Review: The Search: Part 1 (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

If you’re an Avatar: The Last Airbender fan who’s ever even casually poked at the online fandom, you’ll know that one of the biggest rage points about the finale in 2008 was that we never friggin’ found out what happened to Zuko’s mother, Ursa. It’s such a big thing to fans that in the pilot of Legend of Korra, the sequel series, one of Katara’s grandkids asks her about what happened to Zuko’s mom. And just when it seemed like maybe we’d get something in the way of exposition, in a truly troll-tastic (and, okay, admittedly hilarious) move, another one of her grandkids completely derails it. The point to all this is that fans have been dying to know what happened to Ursa for five years… and with The Search Part 1 by Gen Luen Lang with art by Gurihiru and in collaboration with series creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, we get the first dose of our patience being rewarded.

The boys have aged well, haven’t they?

The Search consists of two plotlines, one in the past and one in the “present”, which in A:tLA terms is after the series has ended. One plotline is Ursa’s, which follows how she came to be married to Ozai and shows us where she’s from (and that she had an utterly adorable boyfriend). It’s fantastic to get a chance to see more of Ursa’s personality and to see just how she ended up with Ozai. I always wondered if Ozai was a better person when they married who then went off the deep end by playing the power game, but I think I like this explanation better. It feels more in-character.

The other plotline follows the GAang, more or less, only with Azula substituted in for Toph. Yes. Azula. You read that correctly: Azula is back and just as crazy as we left her in the finale, still utterly convinced that her mother was responsible for “turning everyone against her”, including her own mind. Azula gets to join in on the adventure because she has information about where Ursa could be found, and the only way she’ll share it is if she can come along. You can guess that goes about as well as you can expect, which is not terribly well. It’s very Fire Nation cast-centric; even though Aang, Katara and Sokka are present, this one is definitely Zuko, Ursa and Azula’s show.

Plenty of familiar faces show up, including Suki, Ty Lee and my personal favorite, Uncle Iroh, who wastes no time in using his temporary Fire Lord status to make the nation much more appreciative of tea (never change, Iroh). I wish we’d seen Mai, but perhaps they figured that drama would take away from the plot at large. I also acutely missed Toph, as she was my favorite in The Promise comic arc (though she is NOT my favorite overall character), but the nod to her training the Yu Dao police force made me smile enough to cope.

Now, I am an A:tLA fan, so I’m going to read these regardless of quality (as most A:tLA fans would – we just want a fix of our favorites, dammit!), but that does not mean this comic is flawless or even on par with the show itself, sadly. The plotlines are good, but the execution could be far better. The most egregious flaw is transitions. Bouncing between the two storylines is not handled well at all, with abrupt, sudden shifts that constantly left me flipping back to make sure I didn’t skip a page between them, which caused me to lose a sense of flow and coherency within the story.

I could’ve shrugged off bad transitions between timelines, as that’s a tricky thing to do well in basically any medium, but there were also bad transitions between panels themselves. The most glaring one occurs when Aang, Katara, Sokka, Zuko and Azula are talking, when all of a sudden Azula begins raving like a lunatic. After Zuko threatens her into calmness again, the scene just ends. No one asks about what she;s talking about, no one comments on the outburst other than an “I miss Toph” (don’t we all, Sokka), nothing. It just sort of hangs there like an unresolved issue. It’s not that we don’t know what’s going; fans of the series will immediately recall her finale melt-down heralded by her hallucinating her mother in every reflective surface. But Aang, Katara and Sokka definitely do not know this, or if they do, it hasn’t been made clear to us. It’s possibly they’re trying to build up dramatic tension until hallucination-Ursa reappears, but if that’s the case, it still wouldn’t make sense for none of the cast to ask for clarification. There’s another moment earlier on where Ty Lee says something that really felt like it should have had some follow up of some kind, but instead it immediately cuts to another Ursa-plotline segment. It just seemed like shoddy storytelling at times, which is really noticeable for a much beloved series that prided itself on very well-done, tight and logical storytelling in the animated series.

Speaking of the animated series, let’s talk art for a moment. The characters are all a little aged up, but they still retain their distinct qualities; the core cast made the transition from animation to comic quite nicely, and quite handsomely too in regards to Zuko. However, there are some moments where an expression doesn’t quite work and the character just feels off, and I’m still not convinced they captured Azula correctly most of the time. Overall, though, it still retains the feel of the show’s animation style,  and I’m more than willing to say I’m being nitpicky here. After all, the bending sequences are still wonderful; Gurihiru does a splendid job capturing the motion of the fights and the feel of the series in comic format. And the cover art is just beautiful, too. Go ahead and gaze at its prettiness above a second time; you know you want to.

Part one of The Search ends on a “twist” reveal that, honestly, I called from the very start, but I shall not hint at here for the sake of a spoiler-free zone. It’s a twist I’m still not sure I’m comfortable with, though, as I feel like it invalidates a fair deal of a character’s development, but I guess I can’t pass any permanent judgment until I see where they go with it. In the twist’s defense, it does make some of the actions taken in the animated series make more sense… but at the same time it makes others make no damn sense at all. Once The Search is released, if you happen to pick it up, feel free to come back here and leave a comment with your reaction, because I’d genuinely like to know how others respond to this. It’s left me that irked.

Overall, I don’t even know if this review needs writing. It’s an Avatar: The Last Airbender comic. No one is going to pick it up not knowing what to expect, and no one’s going to pick it up unless they’re already a fan of the show. In that sense, my recommendation or lack thereof means nothing; as I said earlier, we’re Avatar fans and we will snatch up anything that continues the story, especially when the story being continued is finally finding out what happened to Zuko’s mother. If you’re a fan of the series, this is a must-have, if a somewhat mediocre first part of it. At $10.99 cover price, I’d almost advise waiting until the series has run its course and hope they release a hardcopy Library Edition like they did for The Promise – it’d likely only be about $10 more than buying each of them as they come out, the format is nicer and you get extras. But, if you just can’t wait to begin learning more about Ursa, it isn’t a bad investment and it certainly has its enjoyable Avatar moments – just not as many as I’d hoped.

At least there’s only one documented use of the endearment “sweetie” between Katara and Aang this time, which is such a pleasant relief after the uncomfortable sweetie-fiesta that was The Promise. We don’t have both Sokka and Toph present to goad one another on with appropriate gagging reactions this time, and poor Sokka probably couldn’t bear that burden alone.

Jeni “Science Whyzard” Hackett has watched Avatar: The Last Airbender about five times and The Legend of Korra twice. She delights in shouting “MY CABBAGES!” at people, especially when they don’t get the reference, and was part of the Avatar Moms Club at Otakon 2012, cosplaying a post-pregnancy Pema. She apologizes that her red hair is visible under the wig in that picture, it was kind of a rush job. You can find her on twitter under the name @allonsyjeni, email her at jeni.is.a.geek@gmail.com, or find her on tumblr at hellomynameisgeek.