“Avatar: The Last Airbender—Team Avatar Tales” showcases a mix of stories and tone, the like of which you won’t often find in the big “Avatar” graphic novel trilogies. ‘Team Avatar Tales’ embraces the sheer variety of stories the Avatarverse is capable of when it’s in the hands of cartoonists that are clearly fans first.
Created by Bryan Konietzko Michael Dante DiMartinoCover by Sara Kipin
with Ryan HillJourney along with Team Avatar as they rescue a pumpkin farmer waylaid by monsters, help an old rival with a hair-raising problem, and reflect on what it means to save the world. Featuring the work of Gene Luen Yang, Faith Erin Hicks, Carla Speed McNeil, Ron Koertge, Dave Scheidt, Sara Goetter, and more, this anthology features stories both hilarious and heartwarming.
This volume also includes the short stories, ”Rebound,” ”Shells,” and ”Sisters,” previously released for Free Comic Book Day and never before collected!
Mark Tweedale: This is going to be a little different from our usual “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and “The Legend of Korra” reviews. “Avatar: The Last Airbender—Team Avatar Tales” is a bunch of short stories, all of which have something exciting about them, and we wanted to touch on each. Paul and I invited Nick Palmieri to join in too. He’s been reviewing every episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender for Multiversity Comics’ Summer TV Binges the past three years now, so he’s intimately familiar with the material and he’s written more about this series than Paul and I have by far. We’re glad to have him bring his expertise to our comic reviews. We’re forming our own Team Avatar here!
‘Rebound’
Written by Gene Luen Yang
Illustrated by Ryan Hill
Lettered by Michael Heisler
Paul Lai: ‘Team Avatar Tales’ begins with a Free Comic Book Day 2013 feature, ‘Rebound.’ Recall from the show that Fire Lord Zuko, with his redemption in “Season 3: Fire,” ended his expected betrothal with Mai, daughter of Fire Nation’s New Ozai Governor Ukano. ‘Rebound’ finds Mai working at her grandmother’s flower shop, still sad over the separation. A suitor comes to invite her out on a date, a glimmer of hope for moving on. But the young man turns out to be a footsoldier for Mai’s father and the date a ploy to recruit her to the New Ozai Society scheme to retake the Fire Kingdom.
This is exactly what I have loved about Avatar’s comics continuations, scripted here by Gene Luen Yang, writer of the post-show Dark Horse series (up until the most recent ‘Imbalance’ arc). The show was epic, but no show has the time to give every character their due or tie up every loose end. Not only does Mai get an extended treatment worthy of her character, but the story serves as a bridge to the events of the larger ‘The Search’ arc that Yang wrote with artists Gurihiru for these Avatar comics.
Here artist Ryan Hill (with letterer Michael Heisler) draws a recognizable if stylistically distinctive version of these characters, like many of these ‘Team Avatar Tales’ entries. Hill draws with more of a eurocomics or webcomics plasticity that effectively animates the story. But something about the style gives Mai even less of the subtle emotional range than what the show revealed, which actually made Mai a fairly complex and intriguing character. Without movement and with fewer reaction shots, she’s somewhat stiff here.
Mai ends up, of course, fleeing her father’s grasp like the independent warrior she is, with her baby brother Tom-Tom in tow. Back safely in her grandmother’s shop, we see her still pining for Zuko. It’s bittersweet, but sets us up well to hope for something better for this character. The show wound up leaving her too much of a narrative chess piece, and this is a preview of the greater justice the comics will do for her.
Mark: I too felt the stiffness in Mai. She’s a character that comes to life in the reaction panels. I enjoyed how this expanded on a plotline from the ongoing series, something I’d like to see in more short stories.
Nicholas Palmieri: I find your “narrative chess piece” comment interesting, Paul, because that’s kind of what she felt like to me in this story. Even though we see her in action and see her dealing with some situations unique to her, I felt that we didn’t get much to showcase her character traits. As you said, it likely also had to do with her character not translating as well to comics, being a very deadpan and low-energy presence. It’s also interesting to note that this was the first Free Comic Book Day story, so it was more focused on showing new readers the types of threats the “Avatar” comics could explore.
Continued below‘The Substitute’
Written by Dave Scheidt
Illustrated and lettered by Little Corvus
Paul Lai: Sokka, Katara, and Aang behind enemy lines and in disguise (circa season 3) are hungry. Sokka conjures one of his infamous single-prop costumes and dons a ridiculously long, twisty mustache. Hilarity ensues.
While Sokka fishes up a bagload of mochi, ice cream, and other temptations, his mustachioed disguise is mistaken for a teacher the townspeople have been expecting as a substitute for the rambunctious kids in the local school. The crazy kids gobble up Sokka’s snacks, but of course, Sokka winds up being the fun, cool sub who knows how to win them over. Soon they’re learning from him how to swordfight (prematurely, for sure), but they blow his cover when they swipe his mustache off. Sokka is forced to bribe them with… more mochi, ice cream, and other temptations.
