Review: Avatar: The Last Airbender: North and South by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru

Comic hardcover, 236 pages
Published 2017 (contents: 2016-17)
Borrowed from my wife
Read November 2017

Avatar: The Last Airbender: North and South

Script: Gene Luen Yang

Art: Gurihiru
Lettering: Michael Heisler

This is the last of the Avatar: The Last Airbender comics by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru; up until this point, I've found the Zuko-focused ones more successful than the other ones, leaving one wondering if Yang and Gurihiru can really do "typical" Avatar adventures, or if they really only soar when given they have the angst and epicness of Zuko to work with. This would be shame if so, because Avatar's success as a tv show included Zuko, but went so much beyond him.

Well, North and South has Yang and Gurihiru exiting the series on a strong note, with a highly entertaining adventure about Sokka and Katara returning to the South Pole to find that you never can go home again because it changes and so do you. Like a lot of Yang's Avatar comics (and also Legend of Korra), this deals with issues of modernization and industrialization and globalization, exploring the tensions that arise in a society under such circumstances, in a surprisingly nuanced way. Lots of good jokes, nice moments for all the characters but especially my favorite, Sokka, and tying up of some loose ends from the television show. I really enjoyed this, and I hope the new creative team's first volume is able to pick up the baton. (I also hope that first Korra comic comes out in a collected edition soon!)