@nightshroud96  
the problem with the comics is they are tryhard trying to be canon to the show instead of be their own continuity, i know Hasbro has a long story with the comic book media (just look Transformers and GI Joe, even they will take things of Boom! power rangers to their show) but with MLP… they really needs to separe from the show if they don’t want to destroy close of 100 issues just because they have misunderstandings with DHX.
 
And i actually don’t want a season 10 comic series because of the mess of season 9 and be limitated with that instead of explore wasted potential stories that we cannot see in the show and… i don’t want the comics remind me about the Grogar fiasco because it’s very redundant if Tirek fiasco happened to Discord (something that sometimes we see in the comics but nothing in the show).

@Background Pony #D23C  
The season 10 comics should have started “fresh” by ignoring what happened before the season 10 comics and just following only the show’s continuality. Since the comic continuality is is shoddy(even worse than the show’s from its cases of contradictions) due to how many of its stuff got contradicted by the show.  
That memory altering Discord did to the sisters and them being absorbed by Cosmos left a huge.. stain on the sisters there.

@Jacalope  
Then again it didn’t stop Discord from continuing to cause trouble.  
She is unable to stop his spirit form apparently. She is talented(and seems to get stronger if her emotions are high, as in if she’s really pissed) but not powerful enough(at least without something like the Elements) to fully stop Discord.

@nightshroud96  

 
That said, we do not know more. Hasbro did not like flashbacks to the past of Equestria, so there is not much beyond “a thousand years ago” that Spike sarcastically commented on in comic book format.
 
We know that the tree was planted by the pillars of heroes from the old Equestria when the royal sisters were just children. We do not know how old Celestia and Luna were when Discord and Cosmos started their invasion that seemed to have lasted for a while. Before Cosmos flip out. It was then that the invasion became a worldwide crisis that forced the monarchs to take action. After Discord had altered the memory of the monarchs, it seems that Equestria was left to itself, perhaps they thought Discord had withstood the worst they had. It is possible that the items were either stolen or taken away in the safety of the tree so that the princesses had to find them again.
 
But; had the elements ended up in the hooves of the royal sisters without the tree being discovered? The tree is a mystery, because Starswirl did not expect the magic to be so strong in the elements that arose - which meant that it is much more than just planting and walking away. When Tirek appeared, it is possible that it was the pillars and Starswirl who confronted him, as we barely know how he was defeated. My headcanon is that the Staff of Sacanas had a role in this, as Scorpan is associated with this staff.
 
That was before the elements were discovered. And it is possible that Sombra was defeated before Discord appeared. But logically, the royal sisters would not use anything so potentially against a threat they know little about, especially since the unicorn was very cunning and strong in the use of magic. As we know, Sombra was not taken out with the elements during Season 9 - old-fashioned rainbow magic straight from the ponies was needed.
 
Discord may have been familiar with the elements beforehand, but if there is one thing he could not understand or consider, it is precise harmony magic - which we have seen was constantly underestimated by him. He mocked the royal sisters when they activated the elements, not only in arrogance - but also because he thought there was little to lose. Possibly he thought they were just magic amulets that the other monarchs had. He helped banish Cosmos to heaven and thus may have misinterpreted what the royal sisters had used as a small part of the united magic from him and the monarchs. As soon as the petrification started, this was realized far too late, and thus Discord was very interesting in the elements after he got free again.
 
Many of the arcs in the comics that are taken in must of course be either erased or retconned as they did not fit in for a long time, as with “Nightmare Rarity” in FiM 5-8 which has many interesting aspects of the story - but it was not thoughtful or too childish on the hands of Heather Nuhfer.
 
“The Return of Queen Chrysalis”, “Zen and the Art of Gazebo Repair”, “The Good, the Bad and the Ponies”, “Ponies of Dark Water”, “Chaos Theory”, “From the Shadows”, “Convocation of the Creatures! “ and “Tempest’s Tale” is definitely FiM quality like the actual TV episodes. But “Reflections”, “Siege of the Crystal Empire” and “Cosmos” are much more difficult. We know there are alternative worlds in the FiM universe, but “Siege of the Crystal Empire” considering Sombra’s fate in Season 9 is the biggest problem right after “Nightmare Rarity”.
 