At the end, returning back to Katara and Aang, he winds up just like this teacher/reviewer at the end of an endless day in the classroom: laid out on the floor with a THUD, muttering, “Children…”
Writer Dave Scheidt and artist/letterer Little Corvus’s excursion into some Sokka comic relief is the kind of funny and inconsequential B- or C-story that would usually be cut into an episode of portentous events to provide some lightweight leavening. But all on its own, “The Substitute” reinforces the strength of Sokka as a goofy character who could easily carry his own humor spin-off, Donald Duck style. I’d buy that comic for some Sunday morning laughs.
Mark: The Donald Duck comparison seems very accurate to me. Let’s not forget, the show could get really silly (in the best possible way) sometimes. I just rewatched season 3 recently, and the Wang Fire stuff still has me in stitches.
Nick: This really did feel like a C-plot from one of those early Fire episodes. A lot of my appreciation for the show’s comedy comes from how it balances out the other, more serious aspects of the show, but it’s still enjoyable when isolated. Especially when it revolves around Sokka’s well-meaning buffoonery.
‘Shells’
Written by Gene Luen Yang
Illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks
Colored by Cris Peter
Lettered by Michael Heisler
Mark: Of the three stories in this collection from Free Comic Book Days, ‘Shells’ is the one that most obviously wears its origin on its sleeve. Free Comic Book Day is all about getting people into comic book stores, hopefully including people that haven’t been into one before, and so ‘Shells’ uses its relationship to the Avatar: The Last Airbender TV show to explore an ugly side of comic book elitism and call it out for the toxic behaviour that it is. Shells, like comic books, are for everyone.
The story isn’t subtle about it, nor do I think the creators’ intended it to be so, but it is smart about it. We don’t often get to see Suki and Sokka interacting alone, so the story acts as a piece of wish fulfilment first, showing us something that we couldn’t really get squeezed into either the TV show or the ongoing comics. And it showcases Sokka’s character growth too. Early season one Sokka might’ve bought into some of Seashell-San’s crap, but Suki’s influence has made him a better person.
Yang uses this all as a platform to do a little bit of world building too, exploring the foundation of the Kyoshi Warriors and Avatar Kyoshi’s legacy. Unlike many of the stories in this collection, which are primarily lore-light, ‘Shells’ defines itself in terms of its connections to Avatar lore.
I’m a big fan of Faith Erin Hicks’s work, so I got a major kick out of this one back in 2014, though it has somewhat more of a kick now, knowing that Hicks is writing the ongoing comics. She has a passion for these characters that matches Yang’s, and it shows on the page. Plus, for a comic that’s about how comics should be welcoming to women, it’s extremely important to have a woman as part of the creative team, who can bring her lived experience to the page.
Paul: Faith Erin Hicks drawing these characters makes me smile irresistibly. Big thumbs up on the message you’ve honed in on. I wish I could participate in Free Collector Seashells Day.
Continued belowNick: Honestly, I didn’t love the start of the story—it seemed like the typical on-the-nose commentary on comic book elitism we’ve seen many times before. But as it went on, I enjoyed the way it used those ideas as a launchpad for some Avatar history and a more natural approach to self-empowerment. This is the type of stuff I like to see in short side-stories: ideas that don’t necessarily change or add anything to the mythos, but instead look at the existing ideas in new ways.
‘Sokka’s Poem’
Written by Ron Koertge
Illustrated and lettered by Gene Luen Yang
Colored by Lark Pien
Mark: At two pages, ‘Sokka’s Poem’ is easily the shortest story in this collection, but it reads slower. It’s meditative, well suited to Yang’s drawing style. Actually, when ‘Team Avatar Tales’ was announced, ‘Sokka’s Poem’ was the story I was most curious about. After all, Yang’s been such a huge part of shaping the comics with his writing, but he’s never drawn a story until now. In a way, Ron Koertge’s poem about the non-bender of the group (who is way more than a comic relief) is a fitting coda to Yang’s time on “Avatar.” His stories were always about everyone, not just Team Avatar fighting another bad guy. The Avatar Universe isn’t a world with one hero, but many, and Sokka’s the perfect vehicle to express that sentiment.
Paul: Sokka’s supernatural power is enthusiasm. I related so much to this poem. I’m also one of those sleepless nights people, staring into the sky, “There’s too much to do and only I can do it!” This is my favorite piece of the whole book and it’s completely because Koertge’s spin and Yang’s simplicity within his limitations make this a unique meditation.
