List of Avatar: The Last Airbender comics



Avatar: The Last Airbender comics are visual publications that depict events and situations unseen during the series' run, most of them occurring between episodes. They are official comics and were originally released by Nickelodeon Magazine and Nickelodeon Comics Club, as well as through the Avatar: The Last Airbender DVD volumes. Some comics were never published in the United States and came to light through other foreign publications. The comics were later archived at Nick.com's "Nick Magazine" sub-site, which was taken down upon the periodical's cancellation in early 2010 and is no longer accessible.

Some comics reveal certain key information pertaining to the story, such as Joo Dee's immediate appointment as the Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se and the exact method of how Team Avatar obtained a Fire Nation vessel, which they utilized in the early stages of the third book. Several other comics also release new information on canonical characters. For example, the comic "Dragon Days" reveals the characteristics and personality of Kuzon, a character who was previously mentioned by Aang but never seen during the series.

To date, there have been twenty-nine comics released, twenty-eight of which were published by Nick Magazine and its offshoots from 2005 through 2009, and later compiled in the "The Lost Adventures" graphic novel, and the twenty-ninth, "Rebound", published as a special tie-in to the series on May 4, 2013, by Dark Horse Comics. All but two of these comics, which are listed at the bottom of this page under "Bonus stories", are considered canon. Dark Horse has also collaborated with Nickelodeon since 2011 to produce and publish The Promise and The Search trilogies of graphic novels, bringing the released "comic" adaptions of Avatar to a total of thirty-five. Finally, a third trilogy of graphic novels, The Rift, is in production and will come out in 2014.

Bee Calm



 * Story: Joshua Hamilton and John O'Bryan
 * Art: Justin Ridge
 * Color: Hye-Jung Kim
 * Lettering: Clem Robins

While Team Avatar is lost in the forest early in their adventures, a scorpion bee lands on Aang's nose. Although Katara and Sokka advise him to make it detach from his body, Aang assures them that all he has to do is stay calm and it will not bother him, a plan that heeds less-than-favorable results.

Water War



 * Story: Tim Hedrick
 * Art: Justin Ridge
 * Color: Hye-Jung Kim
 * Lettering: Comicraft

When Katara witnesses two children pelting innocent civilians with water balloons in a small town, she decides it is their turn to get splashed.

Don't Blow It!

 * Story: Alison Wilgus
 * Art: Elsa Garagarza
 * Color: Wes Dzioba
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Aang wakes up with a case of the sniffles, causing him to exhibit unusual, airbender-enhanced symptoms, and ignores his friends' offers for cures by insisting that it is nothing to dote over. When his sickness complicates matters, Katara and Sokka resolve to keep Aang safe whether or not the Avatar agrees with their methods.

Relics



 * Story: Joshua Hamilton and Johane Matte
 * Art: Johane Matte
 * Color: Hye-Jung Kim
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Team Avatar stops at the sales stand of a merchant who markets years-old artifacts, one of which, an Air Nomad pendant, catches Aang's eye and spurs him to uncover its whereabouts.

Fruit Stand Freestyle

 * Cartoonist: Brian Ralph
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Momo comes across a fruit stand filled with fresh fruit, but a wild boar-q-pine thinks itself clever enough to outwit the lemur and take the fruit for itself.

Sleepbending



 * Story: Joshua Hamilton
 * Art: Joaquim Dos Santos
 * Color: Hye-Jung Kim
 * Lettering: Clem Robins

Aang's dream stirs up trouble for the rest of the team, who are constantly interrupted from their rest by the Avatar's tumultuous delusions.

Lessons

 * Story and art: Johane Matte
 * Color: Wes Dzioba
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Toph banishes Sokka and Momo from the area she is trying to use for Aang's earthbending training, but the two of them manage to cause even more of a distraction elsewhere.

Sokka the Avatar



 * Story: Joshua Hamilton
 * Art: Justin Ridge
 * Color: Sno Cone Studios
 * Lettering: Comicraft

While visiting a small Earth Kingdom town, Sokka pretends to be the Avatar in order to impress a girl with Aang's permission. Although the scheme seems stellar at first, everyone involved soon realizes the danger involved with the impersonation of the Avatar.