This could be a bit difficult in the future if Season 10 were to end up as IDW’s Transformers comic universe.

@nightshroud96  
I think is better for the comics just follow the comic continuity and ignore entire season 9 to give us more stories with the villains what we cannot see because all of them are stoned and a better use of Grogar. (And i see that no story before season 10 follows season 9 because there is no mention about Grogar neither Cozy).
 
And if you’re crying about how Cosmos cancels Celestia and Luna victory aganist Discord… Starlight Glimmer did it before in Season 8 making her banish Discord with a simple spell instead of something powerful like the harmony elements, making the princess like idiots.

@Incursor  
Because of the fact they defeated Discord with only the Elements only for it turns out the real cause of that mess was Cosmos were they couldn’t do that on their own. Pretty much one of their huge achievements ended up being a “lie” due to Discord altering their memoires. Its really hard for me to explain but.. it really felt like everything got messed up there big time. Its still just not right..  
Problem is the season 10 comics are apparently following the comics’ continuality instead of the show’s due to that Cosmos pic. The season 10 comics should only follow the show’s continuality honestly, especially since so many new readers(from wanting to see how it continues in “season 10”) would not know what happened in the comics prior to the season 10 one’s and it would be a real hassle in trying to catch up fully in a way.
 
From the looks of it, the sisters had the Elements this whole time when they discover Cosmos messing up the entire thing. Like they are acting like they had them this whole time, especially with how they incorporated them into their armor like that. And raises a question on why didn’t they wear that cool armor when about to fire their rainbow laser at Discord(in which it looked like they just found the Elements and were putting their hopes into what they had found to beat Discord)

@nightshroud96  
@nightshroud96  
The comic has acknowledged continuity from issues rendered non-canon like “Reflections” due to the show retconning Star Swirl to have disappeared prior to Nightmare Moon despite it being critical for the arc as is.  
 
Don’t confuse continuity for canon, especially for something that’s used as a joke. The canon status of said joke is suspect as why’d he wait this long to get rid of the old photos?
 
And how does it detract from the Princesses defeating Discord? Discord, only happed because he allowed them to per a plan. Cosmos, that’s them legitimately defeating a Discord-tier or higher threat, which seems like it added to their accomplishments.
 
@Jacalope  
If we assume he’s lying, why would he given he’d already been forgiven for all that and lying is what caused this mess? He may suffer Aesop Amnesia (would’ve been a better explanation) but during the Aesop is too contrived. With the amount of fan wank to make it work, why not just ignore it and not take the canon seriously? That’s what the comic’s doing.
 
@Background Pony #D23C  
Maybe they found the Tree prior to Discord erasing their memories? I was under the impression their finding it in “Princess Twilight Sparkle” was during Cosmos’ rampage which they thought was Discord. The show is as guilty in plot holes surrounding the Tree/Elements: how’d the Princesses know what they were if the only one’s who knew about it disappeared prior?

@Background Pony #D23C  
I think Discord was merely planting the seeds while he was laughing at Celestia and Luna, acting so arrogent that they can’t do anything to him until they fired the rainbow laser of doom at him.  
He clearly looks like he was unaware that the Elements can beat him. And probably why he was so interested in them after he broke out since their power defeated him.  
He must have been playing the seeds just to add more messing things up, not realizing the tree was nearby and could hold back the Plundervines for a 1000 years.  
The Plundervines must have ended up somewhere in the forest after the Elements undid Discord’s warping of the landscape and said vines must have came after the tree due to its power the moment the tree is unable to suppress them in the forest anymore.  
I think Luna and Celestia managed to deal with Sombra and Tirek without the Elements there.

@nightshroud96  

 
Agree.
 
The Cosmos Arc could have slipped in if there weren’t too many controversies - especially that Celestia and Luna should have the elements long before the last confrontation with Discord. It is canon that the royal sisters had searched for the harmony tree and found the elements, this can not only be overlooked.
 