‘Toph and the Boulder’
Written, illustrated, and lettered by Sara Goetter
Colored by Natalie Riess
Mark: ‘Toph and the Boulder’ takes the tone of the brief super deformed moments of the show and extends it to a full story. This isn’t exactly new to the Avatar Universe. Both Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra played with sequences outside the usual art style, sometimes straying into super deformed territory. They even did a few super deformed shorts. The ongoing comics haven’t really done much of this though (honestly, I’m struggling to think of an example), so ‘Toph and the Boulder’ showcases an element of the show that hasn’t got as much of a foothold in the comics.
Sara Goetter is clearly having fun, and that translates into the reading experience. She takes the goofiness of the Boulder and cranks it up to maximum. Toph essentially plays the straight man role, anchoring the whole thing from sailing off too far into the throes of the Boulder’s emotions. Plus, Goetter gave us the crococat, which is as great as it sounds.
Paul: Goetter’s Toph is my platonic ideal of Tophness. The story felt snide and playful and tritely boastful. Just the way I imagine a great Toph story should. I’d much prefer more of these stylized takes than any attempt to vainly replicate the show’s aesthetic in comics form, especially as they suit dimensions of their characters, like Goetter and Toph here.
Nick: This was easily the most successful pairing of creator and characters in the book. Goetter’s style has such a gleeful sarcastic wit that makes every story beat as strong as it can be. The panel with the crocokittens’ reaction faces might have been my favorite panel in the book. Her color work also deserves a mention, expressing a wide range of emotions while sticking to the show’s Earth Kingdom color palette, just as her exaggerated lettering can be as important to some jokes as the words themselves.
‘Origami’
Written, illustrated, and lettered by Kiku Hughes
Nick: Taken together, I really appreciate the diversity of content and styles in these three stories. Each has its own strengths that aren’t present in the others, and that made reading them as a unit very easy and satisfying.
‘Origami’ succeeded most in its thematic resonance. One of the subtler messages of Avatar is that every person is important for their own reasons, and it’s a message that is often shown but rarely openly talked about. Sokka tends to be the biggest symbol of this, since he’s the one member of the group who does not bend. Given that, it was interesting to me that Katara was the one to impart this message to Chio. However, since Katara is known for her optimism, it was still in character, so it still worked.
Continued belowKiku Hughes tells her story with a notably high panel-per-page density. This allows her to focus on smaller character moments, gives the bending scenes (both water and paper) more space to breathe, and gives her more story space than a typical six-pager. Smartly, since she focuses on small moments instead of trying to pack a lot into each panel, the pages never feel cramped.
Mark: Yes, the denser page layouts work with the simplified art style, reducing the lines on the page, trying to find very clear and readable silhouettes. With the ongoing comics sticking closer to the art style of the show, this isn’t always an option, especially in a digest-sized book, so I enjoyed the change of pace. It puts a greater emphasis on gestures, which helps sell the core emotions of this tale.
Nick: Two stray thoughts about ‘Origami’ before I move on: First, there was an explicitly gay couple at the center of the story! It’s wild to me to see them existing alongside my favorite fictional characters, with no fuss made about it. (Note: I’m still working my way through the “Avatar: The Last Airbender” comics for the first time and haven’t gotten to the “The Legend of Korra” ones yet.) Second, I always appreciate when Avatar works elements of Asian culture into its stories, and Hughes did a great job weaving origami traditions and symbolism into the thematic core of this story.
Paul: I didn’t know of Kiku Hughes before this, but this story instantly sent me searching. This style, de-emphasizing line holds and brandishing these pastel palettes, really speaks to me. Gorgeous and sensitive face work too. This art won me over.
‘Sisters’
Written by Gene Luen Yang
Illustrated by Carla Speed McNeil
Colored by Jenn Manley Lee
Lettered by Michael Heisler
Nick: ‘Sisters’ was easily my favorite story of this batch. I tend to be drawn to stories about identity, so Ty Lee’s single mention in “The Beach” that she was a septuplet felt like a gold mine of unexplored story potential. Yang does a lot with that idea here—about as much as one could do in eight pages. We see how Ty Lee wasn’t the only one of her sisters who had to branch out and establish herself as an individual. In fact, the sisters had to work together in order to branch out from each other, which also meant pigeon-holing themselves so they didn’t step on each other’s toes. That’s a pretty deep insight, and one I wouldn’t have expected from a short story like this.
Toph is a good foil for Ty Lee, as she also had to deal with stepping out of people’s misguided ideas of who she should be. But, while she makes sense as this story’s supporting character, those connections were mostly unexplored. I wonder if Toph had a bigger role in Yang’s original story concept, before he had to start paring things down to eight pages.
