I would have enjoyed seeing Celestia kick Celestia’s flank.
 
Wait, does that even make sense?

Would have been nice if the fight didn’t end right here.

@dynamicv  
Yeah, I can see that. While personal alignment of the alternate world is the exact opposite of normal Equestria, specific events aren’t necessarily paralleled.
 
However, even when just alignment is considered, the alternate world was doomed the day Nightmare Moon was turned back into Princess Luna and Alt. Princess Luna gave in to her evil sister’s will and influence because Equestria’s ecosystem relies on the two sisters being a lynchpin for the world. If both sisters were evil at once, they would either rule unopposed or stop the rotation of the sun and waste away the land, like they did in the comic.

@Background Pony #C17A  
To quote someone who’s spent a lot of time on this:
 
 
“Free will is an illusion.”
 
But yeah, this is probably it. Just one in a multitude of alternate dimensions where thing happen to be the opposite of the norm.

@Background Pony #C17A
 
The connection between the worlds only existed as a result of Starswirl and Celestia using the mirror for too long at a time. Celestia’s visits to Sombra were short an infrequent to avoid this problem.
 
For a thousand years the events in each world were independent until a rift was created due to Celestia being stuck in the other world for an entire week instead of a few hours.
 
At least that is my understanding of the “rifts”. Without them, each universe is free to do as it pleases For example: Alternate Sombra was never affected by the stuff that happened 1000 years ago to Evil Sombra. Alternate Discord was never affected by the mane 6’s use of the Elements, etc.

I like the art. I like the alternate character interpretations. I’m not sure if I care for the ontological implications and unspoken assumptions that seem to underlie the whole idea.
 
I’m just some guy on the Internet who can’t be bothered to make an account here, so, of course, take what I say for whatever you feel it’s worth.
 
But–if we have two worlds, where each counterpart must be good or evil, and everything must balance, where what helps one helps their counterpart and vice versa, well… does anyone on either side even have free will? If Good!Celestia visits an orphanage to hand out gifts, does this force Evil!Celestia suddenly leap off her throne to fly away and kick a puppy in order to keep things in balance? What if she’s busy plotting other evil stuff and she doesn’t want to? Does it happen automatically? Which side’s in charge? Is each a puppet that pulls the other’s strings? If Evil!Celestia is forced to do evil things in response to Good!Celestia doing good things in her own world, is she truly evil if she doesn’t have a choice? Does she even have free will?
 
Or, turn it around–is Good!Celestia really good if everything she does is an instant, immediate mirror-image reflection of what Evil!Celestia does? Does she have free will in this instance? Does either of them? Is either of them even alive or intelligent, or do both universes make up one vast clockwork machine that only simulates intelligence and life? Is anyone on either side truly alive, truly a moral agent? Or are all of them swept-along willy-nilly like gears turning in a vast machine, with no more real life or consciousness than one of those creepy old mechanical dolls that had weighted pivoting eyes that would appear to open when you picked it up?
 
It’s disturbing and creepy, is what it is. Is this what the writers intended? Or am I overthinking a comic book written for kids?

@Torvo  
The only comparison you gave was the Gala, but in your opinion, would you honestly take the S4-style arcs over the S2 Discord, Chrysalis and Nightmare Rarity arcs in terms of writing?(they could keep the dbz-style fighting scenes, so long as it was written well and didn’t exclude every character but one. After all, S2 closed out with an all out brawl with the Mane 6 fighting an entire platoon of changelings.)
 
We don’t give S1 enough credit for the right reasons…S1 wasn’t supposed to be large-story based, it was character based. With a lot clever, memedic dialogue and a lot of character exploration, they succeeded in what they intended to do….make us adore the main characters and setting, and have us the audience want more and more involved stories about them. The fandom had swelled to an enormous size. And by the time Discord and Chrysalis arcs came up, i.e. by the time S2 was done, the fandom absolutely exploded in size. And for good reasons. With but a few minor hiccups, MLP was at that point the top of it’s game. We didn’t have to worry about character excluding stories, safety net arcs like Crystal Empire, EG1, PTS and Twilight’s Kingdom.
 
Do you remember how they advertised the S4 finale before its release? They kept the identity of the villain mostly a secret until the release of the 2nd or 3rd clip trailer. In that one they revealed a crippled but EXTREMELY sinister villain persona who revealed himself as Lord Tirek, someone only people part of the fandom long enough to know about its roots would know about, and the hype was off the charts. Then, when the episode finally aired, all scenes with him after that one had him with a COMPLETELY different and unintimidating personality other then that he was a lying and violent brute.
 
That kind of writing I think we can all live without.

@Background Pony #EBE4  
I am aware it’s your opinion, but with my opinion I beg to differ. All shows have their ups and down. The first season wasn’t all grand either. I’d much rather have the season 4 closing arc than the Gala episode. I’ve been around since the beginning and while not all episodes or material has been grand, I’d say the quality taken in average has been pretty stable.

