@Background Pony #81EE  
That’s… actually interesting. Imagine if you bought one of these, and have a huge number of friends over. What roles would they possibly take? Then again, you’re right about how one person reads a comic.
 
I think there should be a sequel to this episode, with more heroes and villains! Think of the possiblities!

@Background Pony #81EE  
Presumably if your room didn’t have enough ponies to fill all the slots it would just have the actual Power Ponies in the comic fill the untaken roles. Really, that’s probably why these things can be sold in a street shop, if you have enough ponies that they fill all the roles in the comic odds are most of them will be fans and know how to use the powers, if you don’t have enough then you have the “real” Power Ponies to assist you.

It’s also rather convenient how there were just enough ponies to fill for every hero in the comic. What would happen if mane 6 didn’t find Spike and he got sent there alone? What would happen if one more pony joined them, would she become Mane-iac?
 
I assume the comic was meant for only one person, normally nobody reads comics in groups.

I don’t think they would have died if they had lost the fight. That wouldn’t be much of a business plan if a certain percentage of your customer base was likely to die after each purchase.

So, this world’s comics are now our equivalent of video games? If the IDW Pony comics could do something like that, I would totally buy them!

@Background Pony Number 17  
Maybe the story of the Mane-iac is easy/beginner mode and there are more challenging Power Ponies stories/other comics the place sells?
 
I can easily see the shop owner directing Spike to an easier story, or Spike mistaking the easy section for a Young Readers section.

Hm. I kinda felt like the comic was a magical version of a video game, like something found in the Harry Potter universe. You get this lead-in and then you have to finish up the story yourself. Who knows - it could have a failsafe where you cannot lose. No matter how inept you may be there will always be a way that things work out, like the local authorities stepping in at the very last and arresting everyone and freeing the reader. Or there might be a ‘bad end’ where you do lose, but then you get booted out of the comic. Apparently it’s a single-use rental item, when completed. No telling if you get to re-read after a bad end scenario. Any shop selling Enchanted stories wouldn’t really want their paying customers to vanish forever, as that would eat into profits, despite what all the Amazing Stories and Tales From The Crypt episodes might say.
 
I put too much thought into that.

I need to watch the episode again, even if you don’t die I wonder if anyone of them got hurt.

@Background Pony #AE38  
there no free will in those comics, you follow the line, live an adventure, win and go back to your home.  
That would be awesome and would make sense for something like that to be sold.

@Background Pony #AE38  
But that’s like playing a video game on “Easy”/“Beginner” mode. There’s no challenge if you can’t lose, and thus no entertainment value.

@Velcro  
@Trickquestion  
you’ve both got it wrong. Neither of those are street sale items. They both come from the kinds of shops that aren’t there anymore when you try to find them again.

I’m going for something from a discussion elsewhere:
 
Although I have to wonder if failure is even POSSIBLE. The story clearly has a plot after all. The magic that created the story pocket universe could well also manipulate things so that the readers (and bystanders) pulled into the story would have won no matter what happened. When Fluttershy couldn’t rage? A firefly comes out of nowhere just so it could get hurt and inspire rage. Mane-iac gets away with the orb at the beginning? Of course she did; the story required her to. The Power Ponies need to get to Mane-iac’s hideout before she finishes charging up her superweapon? They could have taken all the time in the world to learn how to use their abilities because the universe they’re in runs on story time; like any good video game, they’ll arrive precisely when they’re supposed to, no sooner, no later.

@Trickquestion  
Actually, that was more of an under-the-counter purchase. It wasn’t technically for sale except the salespony’s reluctance was suffocated under a pile of gold.
 
We’re talking supermarket items here.

@Background Pony Number 17  
You kids these days…comics books are so easy now. Why, back in my day, we didn’t have your “checkpoints” and your “extra lives”. If you lost, you got kicked out of the comic, walked to the comic store(in the snow, uphill both ways), bought another comic and tried again from the start.

@Trickquestion  
That was a dark back alley black market thing though.  
We’re talking about a store that just sells these comic books officially and openly.  
That being said, I totally agree.

There’s probably a respawn point on page 6.

@Velcro  
The Alicorn Amulet was also a street-sale item. Ponies clearly have no regulation on the sale of magic items.

I think it might be like playing a game, you lose you restart.

I think they’d probably get reset. It’s a street-sale item, after all. It can’t be dangerous.

Presumably anypony reading this/getting sucked into it would have a bit better knowledge of the characters and how they work than the Mane 6 did. They’d probably fare better.

I’m guessing it goes into “Groundhog Day” territory.

Those things are effin dangerous!  
They just SELL those out on the streets!?  
Someone needs to close that shop down!

Then Deus Ex Machina happens. You survive but get a lame ending.

For those pesky children.

Yep. Definitely Gambit.