but his increasing excitement to that he's damned himself, and that it’s freed him to lash out at those who wronged him. That's when we realize we are witnessing the moment the sympathetic individual with a horrible fate forced upon them transforming into a monster. By the time he shatters Amore, he's reveling in it.Sombra: I am not just any monster, Hope. I am King of the Monsters!
- This makes his appearance on the show scarier, since his comparatively animalistic behavior there implies he’s gotten even more insane, his greater size implies he got more powerful then ever, and he’s about to return.
# 5 Queen Chrysalis
- Chrysalis and the changelings were terrifying enough on the show. Their comic debut made them even worse and is the page image for Vile Villain, Saccharine Show. Their issue here is a Cerebus Retcon to all that.
- Last we saw Chrysalis, her defeat imprisonment was played for laughs. Here, however, it's played far more seriously, as she is or rather was set for a 1000 year sentence and seems utterly broken by it. She appears terrible, learning that Twilight Sparkle has become an alicorn princess has seemingly eroded her sanity, and leaning on the Despair Event Horizon. The Mane 6 looked genuinely shocked at her state. Now yes, granted, The Reveal shows this is not Chrysalis at all, rather one of her commanders/lieutenants disguised as her, but even this can then be chalked up as a testament to just how diabolically devious and cunning Chrysalis is. She played Twilight and co. like a fiddle, playing on their emotions to make them feel sorry for her and trust her enough so could make her escape.
- The real Chrysalis manages to be scarier then ever. While her borderline insane obsession towards Twilight seems genuine, it has not diminished her threat at all. She still had the intelligence to have a changeling impersonate her while she hid in the ceiling for who knows how long. Given that she won against Twilight after literally getting the drop on her (terrifying itself) there's reason to think she's more dangerous then ever.
- The reveal that Chrysalis and her kind have existed at least 1000 years prior. While enough major villains existed back then to warrant a Lampshade Hanging, unlike them, the changelings seem to have been active during most of that time, meaning they potentially have more atrocities under their belt then any other villain in the series. That they were still so effective as to come off as an Outside-Context Problem in their debut...
- We finally get a good look at what the changelings do to their victims. The emaciated state, their left in, plus that in at least one case, they never fully recovered, puts it up their with Tirek’s Mana Drain in horror, and there’s an entire army that can do that.
- They make Celestia this, proving the best example in the franchise that her benevolence won’t save you if you’re bad enough. SHE is the reason the changelings have their ragged, hole-filled appearance. The best Twilight Sparkle (with her powers boosted) could do left them with Amusing Injuries, Celestia left damage so permanent it apparently passed on to future generations as a kind of genetic trait. Scary enough that the changelings did enough to deserve it, but damn.
- The changelings' origins as a species, the first of their hordes were spawned of a mutated carnivorous tree from flies and pony skeletons, if not corpses! They're more Always Chaotic Evil then ever now that they have elements of Zombie Apocalypse in their nature. This achieves the non-insignificant feat of being darker then any fan theories. Those with weak constitutions may be grateful Unreliable Narrator may be in effect.
- Pictured: Chrysalis' "birth". A Canterlot Wedding had her claim she wanted to conquer "since I was small". While it's shown to be Metaphorically True, that image alone surpasses expectations for how true it is.
- By breaking out, Chrysalis has pulled of the first straight example of The Bad Guy Wins in the franchise. Every other time they had this level of success, they were still defeated at the end of the episode/two-parter/comic arc. Even those who avoided significant consequences at least had their Evil Plan thwarted or delayed. Here, she scores a straight up win that it will take at least in till the next story to reverse. By that score, Chrysalis is now the most effective villain in the series. And she is out there… Sweet dreams.