Dirty Is Only Skin Deep

 * Story: J. Torres
 * Art and color: Gurihiru
 * Lettering: Comicraft

When Toph refuses to bathe with the others and wash off the unseemly accumulation dirt on her body, Katara takes it upon herself to get the earthbender into her native element.

Divided We Fall



 * Story: Frank Pittarese
 * Art: Justin Ridge
 * Color: Wes Dzioba, Hye-Jung Kim, and Sno Cone Studios
 * Lettering: Comicraft

The worst rainstorm Team Avatar has yet faced blows Appa to the ground of a dense forest, forcing the members of the gang to fend for themselves in an environment unlike any other they have ever dealt with. In their attempts to find each other, the children come face-to-face with the people of the jungle and do what it takes to survive.

Reach for the Toph

 * Story: J. Torres
 * Art and colors: Corey Lewis
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph appear to be locked in an intense battle, but what are the children really fighting over?

It's Only Natural

 * Story: Joshua Hamilton and Johane Matte
 * Art: Johane Matte
 * Color: Wes Dzioba
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Earth King Kuei's pet bear, Bosco, has forgotten all of his natural instincts: hunting, intimidating, and basically all that has to do with him, a normally wild animal, living in the wild. Disappointed with the bear's backward progression to human-like characteristics under Kuei's care, Sokka attempts to turn Bosco into what nature intended him to be. His ideas are not taken well by the infinitely lazy animal.

Going Home Again



 * Story: May Chan, Aaron Ehasz, Katie Mattila, and Alison Wilgus
 * Art: Amy Kim Ganter
 * Color: Wes Dzioba
 * Lettering: Comicraft

After Ba Sing Se's fall, Princess Azula decides to return home to the Fire Nation with Prince Zuko and their imprisoned Uncle Iroh. Zuko, however, refuses. Azula and Ty Lee form a plan to convince him to leave with them.

The Bridge

 * Story: Aaron Ehasz, Joshua Hamilton, Tim Hedrick, and Frank Pittarese
 * Art and color: Reagan Lodge
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Katara writes in her diary about events as they pass following the fall of Ba Sing Se, chronicling the progression of Aang's coma and the tribulations that she and the rest of the gang come to face while traversing Fire Nation waters.

Private Fire

 * Story: Joshua Hamilton
 * Art: Johane Matte
 * Color: Wes Dzioba
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Having entered the Fire Nation in disguise as normal civilians, Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph go information gathering in an everyday Fire Nation village. Since this course of actions heeds no reveals to the gang concerning plans for the War, Sokka comes up with the one plan he can think of that may assist him in his quest for knowledge: he joins the Fire Nation Army.

Night Animals

 * Story: Katie Mattila
 * Art: Justin Ridge
 * Color: Wes Dzioba
 * Lettering: Comicraft

When Momo spots two Fire Nation soldiers patrolling dangerously close to the Team Avatar campsite, he awakens Appa in the hopes that the flying bison can think of a way to ward off their enemies.

Boys' Day Out



 * Story: Alison Wilgus
 * Art and color: Gurihiru
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Katara has learned of a gritty restaurant/bar situated in a nearby Fire Nation town and, bored with sitting around, invites Toph to visit it with her. Upon entering, they discover that it is an all-male establishment, but the waterbender is not ready to give up on the plan she had devised for her afternoon.

Ember Island Arcade

 * Cartoonist: Corey Lewis
 * Lettering: Comicraft

During a forced vacation to Ember Island, Lo and Li show Zuko, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee to a popular arcade to lift the teenagers' spirits. Azula's taunting challenge to her brother to play a game of Street Bender cannot be refused.

Monster Slayer

 * Story: J. Torres
 * Art & Color: Gurihiru
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Sokka misleads an entire town of Fire Nation citizens into believing that there is a monstrous beast residing in the forest just outside of the village, knowing full well that this creature is only Appa, and volunteers to slay the monster for a free meal from the townspeople. When he gets to the woods, Sokka is met by an entirely different surprise.

