Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Promise

Review written by MR Valentine.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise Parts 1, 2, and 3are comics/graphic novels that follow after the events that restore peace to the world in the Nickelodeon TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender and bring the series to a close. If you haven’t already, you should watch the series before you read these comics or this review or you’ll have more spoilers than usual.

The basic story is that the main world leaders decide that restoring peace to the world means reinstating the four separate nations. However, there are some issues with Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom that have build successful, integrated towns (specifically one called Yu Dao) that they don’t want to abandon. While this is being dealt with, Aang is worried about a promise that Fire Lord Zuko made him make: To kill Zuko if he becomes too much like his evil overlord father.

SPOILER ALERT: Things you might want to know before suggesting this to your kid

Violence

No major characters get injured. But there is a lot of violence because the King of the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Lord bring their respective armies to settle the matter of Yu Dao. Aang threatens to/almost does fulfill his promise to kill Zuko a few times. At the end, Zuko is falling off of a cliff, but Aang saves him. There are assassination attempts on Zuko.

Romance

There are four relationships that are prominent in the comics. There is Aang and Katara, Sokka and Suki, Zuko and Mai, and one of the colony citizens who wants her town to be left alone and one of the protesters who wants the Fire Nation citizens out of the Earth Kingdom. He eventually changes sides and leaves his friends to be with her.

There is kissing between most of the couples. Sokka is a hypocrite and calls Aang and Katara kissing “oogies,” but kisses Suki very openly. There is also a bit of a nasty breakup between Zuko and Mai.

Family

Zuko’s family is really messed up. There is a whole family history that tore his family apart. He asks his evil overlord father for advice on how to run a country, but it happens while his father is behind the bars of a jail cell. The next set of comics, The Search, is about Zuko’s missing mother.

Death

Most of the death issues in the comics come from the promise Zuko forces Aang to make; the one where if Aang thinks Zuko is becoming too like his father, he will “end” Zuko. In one part, Aang tries to get advice from a previous Avatar (Roku) who happens to be Zuko’s great-grandfather, but he tells Aang to end Zuko despite that. Aang finds another way and disconnects from Roku.

In a dream that both Aang and Zuko have, Aang ends up fulfilling his promise and kills Zuko.

There is a battle over who owns a bending dojo and they quickly replace “fight to the death” with “fight to the sit,” which means that when someone sits down during the faceoff, their side loses.

Recommendation

I only recommend this to people who have watched the show and enjoy it. It is a little more grown up than the show; I would recommend it to ages 9 and up. But overall, they are very fun to read!

Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Promise by Gene Luen Yang et al
Published in 2013 by Dark Horse Books
Followed by The Search and The Rift
Read as Parts 1, 2, and 3 on Kindle