“The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire” Part 2

“The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire, Part 2” leans heavier on political intrigue than perhaps any installment of “The Legend of Korra” to date. Granted, with mind control at play, there’s more to dig into than usual.

Cover by Michelle Wong
with Killian Ng

Created by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino
Written by Michael Dante DiMartino
Illustrated by Michelle Wong
Colored by Killian Ng
Lettered by Rachel Deering

What will it take to stop a war? In a desperate attempt to save the Earth Kingdom from falling back into the dark days of conquest and war, Korra and Kuvira convince an old friend to return for the fight. But will it be enough?

Written by series co-creator Michael Dante DiMartino and drawn by Michelle Wong (Goosebumps: Download and Die), with consultation by Bryan Konietzko, this is the official continuation of the beloved television series!

Mark Tweedale: Before we dive into the review, I’ve got Nick on board to help me with this one. He writes the “Fives Thoughts On…” pieces for the Avatar: The Last Airbender show here on Multiversity Comics. So Nick, if you could bring us up to speed, how did you find the first part of ‘Ruins of the Empire’?

Nicholas Palmieri: Hey guys, I’m glad to be here! I thought the first part of ‘Ruins of the Empire’ was a great read overall. It was decidedly large-scale and political, which worked well following the more personal elements of ‘Turf Wars,’ which focused on Korra and Asami’s relationship.

Kuvira is an interesting antagonist, but I felt that her season of the show was the least interesting because it was such a slow burn (for those curious, my Korra book rankings are 3>1>2>4). It’s difficult to portray the slow takeover of a nation, especially on an animated action show. ‘Ruins of the Empire, Part 1’ very much benefitted from being a comic book, as the dialogue scenes and political machinations are more important in this medium than the action scenes. I also felt that the story set up some great potential for commentary on democracy during Parts 2 and 3: what happens when the people don’t choose what’s best for them? What causes populism and extremism to win? Can those types of ideologies reform the establishment? And is it worth the price, even if the establishment is corrupt?

As expected from the show’s co-creator and head writer, DiMartino writes the characters true to form, and Michelle Wong’s art hews very closely to the show’s style, so no complaints there.

Mark: In general, all the “Avatar” and “Korra” comics have benefitted from the continued involvement from the shows’ creators, and not just in the writing side of things, but maintaining the sense of world design.

One thing that surprised me going into this story was how much story was put onto the shoulders of Prince Wu. The shows always made time for side characters to step into the spotlight from time to time, but in the comics, the focus tends to stick to the core group much more tightly. I guess if readers are waiting four to six months between installments, there’s a sense that they need to check in with all the main characters, and I sometimes feel like that hampers the series.

Having Prince Wu take on such a significant role here really made the comic feel like the show. Plus it’s great to see how he and Toph interact.

Nick: From the trilogies I’ve read, the middle volumes tend to focus on side characters. The second volume of ‘Turf Wars’ was mostly about Mako and Bolin’s investigation, while a good portion of ‘The Promise, Part 2’ was about Toph’s metalbending school and those new characters. So even though he isn’t part of the primary cast like those characters, seeing Prince Wu have a bigger role made a lot of sense to me. He also has the most relevance to the plot. Speaking of which, how do you feel about his conflicted stance on the monarchy? The visions of his aunt were unexpected, but interesting. Were you ever worried he’d turn his back away from the plan?

Mark: No, but only because he was so adrift in the TV show and his decision to dismantle the monarchy seemed to make him understand who he is and what was important to him. That said, I can see him questioning the way he got to this point. Had they jumped into this too quickly without setting up checks and balances along the way? After all, with the best of intentions, they set up a system wide open to abuses.

The whole mind control plot thread left me feeling rather mixed on this part though. There’s this sense that whatever has been done can be undone, but with such a diverse cast of characters, it’s really weird to me that no one seems to think it’s possible that the mind control could have done permanent damage. That doesn’t necessarily have to be the case, of course, it’s just weird to me that no one seems to be bracing for this possibility, or at least someone acknowledging that they’re being extremely optimistic about the outcome here. It just feels like the characters are treating a gross violation of personhood rather flippantly.

Nick: I didn’t mind that so much. It really felt like the characters were so caught up in the action that they didn’t have time to consider their situations deeper than the surface. I think that’s a large part of why the Wu/Toph scenes were here, as a way to break up the nonstop action and logistics of the brainwashing plotline.

I am interested in those questions, though, and I wonder how Part 3 will address them. I think we should have more time to deal with the implications there. I also think we’ll be able to explore a bit more about how they are supposed to relate to real-world events.

