Advance Review – Avatar The Last Airbender – The Promise Part One

By Wilt Manglicmot on Jan 11, 2012 with Comments 1

Fire, Earth, Water, and Air, words familiar to the fans of Nickelodeon‘s Avatar: The Last Airbender. The show was an amazing tale that is rarely told and done in American animation, and like any good show it left fans with a cliffhanger of an open-ending.

Thanks to Dark Horse Comics we will get to see what happens to the beloved cast of the series with Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Promise, Part One

WARNING MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD

LOVED

SCRIPT CONTINUITY – This comic reads, looks and feels just like it came straight from the creative team of the show. The characterizations of the main characters remain intact; from Aang’s optimism to Zuko‘s insecurities are all well written and feel like themselves. It is always a concern when a beloved set of characters and myhtos get passed to someone other than the creators to tell a story, however that is not the case as reading through the comic you feel as if you are watching the show. Writer Gene Luen Yang (known for his graphic novel American Born Chinese) does a fantastic job maintaining the characters personalities and quirks. Gene also carries over the feel of the show to secondary characters, which really makes the book feel like the show.

ART CONTINUITY – Gurihiru aka Gurihiru Studios, best known for it’s work with Marvel on the Power Pack series of graphic novels, is handling the art chores and do a fantastic job on it. It looks like Gurihiru studied the character sheets and all the animation production stuff because this comic looks like it is straight from cartoon. All the emotive expressions are spot on to what you would expect and each character looks as they should.

THE STORY – This graphic novel is set a few days after the end of the animated series, then jumps one year ahead to show how things have progressed since the end of the show. I don’t want to delve anymore into it as it is a story I’m sure other fans of the series will enjoy reading themselves.

NOT SO LOVED

WAITING – The next volume according to Dark Horse’s website is slated to be released in May. It’s always hard to wait on something that has you wanting more right away especially when the story gets so good and has a great cliffhanger.

MOTHER ARE YOU THERE? – For those looking for a Zuko in search of his mother story this is not it. It may get into it as it rolls out, not sure but I don’t mind.

VERDICT

It has nearly been 4 years since Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender came to it’s conclusion in July of 2008, but now fans of the wonderful series have something to help fill in the gap until the follow-up series hits this summer. This story may dove-tail into the new series The Legend of Korra which makes this even more of a must for Avatar fans.

Final Verdict: For Avatar: The Last Airbender fans - THIS IS A MUST GRAB! DEFINITELY ADD TO PULLBOX
For those not familiar with the series – PICK IT UP YOU MAY BECOME A FAN!

Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Promise Part One
Written by Gene Luen Yang
Interior & Cover Art by Gurihiru
Lettering by Michael Heisler
Hits Shelves January 25th from Dark Horse Comics

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