Unfortunately there are too many people to credit in this. Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Lost Adventures collects a number of short comics that take place within the show’s timeline. The volume is divided up into three sections, one for each season, as well as a couple of bonus stories at the end. If you haven’t seen Avatar: The Last Airbender it’s an excellent animated show set in a world where certain people have the ability to bend the elements. The Avatar, Aang, has disappeared for 100 years, in which time the Fire Nation has been waging war against the rest of civilisation, but when Katara and her brother Sokka find Aang, hope returns to the world.
I watched the show over the summer and it quickly jumped to be one of my favorite tv shows ever, at the moment it’s probably my second-favourite after Star Trek (which is never going to be replaced). I love pretty much everything about it, so when I found out there were graphic novels I knew I had to get them. Some of them take place after the series but this one takes place throughout and I’m glad to say that everything I love about the show is captured here. There’s a lot of whimsical humour, I heard the character’s voices in my head when I read them, the art is cool (although there are a number of different styles as different teams work on different stories). A lot of them are just a couple of pages long but some go longer, so there’s a nice mix of one-shot jokes and actual stories (my favorite probably being Private Fire). It’s not just the main gang that get the attention though, for there are stories that feature Zuko, Azula et al.
So I think it’s a good addition for fans of the show. It’s mostly light-hearted because they can’t really do anything too dramatic as the stories have to fit within the show’s framework, but when I read it it brought back memories of the show and it certainly fits in well with the tone of the show. I think for people who have watched the show this is going to be an enjoyable read. I’m not going to say it’s a must-buy because it doesn’t really shed any new light on the characters, but I certainly don’t think you’ll regret buying it. For people that haven’t watched the show, don’t buy it, and for people who haven’t finished watching the show, don’t buy it yet, because reading to the end will give away certain developments.
If you haven’t seen Avatar: The Last Airbender then go and watch it because it is a fantastic show, and The Lost Adventures provide some entertaining supplementary material.
