- Team Avatar Tales/Lost Adventures: Maybe it’s cheating to put these together as number one but they’re both anathologies of one-shot comics showing the mischief and fun the Gaang get into in their spare time or between events within the show. The Lost Adventures is a collection of comics collected out of the show’s supplemental/promotional/extra material during the show’s airing. Team Avatar Tales was collected and published a decade later with a variety of authors and cartoonists invited to play with their favorite characters so there are several art and tonal shifts as each put their own spin on the characters. These stories have some of my favorites like the return of Wang Fire, Fire Nation soldier and hero; Katara trying to get Toph to bathe any means necessary; showing the Mai/Zuko shiptease post-Crossroads of Destiny, and much more. It’s all light-hearted fun that fans will sure to enjoy.
- Azula in the Spirit Temple: The latest stand-alone comic delivers a nice character study of Azula post-show as a creepy temple spirit forces her to confront her worst insecurities. Although the summary mentions redemption, it’s a lie. Like I said, it’s a character study where readers get insight to what Azula wants most (forgiveness from others) and her own roadblocks (she’s not willing to do the same as Ozai instilled her sociopathic superiority complex). Besides the Ursa-Azula insight, it doesn’t add anything we don’t know about the former Fire princess. It doesn’t add or subtract rather it brings her to square one so readers can wait for whatever may happen next for her. I know people are rooting for redemption but I think she’s still a long way from that. Especially if the publisher insists on this arbitrary 70 pages limit.
- Toph Beifong’s Metal-Bending Academy: The war has ended and though everyone is happy about no more fighting and genocide, Toph is a bit bored with her standstill life. So in an attempt to ditch the concert of the cave hippies (Remember them? Apparently they have a cult following. Sokka is not amused that Suki is one of their biggest fans), Toph goes back to her underground bending fights roots with a metal-bending twist. Soon, she discovers others want to follow her lead and she is ready to make her own school, only the inclusion of a lava-bender threatens to blow everything up. Can Toph reach the wayword soul? This is a stand-alone that ably sets up Toph’s future career in LOK with the boastful, tough love teacher in ATLA and nicely delivers a beginning, middle and end that the books in the lower rankings don’t have.
- Suki, Alone: Okay, I’ll admit I was excited because I thought there was going to be Sokka in it. There wasn’t but that’s okay because Suki is an awesome warrior in her own right. It’s just the book doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know about Suki. It doesn’t even give her parents, unless she’s an orphan. It’s just not clear as the backstory is thin beyond Suki’s devotion to Avatar Kyoshi and a weak subplot of Suki trying to create a makeshift sisterhood in Boiling Rock prison only to be betrayed cuz criminals. There’s nothing meaningful in this book and Hicks is hampered in trying to keep things in-canon.
- Katara and the Pirate’s Silver: This is at bottom because the plot of Katara being annoyed she isn’t considered badass and taking up with pirates was already done in the show where she has plenty of badass moments. Same with her trying to help people with vigilante means. So really nothing new. I was more interested in the subplot where Aang, Sokka and Toph tried to convince a brainwashed Fire Nation boy that the Avatar isn’t so bad, but again 70 page comic. Not much can really be fufilled narratively or character-wise.
Rachel Reads & Reviews 
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