And I have to admit myself, I also want Sombra to given justice here because he is a passable villain to me and this is probably the only thing that can redeem him to a lot of people. Even though I know a lot of people still will explain why Sombra is the worst villain in the MLP universe.

@Red Fire  
Actually I know that. I just like to kidding around. Besides I actually agree with you it’s kind of a cliche backstory but we see tomorrow.
 
and yes,1111.

Five bits says she’ll bite the dust, or rejects Sombrero. Cue crystal meth addict nag king.

@Background Pony #B11D  
sorry but no… a villain with backstory is good, but this is a so cliche backstory
 
also 1111?

Oh I love this fandom.  
Villain with no backstory= WORST VILLAIN EVER EXISTED IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!!111!!!  
When that said villain given a backstory=OMG HE IS GIVEN A BACKSTORY HE SUCKS!!!!!1111  
I’m going to enjoy tomorrow.

@Background Pony #1EF9  
More boring than Lavan?

I like the fact amnesia apparently wiped out his knowledge of speech as well. You very rarely see that.

Curse you COMIC WRITERS!! You have made me sympathise with the most boring villain in the series!CURSE YOU!!!!!

@Jarkes
 
Ohhhh, a giant flight of stairs, and a hidden flight of stairs. Soook perilous. Both times sombra had a direct affect against twilights efforts were via traps, with him pretty much being passive the whole time.
 
And honestly the tension of trying to stall to find the crystal heart before cadances spell wore off didn’t really feel that prominent thanks to the comedic efforts of the mane 5 to keep the crystal ponies happy. In the beginning before the knowledge of the fair was found, there was a good sense of tension seeing sombras effect on the citizens memories.
 
But its undermined by the actual threat, the source of this tension, just not delivering enough himself to be a threat. Compared to his inspiration source Sauron, or even other baddies of the show such as Discord or Chrysalis, sombras impact and threat seem highly passive due to his underwhealming presence and very, very short and breif moment of being in a position of power, all of 1 minute after the barrier drop.
 
Even nightmare moon was more active an antagonistic force, and one of her stupid plans was getting a stupid sea dragon to cry about its facial hair.

@Bronitarian  
Make him the relative of an established character? “HERP DERP! MARY SUUUUUEEEEEE!” “But MLP got away with that multiple times. BBBFF, anyone?” “MARY SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!”

@Jarkes  
Apparently not because what he watched was the Bizzaro World version.

@Bronitarian
 
Don’t confuse Sombra with his ghost.

@Bronitarian
 
“not a constant presence”
 
“no dangerous thing needed to stop him”
 
So the lingering sense of dread as Cadance’s spell started to fade, and the fact that he IMMEDIATELY took the chance to attack the moment it briefly failed, isn’t a “constant threatening presence?” And going through all that stuff to get the Crystal Heart wasn’t “dangerous?”
 
Did we even watch the same episode?

@Background Pony #22B0
 
Wasn’t sauron originally a god or something that even tried to reform for a while before deciding to take his masters place as a dark lord? And even then, I wouldn’t put Sombra in anywhere the same league as Sauron. Sauron is a presence, a force of nature with many agents to fill in the character moments such as Saruman, The Ringwraiths, The Uruks, The Orcs, etc. These various characters serve to give Sauron the necessary power and clout to be a “one-note” bad guy, because he isn’t really a character in the first place.
 
Sombra doesn’t have an army. He doesn’t have agents who preform his actions for him. He doesn’t stay a constant presence the protagonists have to deal with, nor does his power ever threaten to corrupt anyone in his story. He shows up, gloats, gets his body back, and dies a minute later. That’s the entirety of Sombra. No big dread or doom, nothing dangerous to need to do to stop him. He shows up, dies, then end.
 
Sombar, pre comics, is less then one note. And less then one dimensional. Somehow he is so flat, and so dull, that he manages to only be an effective part of the story because of a scene he wasn’t even in or had a part of. The mirror trap is essentially the only time he feels like any sort of antagonistic force in the story. And after that, nothing he does comes close to capturing that moment. He’s a .5 Dimensional baddie, and any backstory no matter how cliche or generic is an improvement.