As it stands, though, I think this type of “technologically-enhanced brainwashing” is a pretty clear stand-in for modern-day election tactics through social media. (Hello, Cambridge Analytica!) We don’t know how permanent that influence is in real life, so it makes sense that the Korra comics would simply depict it and explore its effects, rather than try and answer any unknowable questions.

Mark: As you say, the brainwashing concept is definitely exploring some of the ills in modern social media, but it can only go so far that way (especially since the brainwashing in the comic is actively driven by a political body rather than amoral capitalism run rampant). I think it works better as an exploration of political propaganda in more general terms, most notably in the way it takes advantage of a largely ignorant voting body. I mean, the upcoming vote, even before the brainwashing aspect was introduced, is driven by personality instead of policy to the point that policy isn’t discussed at all—it’s entirely irrelevant as far as voters are concerned.

Nick: Very true! On that note, I wasn’t sure how to feel about the Avatar playing the “personality election” card by grabbing Toph. Isn’t that just a form of propaganda? Wu is the prior leader and Korra plays the role of top ambassador to all nations. Isn’t Toph a candidate being groomed by “the establishment?” The question then becomes: are they right to play by the rules of the game they’re involved in, even if their move could be considered unethical?

On the subject of Toph, I felt that, while she was true to character, her decision happened far too quickly. She goes from “I hate people” to “Fine, I’ll do it since the swamp told me” remarkably quickly. I understand that part of her decision—she is stubborn, and she knows that can be an issue sometimes—but I would have liked her to think the situation through more. They could have at least figured out a plan or some basic platform of ideas for her to run with, and maybe that could have excited her?

Either way, most of my criticisms here are “I wish there was more,” so it was undeniably fun visiting older Toph again!

Mark: A part of me thinks part of the reason they’re jumping over the running platform stuff is that they never figured a way to do it that wouldn’t derail the story or veer into tedium. No one wants The Phantom Menace–style trade debates. And it’s important to remember all the brainwashing and propaganda elements are secondary. The real focus is on the characters, especially Kuvira. While most of the cast are reacting on events on a plot level, Kuvira’s conflicts are driven by character struggles. There’s no question, ‘Ruins of the Empire’ is very much Kuvira’s arc, and it’s in her moments of decision that I found this installment at its most engaging, particularly in how Michelle Wong’s art carries these moments.

There’s a flashback to Kuvira’s childhood that worked especially well, with the first page pulling further and further back from young Kuvira with each panel, emphasizing how small and alone she feels. On the page turn, the moment is punctuated with her tiny figure dwarfed by a giant steel door. Then, as Suyin takes her in, we get closer and closer, emphasizing the connection with a final panel of the two holding hands. It was a nice moment of character-driven layouts.

Nick: That might have been the strongest sequence in the entire book, and it completely changed my view of Kuvira. We got a few hints at Kuvira’s past in the show, but these two pages made it clear how deep a connection she has with Su.

And you’re completely right in saying this book was more about Kuvira than anyone else. She’s a hard character to pin down as a reader because her system of ethics is so unique. She’s not clearly “bad” the way Commander Guan is, nor is she primarily an agent of “good” the way Korra wants to be. She wholeheartedly believes in what she does and the methods she uses, but she also concedes to the law in the end. To a certain extent, it’s easy to see how she feels justified in her actions: her reunification efforts did work! It’s just that they had some major humanitarian issues at the core, which she was willing to overlook in the name of the “greater good” of the Earth Kingdom.

And so, not only is she a willful prisoner, she actually goes out of her way to return to her captors when they get separated. A good chunk of this volume was dedicated to her helping out and attempting to return to her captors. I can’t think of any other antagonist who would do this without having a deeper plan—yet Kuvira’s actions makes perfect sense in the Avatar world. As we are constantly reminded, there is a balance in everyone, and people are neither one thing nor the other.

The Suyin scenes, both flashback and present-day, added even more layers. More than anybody, I think Su understands Kuvira’s perspective. She certainly understands more than somebody like Opal, who can’t understand why her mother would seek to protect Kuvira.

Mark: Honestly, I struggle to get a read on Kuvira, but that’s part of what makes her so interesting.

Nick: On a slightly different note, as soon as I opened up Part 1, I noticed something off and attributed it to the lettering. It turns out that, yeah, this trilogy has a different letterer than all the other Avatar books, though it does use the same font. I stopped noticing once I got sucked into the story (which didn’t take long), but I did want to mention this just to point out how important a letterer can be to the overall aesthetic of a series, and how lettering is more than just choice of font.