Between the comics, the EG movies, and everything past season 3, this show has pretty much gone down the gutter.  
It started out great, and now it’s just awful…

@Background Pony #E28E  
Wow someone’s butthurt.
 
Its sad when you make an argument and the only way someone can agree with you using the facts is ‘Wow, you are so RIGHT….just as long as you ignore this part, and this part, and this part, and this part, especially this part, etc., etc., ect…’

@PonyPon  
Then you’re still screwed, as the arc consists of  
>An inciting incident that is never explained(Why Celestia jumped through the portal), even though everything hinged on this and her motivations for such change the entire outlook of the story depending  
>A middle two sections that are nothing but exposition and are completely devoid of adventure, and slammed with a droll tone so it’s not even fun  
And finally, most damningly  
>An ending wherein everything, absolutely everything established in those previous two parts, including the infodump in issue 3(which is already an amateur mistake so horrible most writing teachers would fail you for it), is totally contradicted. You took away the adventure, friendship and excitement and replaced it with exposition, and then made that exposition totally worthless. Worse than worthless, as now the ending makes no sense whatsoever.  
>And hey, added bonus, our main character now loses all agency and has to be saved by ‘the boy’, and as a final flip off to the very concept of MLP shows she leaned nothing about any of this.
 
If you want to argue bad story direction or choices, that’s different. If you were just hoping for a ‘good’, ‘well written’ or just competently put together story, you need to go elsewhere. This thing had less thought put into it than an order at a mcdonalds for a happy meal.

@Mr. Horrible  
I didn’t specifically asked for it, i just wanted a good story, but i felt that the direction they took with the story wasn’t the right one. Could they have done it well. Sure, but they didn’t.
 
The problem stems from it being a okay-ish story with so much potential, the teasing of the Evil Main 6 at the end was just cruel, and i felt as if it was just a slap in the face to all who at least wanted a decent story, instead of the romance one we got.
 
I dont hate Kate Cook or Andy Price, and i hope that they can write a better story in the future with this concept. But as it is, the story and the execution where terrible (to me at least) and i would have preferred if they just did a cliche but entertaining story, then do this story they don’t seem to have the capacity to write with the restrictions of the character and the license.

@Mr. Horrible  
What if the expectation is nothing beyond being good?

@TheUltimateAvenger  
Not being what you, personally, specifically asked for is not the same thing as being bad.
 
A concept that a lot of the internet seems to struggle with.

 
Scene that I wanted to see happened. I’m happy.

@bingo77  
I don’t feel the mirror verse was the only wasted potential of the arc.Starswirl and Tia’s adventures could’ve been a great story on its own.And if it wasn’t the main focus of the arc and had actual development the romance between Good!Sombra and Celestia could’ve been good.
 
But the arc was just way too confused on what it wanted to tell.Plus there were massive pacing problems.
 
It has amazing potential all over the arc,but a very bad execution.

I agree about it being a huge letdown. Here you have a giant Evil universe, with a chance to examine what it is that make each of the characters who they are (I.E., why is Celestia evil compared to good Celestia? Focus on Celestia’s virtues that she possesses as a way of framing how the lack of them caused evil Celestia to be the way she is)
 
 
This was a really bad love story, and the short fight didn’t make up for it sadly :(

@TheUltimateAvenger  
Forgot one: Star Trek, Mirror Universe.

@Mr. Horrible  
So? Cliche doesnt mean bad, and it’s still an interesting and great storytelling method. Many of the best stories of comic books have been Good Earth vs Evil Earth scenarios.
 
Tranformers: Shattered Glass  
Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths  
Injustice: God’s Among Us  
And many many more.
 
Any writer can make a cliche story work, it’s just about bringing enough new stuff to the table to work with.
 
Ill give this comic props for being… “unique”. But i’d rather have a good, yet cliche story, than a new, yet shit one.

Should the proper answer to “Give me your world” be “Give me your face!”?

@Background Pony #5E66
 
I was miffed about the “no Mean Six” thing myself, but looking at your comment…
 
From a meta-perspective, that’s genius.

KAIOKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN

@Bahamut  
That thing you are describing as being so much better is easily the most hackneyed, boring, cliche crap that anyone could possibly do with an alternate universe story. If that’s what the “fans” wanted, then thank god the “fans” aren’t allowed anywhere near these comics.
 
And stop with that “slap in the face to the fans” crap, too. Just because the actual story didn’t end up being the same as your dumb idea doesn’t mean it was done to deliberately piss you off.

@Bahamut  
yeah cause that is not the most enormous of cliches and it was not more clever for it to be that they are simple miscreants and do not play the same amount of role in theri world as the mane six are in theirs.

@Bahamut  
Yeah, something like that. This comic really struggled in quite a few different ways.