Rainbow Dash and the Very Bad Day
- Story by Katie Cook, Art by Andy Price
Rainbow Dash is excited as today is the release of the latest Daring Do book and she eagerly flies off with Tank to get her copy. However, not watching where she's going, she runs into a cloud wall being built by construction ponies, and despite their foreman, Plumb Bob, apologizing for her accident, she huffs off in a bad mood. Several more incidents serve to worsen her mood, manifesting as a grumpy cloud that follows her around.
As Rainbow flies around town, her anger starts to spread to the other ponies, and soon nearly the entire town is in a grump with their own personal emotional cloud of anger. Even Celestia and Luna were affected. By the time she's arrived to get her copy of the book, the line stretches for hours from the book store, and the other Mane 6 complain to her about being late, also putting them in the back of the line. They all bitterly wait.
Zecora, who has been narrating the events, suggests to Tank to help cheer up Rainbow. But when Tank bumps into Rainbow, Rainbow goes off in a screaming rage at her pet, causing him to break into tears. This leaves Rainbow and the rest of the Mane Six horrified at how they've been acting and come to Tank's comfort. Rainbow realizes she's been in a foul mood all day, and is quick to apologize to Tank, her friends, and to the rest of the town after Zecora reminds her of it being her fault. Everypony quickly gets their books and the grumpy clouds dissipate. Rainbow and the other Mane 6 go off to read their book, while Zecora notes that everypony is happy again - save for Plumb Bob that Rainbow first encountered who still is in a foul mood.
Tropes appearing in this issue:
- Art Shift: Price uses at least three distinct styles to color this comic.
- Balloon Belly: Happens to Derpy after eating a box of muffins.
- Break the Cutie: Tank breaks down when Rainbow Dash yells at him.
- The Cameo: IDW specific characters Tiberius, Wheat Grass, Flax Seed, Gaffer, 8-Bit, and Poindexter all appear.
- Cumulonemesis: Drearies, living clouds serving as embodiments of bad moods. They hover over people's heads and spread when their hosts are rude or mean to others, and seem to delight in spreading sourness and bad blood.
- How Is That Even Possible?: Rainbow's reaction to a brick wall on a cloud.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Zecora's role as narrator is vague since she also gets involved, as well as Spike and Pinkie's interactions with her narration in the story.
- Least Rhymable Word: On one of the occasions where Spike calls Zecora out for missing a rhyme, she defends herself by stating that "muffin", which her previous line had ended on, is very hard to find a rhyme for.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After Rainbow blows her stack at Tank and causes him to cry in heartbreak over his owner yelling at him, the guilty conscience Rainbow develops afterwards at what she's just done, along with the rest of the Mane Six being horrified at Tank being sad, breaks the Drearies' influence on them as they come to Tank's aid and make amends with each other.
- Sequel Hook: The first pony RD infected is still mad...
- Shout-Out: In title and theme to the childrens' book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day". The Hot Topic variant is a spoof of the actual book's cover art.
- Andy Price's cover takes the appearance of Little Golden Books.
- The new Daring Do book is called "The Treasure of the Saddle Madre".
- On the overhead shot of Ponyville, Nurse Redheart is standing in front of what appears to be the 4077th MASH HQ.
- Maud calls a rock "Unless".
- The comic ends with a panel inspired by the finale of The Blues Brothers and the song "Someone to Love".
- One of the other Daring Do books, being read by Shining Armor and Gaffer, is "Daring Do and the Gamesters of Triskelion".
- The final panel ends with the same way that Batman (1966) TV cliffhangers ended, "Same Pony-Time, Same Pony-Comic".
- Skewed Priorities: As Rainbow lampshades, Fluttershy is so concerned about the bird that fell, she forgets about Rainbow's crash landing.
- Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Zecora fails to actually rhyme a few times, and gets called out on it by Spike and Pinkie.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Rainbow unintentionally infects almost everypony with her grumpy mood without even realizing.