Mark: Yeah, there’s been some changes with the letterers. Michael Heisler handled the Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru era of “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” but Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt took over for ‘Imbalance.’ For “The Legend of Korra,” ‘Turf Wars’ was Nate Piekos and ‘Ruins of the Empire’ is Rachel Deering. I’m curious what jumped out about the change for you?

Nick: I know I just said lettering is more than just font choice, but in this case it does start at font size. It’s a little bigger than in ‘Turf Wars,’ which means the letters take up more space in the panel. Because of this, I think Deering tried to split the difference and make the balloons a tiny bit bigger instead of proportionately bigger, meaning the words now feel cramped inside their balloons and there’s a level of comfort missing. We need that white space around the letters. All that technical speak is to say that the art ends up feeling cramped as well: the figures lose the tiniest amount of space to play around in, and a bit more of the backgrounds are lost, so we lose a certain sense of composition that Wong worked into her art. Basically, a lot more tops of heads get cut off than in ‘Turf Wars,’ and the lettering feels more like an add-on than something that had an organic place among the art. It’s super subtle, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people overlooked it, but that really stood out to me.

Mark: It’s interesting that you mention the lettering, because it’s something that jumped out to me too, though for entirely different reasons. I’m a bit fussy when it comes to sound effects, and especially where bending is concerned, I feel like the series could do better. I want the sound effects to feel like a natural extension of the art and not an afterthought. Unfortunately, a lot of the “Avatar” and “Korra” sound effects look stuck on. However, I have to say I found Deering’s sound effects a noted improvement. They look less computer generated, and the line width naturally fits better with Wong’s art. I still think she could take it further, but her sound effects work is the best I’ve seen in the comics aside from some from ‘Imbalance’ artist Peter Wartman and ‘Toph and the Boulder’ artist Sara Goetter—definitely the best I’ve seen from the letterer as opposed to the artist. Considering how much the sound effects bring to life the bending in these comics, it’s a step forward I really appreciate.

Nick: You are totally right. I hadn’t even noticed that, but I think it’s because the bending sound effects in the other books are so in-your-face, while these genuinely mesh well with the art. At this point, I don’t really care for the bending scenes in the comics. The appeal of bending is mostly lost when removing the fluid movement from the animated shows, and I think there is nothing in the comics language that can serve as a decent substitute. That’s likely why these books have focused on character, politics, and large-scale action beats, instead of more intricate choreography and action scenes. But the things it does, it does pretty well!

Mark: In part, I think it’s a space restriction. In comics, generally the panels per page drop during action scenes to keep them brisk, and while that would work well for many conventional action scenes, where bending is involved we lose a lot of the specifics that make bending fun. For me, the bending scenes that work best in the comics don’t just show the impact moments, but the breath before the impact. It sounds simple enough, but it chews through page real estate fast and we end up getting more panels per page.

There was actually a scene in this installment that felt a little flat for this reason. It’s when Kuvira escaped from Commander Guan’s compound. While she’s inside it plays OK, but once she gets outside, all the action is restricted to a single page. This is a section that I feel needed more space to breathe, especially after the mech guard is thrown through the air. It feels like there’s a beat missing.

That final panel, with Guan getting to his feet, would’ve worked better at the beginning of the next page, especially since Guan’s in a different space to Kuvira, and returning to him for one panel before a page turn makes the spatial relationships a bit messy. I’m inclined to think this may be DiMartino still learning the rhythms of comics storytelling, as I had similar issues in ‘Turf Wars,’ though to a much greater degree there.

Nick: Yeah, and that all was probably my biggest problem with this volume. So much of the page count was dedicated to these scenes which lacked some technical nuance. DiMartino is a great storyteller, but I don’t think he’s as much of a storyboarder or choreographer. Of the two co-creators, that’s always seemed to be more Bryan Konietzko’s specialty. Comics writing requires a lot of both types of thinking, and DiMartino’s weaknesses are especially present here because of the unique challenge of putting bending on the page.

Overall though, while this installment wasn’t one of my favorites, it was still a fun ride with some decent story and character progression, and it left me with a few things to think about.

Mark: The Kuvira material is definitely the high point, especially since Wong is really engaging with it in terms of her visual storytelling. However, I was a little cold on this installment, and I think a big part of that was already aware of what was going to happen to Asami, Bolin, and Mako. Unfortunately, the cover for Part 3 is a total giveaway, so I lost a lot of the story tension there. I’m giving this one a 7 overall.

Nick: Agreed.

Final verdict: 7 – A solid installment, but it could’ve been tightened up.