{English} Avatar - The Last Airbender: The Search, Part One (The Search #1)

For fans of: the Nickelodeon series
Published: 2013 (Dark Horse)
Pages: 76

 

 

Blurb: For years, fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra have burned with one question—what happened to Fire Lord Zuko's mother? Finding a clue at last, Zuko enlists the aid of Team Avatar—and the most unlikely ally of all—to help uncover the biggest secret of his life.

My opinion: FINALLY we get to know more about Zuko's mother! Ever since the TV series had ended, I have been dying to learn more about her!

This one's drawing style is quite different from "The Promise". While the latter resembled the series a lot, here it's pretty obvious that other artists have worked on it. Not only cartoonists, but writers. The plot is sometimes a little too jumpy, too fast, and not just because there are two story lines. I actually liked those flashbacks from Ursa's POV more than the actual story.

The characters often didn't feel quite like themselves. Sokka, for example, hasn't been that headless since the beginning of Book One (I'm watching that one right now, which is why I can tell the difference very well). Where has all his character developement, his maturity gone? Don't get me wrong, Sokka is one of my favourites and I love his sillyness, but this isn't the end-of-book-three-Sokka. The jokes weren't funny either.

Katara and Aang aren't very present in this story, which is okay, because the focus is on Zuko and Azula, of course. It's just that their only function seems to be being the annoying couple. I mean, really. I never really shipped them and I still don't buy it. Despite their constant confessions of love and calling eachother "sweetie".
Somehow Katara doesn't seem to be as independent anymore. She has always been there to protect the people she loves, and I like her for that, but here it's the only thing she does. That was better executed in "The Promise".

Where's Toph? I don't really care about her academy here, sorry. She'd better show up in one of the next parts or have a better excuse than just training her students.
What's wrong with Zuko? How could he be that careless? Yes, finding his mother is his priority, but this doesn't seem like him at all. It's like "The Promise" never happend.
And that whole thing with Azula. No, just no.

"The Promise" felt like coming home and meeting old friends, "The Search" (at least so far) was more like a fanfiction. A pretty good one at least, that has to be said.
The different sibling dynamics are interesting and sometimes a little heartwarming. I've got a feeling that we'll see more of that in the other parts of this story.

The cliffhanger was too mean! I saw it coming, though... Excuse me while I read the next part now.
 
 My rating: 4/5 Buttons