Imbalance (Avatar: The Last Airbender Comics #6)
By Faith Erin Hicks, Bryan Konietzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, Peter Wartman (illustrator)
Publication Year: 2020
Type: Fiction
Genre: graphic novel, fantasy
Read on 2022-11-07
★★★☆☆
Not as good as the previous ALTA graphic novels by Gene Luen Yang (each of which I gave 5 stars to) but still contains the signature political and moral themes. As an adult reading this I appreciate the way it’s introducing complex sociological and political issues of industrialization, segregation, and bigotry to youth, but I found this one to be particularly heavy-handed and predictable. The plot is also a bit too similar to season 1 of Legend of Korra.
I loved the Easter eggs and fun bits where the characters get to be themselves, but they are also frequently reduced to archetypes, puppeteered to say the key perspectives the writers wanted to get across about these issues.
The art is beautiful. I loved the way the characters are subtly aged up.