The story’s resolution brought greater significance to Ty Lee’s joining the Kyoshi warriors: she feels comfortable and at home in a large matching set, yet the Kyoshi warriors allow her more freedom for individuality than her sisters did. As the youngest of my generation in a pretty huge, close-knit family, I tend to find myself drawn to large community groups where I can still be seen as an individual, so this resolution hit very close to home.
All that said, there’s something about the art in ‘Sisters’ that didn’t totally work for me. On the plus side, Carla Speed McNeil’s characters are on-model and expressive, and she lays her panels out in a fittingly manga-inspired way that focuses on characters’ heads and facial expressions. Likewise, Jenn Manley Lee’s coloring also works on its own, giving the Kyoshi warrior pages their own distinct palette from the Fire circus pages. And yet, something about the combination of the flat coloring over McNeil’s style looks almost amateurish. Paul and Mark, I’m curious what you’d have to say about this.
Mark: As far as I know, Lee always colors McNeil’s work, but it doesn’t usually look like this. It could simply be a case of trying to make it look more like the show, but not really having the time to experiment. This was one of the Free Comic Book Day stories, so the production timeline could’ve been tight too.
Continued belowI do get what you mean about flat color though. If you color pick any element (like the red on Ty Lee’s outfit), it remains the same throughout the whole story, whether she’s outside in full sun or inside a tent. It makes the characters feel disconnected from their environment.
Paul: Apart from a novelization I haven’t read, I’ve always felt the Kyoshi Warriors to be the most ripe-for-exploration and under-utilized part of the original Avatar cast. The story has the imprimatur of Yang’s humor and rhythms, which I like. But I would also really enjoy Carla Speed McNeil at the writer’s helm of a story like this.
Mark: I just picked up Avatar: The Last Airbender—The Rise of Kyoshi the other day. I haven’t started yet, but I’m looking forward to exploring more of Kyoshi’s past.
‘The Scarecrow’
Written by Dave Scheidt
Illustrated and lettered by Coni Yovaniniz
Nick: ‘The Scarecrow’ is the longest story in the book, yet I have the least to say about it. I love Coni Yovaniniz’s art style, a decidedly different take on the character designs that still retains all of the distinguishing characteristics of each original design. There’s a certain cohesion when reading material from a cartoonist who draws, colors, and letters their own work, and I think that’s all on display in the pacing and panel/page design here. Really, most of my high marks for the story come from the art. While Scheidt’s dialogue is all very true to the characters and the story is inoffensive, it also has no deeper insights into the world or any character. It ends up being a breezy, agreeable way to end the book. Nothing more, nothing less.
Paul: I’m sorely disappointed Linus didn’t appear proselytizing about the Great Pumpkin. But I think this story was actually the best test case for me of something I’ve always wondered: Avatar as Sunday funnies. I think we’ve seen them work in a variety of styles here, but this is one near and dear to me, and Scheidt proves that to me. Something in our heroes’ rapport has always seemed compatible with that root id of cartooning, which I associate with masters like Schulz, Hergé, and Tezuka. This was a wonderful note to end on.
Mark: “Avatar: The Last Airbender—Team Avatar Tales” very much feels like a companion volume to “Avatar: The Last Airbender—The Lost Adventures.” I could easily see the two books collected in a hardcover together someday. However, where many of ‘The Lost Adventures’ creators worked on the show in some capacity, here all the creators would likely have been fans of the show first, so to me this book feels very much like a celebration of the show from the perspective of fans. There’s very little lore and only a little story relating to the ongoing storylines of either the show or the comics, but there’s lots of character. It’s about celebrating small moments. There’s definitely a bit of the “Tales of Ba Sing Se” episode in this book’s DNA too.
Nick: I felt that the stories in the last short story collection, “The Lost Adventures,” were shackled by the fact that they had to closely resemble the style of the show, and that they had to exist alongside the show by being completely inconsequential. “Team Avatar Tales,” on the other hand, felt so much stronger because it actively explored the idea that these new creators have their own unique takes on the characters and world. That greater diversity of styles led to a greater diversity of stories, which made every few pages a new and welcome experience.
Paul: I so enjoyed this as just a tribute to cartooning. A sure tell of the resilience of a property is how well it survives being stretched and smushed into the diverse and eclectic visual arsenals of a set of cartoon artists in their true variety. While these creators do all have some affinities with the style of the show (there’s no Bryan Hitch-like photorealist entry, no wacky Michael DeForge interpretation of bending), the collection stands to me as proof of how robust Avatar: The Last Airbender is, what a range of stories it can sustain. From the elegant Sara Kipin cover to the zany or contemplative or graphic novelistic pieces inside, Avatar and comics are meant to be together.
Final verdict: 7.5 – This was a lot of fun, showcasing many different aspects of the Avatar Universe. However, as much as we enjoyed “Avatar: The Last Airbender—Team Avatar Tales,” it’s difficult to shake off that feeling of being inconsequential.
