Crack open your history books and mark it down, everybody: 2013 is the year that the superhero genre finally gave up its stranglehold on the medium of comic books and was replaced by its new successor: Pony Comics. This week, we have seen the first step in the equestrian takeover as IDW has announced the creative team for My Little Pony: Friends Forever, a second ongoing series set to launch in January starring everyone's favorite friendship-based horses, starting with a story about Pinkie Pie and Applejack from the creative team of Alex de Campi and Carla Speed McNeil.

As a creative team, de Campi and McNeil are both unexpected and pretty exciting. De Campi is probably best known to comic book readers for the Eisner-nominated Smoke with Igor Kordey, while McNeil's work on Queen & Country and Finder have made her an artist I always look forward to seeing. None of those works has quite the tone you'd expect from the ponies, but good comics are good comics -- and de Campi's Kat and Mouse, a Tokyopop series about two girls investigating crimes described as "tween CSI," is probably a pretty good sign. Their story will launch the book, with other creative teams and character team-ups to follow in future issues.

Friends Forever will join the Friendship is Magic ongoing series, and from the looks of things, it's slated to essentially be My Little Pony Team-Up. Unlike the My Little Pony Micro-Series, which was a bunch of one-shots focusing on individual members of the cast, Friends Forever will pair them off for adventures.

Judging by the cover, I think this might end up being a bake-off, but there's also a part of me that hopes it's just an adaptation of Paul F. Tompkins's famous "Cake vs. Pie" bit, illustrated with Ponies.

 

My Little Pony: Friends Forever #1, IDW
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My Little Pony: Friends Forever #1, IDW
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My Little Pony: Friends Forever #1, IDW
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And for your shopping convenience, IDW also included a coupon you can drop by your local retailer:

 

My Little Pony: Friends Forever #1, IDW
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