Maybe Discord stole the items just to lose them? He had planted plunder seeds, which meant he was aware of the tree’s existence. When he wanted to take the elements during Season 2, he was more interesting in the magic of these. That said, we know very little about “The Discordian Era” where the princesses, who we know were alicorns as foals, got into a conflict with Discord that had ravaged freely and for a long time according to most accounts.

@Background Pony #D23C  
I really didn’t like the whole memory altering thing there.  
Still it felt like the sisters’ achievement got messed up big time due to Discord altering their memories like that.  
That arc really should be erased like big time.  
And it confuses things up with it looks like the sisters had the Elements this whole time instead of first discovering them in hopes of beating Discord. The “retcon” really messed things up.

@nightshroud96
 
No chance.
 
But, we only have Discord’s words for what happened and only Fluttershy had heard the whole story - we know despite little about what happened during “the discordian era” where Discord threw Equestria - and the whole world - into chaos. It is very unlikely that he would have stopped even if he had regretted the fact that his girlfriend is a psychopath, and that it was discovered too late. So Celestia and Luna did the only thing right, although there is something wrong with the elements first being used on Cosmos. Discord would never have stopped. This was something that Fluttershy had to fix in recent times.
 
The royal sisters did not remember what happened, and for the residents of Ponyville it was “just a normal day”. At least we know that Discord had been distracted through Season 9 by Cosmos after the stars fell to the ground. When Tempest thought he had tried to take over Equestria quite recently, Discord replied that it was “a big misunderstanding” - more was not revealed. Which meant the role he had played as Grogar - which ended in failure. His mood was not at its peak, he had messed it up badly - not once, but several times.

@Background Pony #D23C  
I am hoping that Cosmos would get erased/retconned there.  
The Cosmos arc is not one of Discors’s best moments but its also a huge stain to the Royal Sisters too with being absorbed by Cosmos like that. Along with the “retcon” that basically messed up the sisters’ achievement of first using the Elements and beating Discord. It made it look like its ultimately a huge lie.

@nightshroud96  
A terrible plan such as they would have caused alot of issues that shouldn’t be ignored though.
 
And there is some tragic stuff already like with the Nightmare Moon mess happening.

@Background Pony #4DC3
 
So is not Q in STG. Discord and Q was not known for their high intelligence and insight… if the Cosmos Act happened during Season 9, it explains his absence for much of the series so the terrible trio could outmaneuver him in the end. So Discord have a lot to struggle with, his plan that almost followed to disaster and his involvement with Cosmos had not been his best moment, and it happened almost simultaneously.
 
Since Starswirl and Stygian are involved, it is believed that Twilight Sparkle will send them with Spike to the land of the cenaturs. We have seen that Twilight was not comfortable with the petrification of the terrible trio, but she will not do anything without having a background to rely on around Tirek. So it is possible that the next arc - Season 10 will probably not end, as G4 became too popular one year after the TV series ended - may be about the three petrified enemies.
 
Season 10 can last for a long time as there is no time limit on comics. We can only hope; there is very surprisingly very little about the G5 this year. MLP G4 has become My Little Pony`s answer to Transformers G1.

@nightshroud96  
Dude. This isn’t Avatar or Steven Universe. Not everything has to be dramatic or tragic (especially not in a TV-Y cartoon/comic).

Lotta neat stuff in here.

@Background Pony #365D  
Yes, it looks they have switched to a more condensed font from the past, eg: (at random)
 

Edit: No I’m wrong.

Is it me or does the font look different?

Spitfire: “Hooray! I get to do something!”

@miados100  
Let’s be honest here, Discord is not as smart as he thinks he is.

@nightshroud96  
unless discord knew that twilight needed something to become her key like boneless for pinkie and such and did it to help her get said magical key? I mean we know discords very rules breaky.

@Scintilla Aquila  
Just pointing out that both Tempest and Discord had a similar situation at some point.  
Both would have not regretted about what they did if the main baddie in question(Storm King and Tirek respectively) didn’t betray them.

@nightshroud96  
Given when this is taking place and the use of the word “just”, I kind of assumed that what Tempest is referring to here is how Discord was playing the part of Grogar in S9, not how he teamed with Tirek back in S4.