Avatar: The Last Airbender: Free Comic Book Day 2014 All Ages

Title: Avatar: The Last Airbender: Free Comic Book Day 2014 All Ages
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Date: May, 2014
Writer: Gene Luen Yang, Art Baltazar, Franco, David Lapham
Artist: Faith Erin Hicks, Art Baltazar, David Lapham
Colorist: Cris Peter, Lee Loughridge
Letterer: Michael Heisler, Nate Piekos of Blambot
Editor: Dave Marshall, Scott Allie, Jim Gibbons, Shantel LaRocque, Daniel Chabon

Three stories, featuring Avatar: The Last Airbender, Itty Bitty Hellboy, and Juice Squeezers respectively.

The Avatar story has Suki and Sokka dealing with the sexist owner of a collectible seashell shop, in an amusing commentary of the "fake geek girl" trope. The initial action is satisfying in a jobber-squash-for-a-good-cause kind of way, but the ending of the story is quite good and shows some real heart.

Itty Bitty Hellboy has some fun trying to teach a ghost how to do his job, and also plays on the old "cough syrup for the coffin" joke. Not much to it, but I give credit for bringing up a classic dad-joke I got told as a kid.

The Juice Squeezers story involved some kids braving a nest of giant ants to exact a bit of revenge on the local school bullies. I'm not clear on why there are giant ants, but the story did a decent job of representing the "kids on bikes" subgenre (ET, Goonies, Stranger Things, etc). I'd be interested in seeing what this series does when it has more to work with in the way of plot.

Rating: 6/10

Avatar: The Last Airbender: Free Comic Book Day 2015

This is my last review for Free Comic Book Day 2015. It was fun finding a FCBD event here in Vietnam. I'm scheduled to spend a month in the US, from mid-June to mid-July, and I'll be attending two conventions during that time (MASSive Comic Con in Worcester MA, and Connecticon in Hartford CT), so I'll be stocking up on some comics to bring back to Vietnam to read and review. I'll also be picking up a couple of crowdfunded comics that I supported.

In the meantime, I have a couple of graphic novels on my to-read shelf here, as well as a few remaining comics from the stack I originally brought with me when I headed overseas. I hope to read and review those books before I make the visit back to the US, so look for this blog to continue to be somewhat active for the next four weeks or so.

Title: Avatar: The Last Airbender: Free Comic Book Day 2015
Date: May, 2015
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Gene Luen Yang, Paul Tobin
Artist: Carla Speed McNeil, Ron Chan, Colleen Coover
Colorist:Jenn Manley Lee, Matthew J. Rainwater
Letterer: Michael Heisler, Steve Dutro
Cover: Carla Speed McNeil, Jenn Manley Lee
Editor: Ian Tucker, Roxy Polk, Dave Marshall, Phillip R. Simon, Brendon Wright

In addition to the Avatar: The Last Airbender story, this book also features Plants vs. Zombies and Bandette.

The Avatar story focuses on Ty Lee and Toph. Ty Lee is discouraged with her training with the Kyoshi warriors. Fortunately, Toph shows up to take her to the circus, which seems like the perfect thing to cheer her up. But this is not just any circus. It's the circus where Ty Lee once performed, and among its current performers are Ty Lee's six identical sisters, who are now performing that act that was once Ty Lee's. Throw in a firebending extortionist with an ogre-sized accomplice, and there's more than enough trouble to distract Ty Lee from anything that was worrying her.

This was a very cute story that keep to a fairly simple point and still packed a few surprises and some amusing bits of dialogue.

The Plants vs. Zombies story involved the zombies creating a robot plant to infiltrate the tech-filled garage. The plan, of course, backfires in somewhat Looney Tunes style. This was funny, but the setup dragged a bit.

Last up was Bandette, which I had no familiarity with at all, but which I definitely need to read more of. Bandette is an oddly-meta heist comedy about an art thief battling a pair of "Elegant Assassins" and then staging a theft from a screening of a rare film. Amusing and adorable.

Rating: 7.5/10

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise Part One

Title: Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise
Issue: Part One
Date: January, 2012
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Gene Luen Yang
Artist: Gurihiru
Letterer: Michael Heisler

This is a direct sequel to the Avatar: The Last Airbender animated series, and it takes place after the conclusion of that series. Writer Gene Luen Yang (I gave him an 8.5 for his graphic novel American Born Chinese) has a great feel for the flavor and characters of the show while loading this story with political themes and elements of classic tragedy.

The story focuses on the deadly promise that Ang has made to Zuko, and Zuko's own struggles with the burden of leadership of the Fire Nation. Starting out with the best of intentions to return captured territory to the Earth Nation, Zuko finds himself mired in political problems far more complex than he had anticipated, all while struggling with the creeping paranoia that comes with absolute power.

Meanwhile Ang and Kitara take on the role of peacemakers, but the conflicts that are brewing threaten to turn friend against friend.

The story is accessible, fast-paced, and fun. And the political dilemmas that it presents echo the situations in Israel/Palestine and in post-colonial nations around the world. And Zuko's experiences as ruler are classic Shakespearean tragedy.

This book is a worthy sequel and stands alone quite well. I could take or leave the comic relief portions, but they are in keeping with the flavor of the series and they never get in the way of the more serious elements of the story.

Rating: 8.5/10

Avatar: The Last Airbender / Star Wars: The Clone Wars

This is one of 2011's crop of Free Comic Book Day giveaways.

Title: Avatar: The Last Airbender / Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Date: May, 2011
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer: Ryder Windham, J. Torres
Artist: Ben Dewey, Gurihiru
Inker: Dan Parsons
Letterer: Michael Heisler, Comicraft
Colorist: Mae Hao
Editor: Samantha Robertson, Dave Roman
Cover: Brian Konietzko, Hye Jung Kim, Bryan Evans, Lucasfilm

Wait for it... Flip book!

The bad news first. The Star Wars: The Clone Wars story serves to introduce Savage Opress, a new villain (You can tell he's a villain by his name! Isn't that clever? Also by the fact that he looks like a yellow version of Darth Maul). Opress shows up at the lair of Noggox the Hutt. He has been captured without a fight by Noggox's (clearly incompentent) guards. It's all just a plot so he can get inside and kill everyone in sight. This actually pretty violent considering that the introduction proudly proclaims that comic to be suitable for all ages. I guess decapitations are okay if the victim is a hutt. Anyway, that's about all we get. The heroes make a brief appearance at the end to survey the carnage. I'm not entirely sure what the point of that was, but as far as I was concerned, Opress definitely failed to impress.

Flipping the book over, we have Avatar: The Last Airbender. This was my first exposure to this series, and wow. This was good storytelling. It did take a little bit to hook me in, but considering that the beginning of the story was pretty light in tone, it really built to a pretty intense ending. I thought that Avatar worked better when it was being serious than when it was trying to be a comedy, but the comedic stuff was still at least as good as most of the comic relief you see in comic books these days. This was an effective introductory story that had a complete plot. There was also a four-page backup story that was all comedy, but gave a chance to introduce another character. The art is a good mix of cartoony and realistic and the characters are very expressive. The action in this one really did seem all-ages suitable. If I was rating this story alone it would probably get an 8.5. Instead, the opposite side of the flip book drags that whole thing down a bit.

Rating: 7/10