@Background Pony #22B0
 
Oh, I wouldn’t have minded a pure evil psychopath either. My problem is how quickly 441TheSecond flip-flopped based on just a four-page preview, and it feels like at this point he’s actively looking for any reason to hate each new issue of the comic (not that there haven’t been some sitnkers lately from what I can tell).

@Jarkes  
Didn’t you say that you wanted to be ignored earlier? Also, I don’t see a problem with this, “one-note,” you keep bringing up. Sauron was a bit of a one note, but I don’t see anyone complaining about it. I guess you could consider him a bit more of one note for a character because he was what Gandalf gone bad. The thing is it is not the end of the world to have a one note villain, especially with the dialogue they made for him that sounds as hammy as M. Bison from the Street Fighter movie.

@Magic Man
 
Have you read the comments here? People are claiming the opposite. The comics will excuse Sombra’s actions cause of his childhood((based solely on a 4 page preview)), and are proclaiming that he should have been a sociopathic serial killer instead, as a foal.
 
I understand your concern, and I agree with your last statement. But nobody seems to be taking your predicted route. Instead, they’re just making shit up and proclaiming no villain should ever have a rough upbringing ever, cause it’s too generic, as opposed to being born evil and never diverging from that path ever.

@Xidphel
 
That’s not the only place where I’ve seen a scenario like that… Unfortunately, I can’t remember WHERE I’ve seen similar scenarios…

Everyone is so busy discussing…and here I just want to snuggle him to death.  

@Jarkes  
Could also go with the Professor Yana/The Master approach. Basically, his current personality is from him losing his memory and once he gets it back, all Hell breaks loose.

@Jarkes
 
I hope that’s what they do too. Or at least be a trifle more inventive than ‘He had a crappy childhood, so that made him evil’. That reasoning seems a little more insulting and lazy every time I see it. What about all the people who have horrid childhoods and turn out to be decent?

My issue isn’t with the direction they’re going itself, it’s how fans will then interpret it.
 
What I mean is, well, how many people seeing this preview do you think are already thinking, “Wow, Sombra had a rough childhood and some other kids made fun of him. Therefore, that makes him growing up to become a ruthless dictator who enslaved the populace under his tyrannical hoof COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED!”
 
I sincerely doubt that that is the route the comic itself is going for, but I can guarantee that we’ll see so many sad, Draco in Leather Pants fics on this.
 
Okay, he had a rough childhood. Guess what? So have countless other people. You don’t see THEM becoming vicious dictators! At the end of the day, we all have a choice regarding who we ultimately become, and Sombra will end up making the wrong choice. I’m not gonna blame a couple of stupid kids for Sombra becoming one of the biggest villains in Equestrian history.

@Starlight Storm
 
Anderson also wrote the Celestia and Spike Friends Forever issue, and the Manehatten storyline with Babs and Trixie from issues #21-22, and those were pretty well-liked.

@Jarkes  
I really, REALLY hate that mentality of “They wrote this awful thing, therefore ALL THEIR WORKS ARE CRAP!”  
I admit I used to be biased around Andy’s and Katie’s stories ever since Return of Queen Chrysalis, but aftrr after the Rarity micro and Zen and the Art of Gazebo Repair… I saw how they can be a good Team (Hell, I hate Neigh Anything and admit at least it was a solid story, and Reflections was… Amusingly bad, the good kind of bad)  
Same with Ted Anderson, despite his horrendous Holiday Special, I still love the Pinkie & the CMC Micros.  
My hopes for this Fiendship issues might be Hig, but so far nothing has made me groan or roll my eyes.

@Starlight Storm
 
Especially since 441TheSecond rather gleefully hoped that Sombra would just be a generic, one-note evil psychopath who was a monster from the start back when Whitley tweeted a line of dialogue from the story as a way to generate hype.
 
But apparently once a writer’s written one not-so-great story, that means that everything they’ve written before and everything they write after is automatically shit and will always be a platform for the writer’s views, even if the writer only did that sort of thing one time.