Combustion Man on a Train



 * Story: Rawles Lumumba and Alison Wilgus
 * Art: Tom McWeeney
 * Color: Wes Dzioba
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Although at first only spectating at the departure of a Fire Nation train, Aang and Sokka agree to go on the train with Sho, a child who is afraid to ride the train alone. Sho's fears are justified when an intimidating Fire Nation assassin, Combustion Man, invades the trains and chases Avatar Aang.

Swordbending

 * Story: Alison Wilgus
 * Art: Justin Ridge
 * Color: Wes Dzioba
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Zuko agrees to a friendly sword-fighting match with Sokka, who practically begs the firbender in order to alleviate his boredom at the Western Air Temple. This "Swordbending Kai" does not go as Sokka expected despite the latter's training with Master Piandao.

No Benders Allowed



 * Story: Alison Wilgus
 * Art: Elsa Garagarza
 * Lettering: Comicraft

At the Western Air Temple, the benders of Team Avatar and Haru leave Sokka, Teo, and The Duke behind to do some household chores, while they go practice their bending. Feeling excluded, Sokka comes up with a new club, the "Bendless Boomerang Club", founded specifically to exclude benders, since only nonbenders can join.

Love Is a Battlefield

 * Story: J. Torres
 * Art and Color: Gurihiru
 * Lettering: Comicraft

At the Western Air Temple, Aang wishes to speak to Katara about the kiss the two shared during the Day of Black Sun, but she is hesitant.

Dragon Days



 * Story: Alison Wilgus
 * Art: Johane Matte (frame) and Tom McWeeney (flashback)
 * Color: Wes Dzioba
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Aang tells Zuko of his adventures with Kuzon while searching for dragons one hundred years before being freed from the iceberg. He details the day on which he and Kuzon discovered a corrupted trafficking business in the dragons' mountains.

Game Time

 * Story: Katie Mattila
 * Art: Justin Ridge
 * Color: Hye-Jung Kim
 * Lettering: Comicraft

The members of Team avatar are sitting on the steps that lead to Ozai's beach house when Sokka bursts through the building's doors suggesting that they play hide-and-go-seek. Realizing that he won't deter in his efforts until they agree, the team joins the game and retreats into the bush to hide.

Bumi vs. Toph, Round One



 * Story: Joshua Hamilton and Johane Matte
 * Art: Johane Matte
 * Color: Hye-Jung Kim
 * Lettering: Comicraft

At the White Lotus campsite, Toph overhears Suki's praise for Bumi's earthbending skills and thinks it uncalled for, considering herself to be the greatest earthbender of all. When Toph and Bumi begin to argue over who is better, Sokka sees an opportunity to make a spectacle of their disagreement and suggests that the two battle one another to prove who deserves the title. Their fight disrupts the workings of the campsite and puts everyone present in harm's way.

The Promise



 * Story: Gene Yang, Michael Dante DiMartino, and Bryan Konietzko
 * Art and color: Gurihiru
 * Lettering: Michael Heisler and Comicraft

The Promise details the events that occur immediately and one year after the end of the television series, detailing the difficulties that come with a war-torn world that, with rebel groups and dissatisfied citizens at every turn, takes a unified effort to return to peace.

The Promise Part 1
One year after the Hundred Year War, Avatar Aang and Fire Lord Zuko are working together with the reinstated Earth King Kuei to remove the Fire Nation colonies from Earth Kingdom territory, but one of the colonies, Yu Dao, complicates matters by taking a stance against the Harmony Restoration Movement and declaring that it will stay no matter what. Aang must take into consideration a promise he made to Zuko just after the end of the War: do whatever it takes to keep the new Fire Lord from becoming like his father, whether that means locking Zuko up or killing him.

The Promise Part 2
Ever since Zuko began to visit his father for advice about handling the Yu Dao crisis, Team Avatar has had to find different ways to resolve the conflict of the colonies and make peace between the nations. However, the situation becomes dire when Kuei and Zuko revert into the atmosphere of war.

The Promise Part 3
Zuko and Kuei have sent their armies on a collision course in order to secure the city of Yu Dao, bringing the world to the edge of war once again. Aang is stuck in the middle of this conflict, having promised Zuko a year previously that he would do whatever it took to keep the peace of the world, even if it meant killing the Fire Lord himself. As his continued attempts to mediate the conflict are repeatedly seen as inadequate and futile, his options become fewer and fewer until he may just have to fulfill his promise.

