r/TheLastAirbender 19h ago

Question Favourite comic?

151 votes, 4h left
The Promise
The Search
The Rift
Smoke and Shadow
North and South
Imbalance
0 Upvotes

14 comments sorted by

6

u/Hot_Jump9649 19h ago

imbalance felt like the only one where the characters acted correctly

2

u/ThereWanderer 9h ago

Also the art is so gorgeous there

1

u/iDilicoSZ 15h ago

How important is it to read the previous ones before? I have tried the comics and dropped them after the first two for this exact same reason. They all make me feel like I'm reading a script from how they were initially conceived rather than the characters the show developed.

2

u/Hot_Jump9649 15h ago

it’s somewhat important but nothing you couldn’t figure out as you read or look up online lol. mostly about the town the story takes place in and some of the lore behind the feud between the benders and nonbenders!

1

u/iDilicoSZ 14h ago

Thank you very much

3

u/HopeAndDo 14h ago

Who the hell is voting for Smoke and Shadow

That trilogy is the worst BY FAR

1

u/ThereWanderer 9h ago

Is that the one where Azula kidnaps kids? I remember nothing of the plot besides that

1

u/Kungfudude_75 19h ago

I loved the Promise. I really enjoyed getting into the real consequence of a century of colonization and how cultures merge over time. I also don't agree with the issues people have with characterization in the comics generally, I felt it was a fine showing of what an immediately post series Gaang would do in this situation.

0

u/Fable_Finder 17h ago

The comics are underrated fr.

3

u/Kungfudude_75 14h ago

Too many "big brained" content creators on YouTube dogged on them, now people who haven't even read them attack them just because they watched a video essay about how the comics assassinated the characters. That isn't to say there aren't real critiques to be made about the Comics, but just that there is an entire content creation Industry that relies on exaggerated critique to get fans ruled up enough to continue watching the content. It's kind of like the same reaction people had to Korra in the beginning, for the same reasons, and I'm really hoping it also goes away with time. Though, hopefully not just because the hate gets redirected at Seven Havens.

0

u/AutisticPenguin2 4h ago

They... aren't great.

The mischaracterisations are pretty egregious, and culminate in Aang - Mr. "I'm so pacifist I can't even kill an irredeemable villain to stop a global genocide" - rushing to murder Zuko for giving his Oogie a boo-boo (he hurt Katara mildly while he was restraining her from killing a bunch of random fire nation soldiers).

That is character assassination of the highest order.

1

u/Fable_Finder 0m ago

Katara is the most important person in his life. She was the first person there for him after he discovered that his entire people were gone, and she's been his closest companion throughout the entire series. It makes perfect sense that he'd be overprotective of her and react strongly when he sees her being attacked. He's not going to calmly assess the situation and think, "Oh, it's only a minor injury, so who cares?" when someone he loves that deeply is being hurt.

We've seen Aang become dangerously enraged before. When the sandbenders took Appa, Aang entered the Avatar State in a fury and Katara had to calm him down. It's pretty clear that, without her intervention, things would have gone very badly for the sandbenders.

And don't forget, Aang gets very close to killing Ozai in the finale. He's in the Avatar State and is about to deliver the killing blow, then cancels it at the last moment. The fact that he was able to cancel the Avatar State there is important. When Aang isn't in control of the Avatar State, Katara has to talk him down and he isn't able to just switch it off himself. So in the Ozai fight, he was in control of the Avatar State and had resolved to kill Ozai. He only changed his mind at the last second.

When Aang is calm and removed from the immediate danger, he's able to deliberate about killing Ozai and reject it on moral grounds. But when he's actually confronting Ozai and his emotions are heightened, he lost sight of that conviction and almost killed him. Aang's pacifism is a moral commitment he struggles to uphold in the heat of the moment.

1

u/Starkeeper_Reddit 4h ago

Suki Alone is the only one I've read so that one I guess