The Search



 * Story: Gene Yang, Michael Dante DiMartino, and Bryan Konietzko
 * Art and color: Gurihiru
 * Lettering: Michael Heisler and Comicraft

The Search is about Zuko's quest to find his mother Ursa with the help of his sister and a few old friends.

The Search Part 1
Zuko makes a deal with Azula, releasing her from the mental institution in exchange for her help in his quest to find his mother. The two of them set out on a journey to Hira'a with Aang, Sokka, and Katara, but tensions between the group and dangers on the journey there could end their search before they discover the truth.

The Search Part 2
In search of their long-lost mother, Fire Lord Zuko and his sister Azula have brought Avatar Aang and his friends into Forgetful Valley, but what they discover within may be more than they bargained for.

The Search Part 3
When Azula goes off alone to find Ursa after learning some startling information, Zuko and Sokka pursue her and try to arrive at the location first. Meanwhile, Aang and Katara remain with Rafa and Misu, contending with the Mother of Faces and her army of spirit animals, and the flashbacks into Ursa's past continue, revealing how her children's search and her new life may come to coincide.

The Rift

 * Story: Gene Yang, Michael Dante DiMartino, and Bryan Konietzko
 * Art and color: Gurihiru
 * Lettering: Michael Heisler and Comicraft

The Rift is an upcoming trilogy written by Gene Yang, which will follow Aang as he begins the process of establishing Republic City. Set after the conclusion of The Search, it will be illustrated by Gurihiru and published by Dark Horse Comics. Part 1 was released on March 5, 2014, with the second expected to follow on July 29.

The Rift Part 1
Aang asks his friends to help him celebrate Yangchen's Festival, one of the highest Air Nomad holidays, which has not been held in over a hundred years. However, visits from the spirit of Avatar Yangchen herself lead Aang to discover a jointly owned Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom refinery which is operating on land sacred to his people.

The Rift Part 2
The members of Team Avatar find themselves in trouble as mysterious forces threaten to destroy land sacred to the airbenders. While Aang journeys to the Spirit World for answers, Toph confronts her own past.

Rebound

 * Story: Gene Yang
 * Art: Ryan Hill
 * Lettering: Michael Heisler

Mai finds herself in a state of turmoil after her breakup with Fire Lord Zuko, but a handsome young man who visits her at her new workplace may change her luck, for better or for worse.



2014 issue

 * Story: Gene Yang
 * Art: Faith Erin Hicks

The second Free Comic Book Day story, the 2014 issue centers around Suki and Sokka. After a debacle in a seashell store, Suki "gives a lesson in manners and encourages a young girl's strength". It was released on May 3, 2014.

New Recruits

 * Story: Dave Roman
 * Art: Justin Ridge
 * Color: Hye-Jung Kim and Sno Cone Studios
 * Lettering: Comicraft

The gang goes to a local Earth Kingdom tavern in search of some new recruits and allies to join them in their fight against the Fire Nation. While there, their elderly contact, Yahshi, introduces the gang to four unique benders.

Gym Time



 * Story: Alison Wilgus
 * Art: Ethan Spaulding
 * Color: Wes Dzioba
 * Lettering: Comicraft

Avatar Kyoshi arrives at class to instruct Team Avatar, along with Zuko, Mai, and Azula, on their game for the day: dodgeball.

Trivia

 * One apparently scrapped comic, tentatively titled "Baby Badger-Mole", involved Aang, Katara, and Sokka discovering a baby badgermole in an environment uncharacteristic to the species, the woods. Unable to defend themselves against the animal's powerful earthbending, craziness ensues until Toph arrives.
 * The cover for Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Lost Adventures was taken from the first edition of Avatar's own magazine, Nick Mag Presents: Avatar: the Last Airbender, which ran during the show's original airing.
 * Combined, Avatar: The Last Airbender — The Art of the Animated Series, The Lost Adventures, The Promise, and The Search have sold over a hundred thousand copies.