Momo

"air"

- Someone's missing from your group, someone very important...Where's Momo?

Momo was a winged lemur and a loyal companion of Avatar Aang and his team. He was the only winged lemur known to have survived the Air Nomad Genocide, where he appertained to the Southern Air Temple afterward.

Momo was an intelligent creature; however, he was either incapable or selective of understanding human speech. A glutton for any available fruit, Momo's behavior was more associated with feline behavior than that of real life lemurs. His wings appeared to retract within the fur of his arms and he appeared to have four fingers and two additional ones within the wing membrane that could be seen when he extended his wings. His fur was mostly white with some select black stripes and a brownish-black face which has two proportionately large green eyes.

Discovery


In late 99 ASC, Momo was thought to have begun living in the ruins of the Southern Air Temple, either alone or with a family of lemurs. While visiting the temple that year, Avatar Aang, Katara, and Sokka heard a strange noise from the doorway of the sanctuary of the temple, indicating that someone had entered the room.

Team Avatar, afraid that it was a firebender, hid behind two Avatar statues until they discovered that the intruder was a mere lemur. Aang took interest in him and longed to adopt him as his new pet; in contrast, a desperately hungry Sokka at first wished to eat their newly discovered companion for dinner. A chase ensued between Sokka and Aang, which ultimately led Aang to discover Monk Gyatso's corpse. Afterwards, the lemur provided Sokka with a quantity of food. Aang decided to keep the lemur as a pet and named him "Momo" after he stole a moon peach from Sokka. From this moment on, Momo remained a constant addition to their family, accompanying the team on their journeys throughout the world.

Journey to the North
Momo and Team Avatar next traveled to Omashu where they were "captured" and imprisoned by King Bumi. Aang planned to have Momo slip though an air vent to reach Appa for help. Momo had eaten a large amount of fruit and was unable to fit through the vent. It seems as though Momo remained in the vent for the rest of the night, as no one was ever seen retrieving him. Later, Team Avatar developed a plan with the objective of Fire Nation guards arresting Katara so she could meet with and free Haru. Through an elaborate scheme involving air vents, a large boulder, and Aang's airbending, they attempted to make it appear to the guards as though she was an earthbender. At first the guards thought that the earthbender was Momo, because of his raising his arms to lick them clean, but Sokka corrected them stating that the bender was Katara. During the events on the winter solstice, Momo tricked the Fire Sages into opening the Fire Temple Sanctuary by crawling through the pipes and moving around, casting a shadow. He later helped out by attacking the Great Sage, creating a distraction for Aang to enter the Sanctuary. He was seen with Appa when the bison rescued the group from the collapsing temple, when he was seen wearing the headdress of the Great Sage. Afterward, Momo had a brief altercation with the pirate captain's reptile bird over a waterbending scroll, but tied it to a post using a flag. Before the fight with the bird, Momo had saved Katara by cutting some rope used to tie her up.

Sometime later, when Katara and Sokka had fallen ill, Aang searched for a medicine that could cure them of their illness. Momo remained behind, keeping them company. While waiting for Aang to return, Katara requested that Momo find some water, but he did not understand her words. As such, the lemur took all sorts of objects, without ever retrieving what Katara wanted. Throughout the rest of the group's journey with the team, he accompanied them on their adventures without contributing with major or significant participation.

Siege of the North
During the Siege of the North, Momo stayed out of the fight; rather, he accompanied Katara and Princess Yue. When Zuko captured Aang's body after he went to the Spirit World for help, Momo stayed at the Spirit Oasis while the rest of the team went to search the polar ice cap surrounding the city. After Aang was rescued, Momo attacked Admiral Zhao in the midst of a speech, though this did not stop Zhao from killing Tui, the moon spirit. After Tui was killed, Aang entered the Avatar State and joined forces with an enraged La to repel the attacking Fire Nation fleet as Momo watched in awe with the others. Once the siege ended, Momo and the rest of Team Avatar shared a group hug at the chief's temple.

Traveling through the Earth Kingdom


When the team ventured to the city of Omashu in the Earth Kingdom, Momo split from the group in search of food, as Team Avatar was too busy with a pentapox outbreak. He then got into a scuffle with the governor's son, Tom-Tom, who was intrigued by Momo's tail and followed him out of the city. When flying over a swamp, Momo and Appa became separated from the rest of the team. While wandering though the swamp, they were attacked by a Foggy Swamp Tribe hunting party. Momo was captured in the chase by Tho, but later released when Huu and Team Avatar intervened.

While flying to Wan Shi Tong's Library, Zei was fascinated by Appa and wished that he could speak his language in order to understand what the bison was saying. Momo, upon hearing this, decided to "speak" to the professor and tell Zei his stories. In response, Zei merely replied "Shush, chatty monkey!"

After Appa's disappearance in the Si Wong Desert, Momo was captured by a buzzard wasp, but was rescued quickly by Aang, who viciously knocked the creature out of the sky with an air whip, bitterly refusing to lose another friend.

In Ba Sing Se


After crossing the Serpent's Pass with Suki, Aang and Momo flew toward the Outer Wall of the Earth Kingdom capital, Ba Sing Se. Aang reached the wall and flew to the top, only to find a huge mechanical drill with the Fire Nation emblem upon it. During the Battle of the Drill, during which Aang fell to one side of the drill while Azula fell to the other flank, Momo grabbed and saved Aang, while Azula managed to prevent herself from falling on her own.

One night, Momo began looking for Appa, and in the process was attacked by a pack of three pygmy pumas. He and the pumas were captured and taken to a local slaughterhouse. Here, Momo was able to remove the pin of his cage and the felines' cage; in an act of gratitude, the pygmy pumas took him to a footprint left by Appa.

Weeks later, as Aang met with Guru Pathik, Momo remained back in Ba Sing Se with Katara and later joined Sokka and Toph when they attempted to warn the Earth King of the coup. There, he was captured by the Dai Li, Mai, Ty Lee, and Azula. After Team Avatar's defeat at the hands of Azula, they left the city, traveling with Earth King Kuei and Bosco.

Roaming the Fire Nation
As Aang attended a Fire Nation school, Momo accompanied him while hiding under his uniform. During the many following adventures of Team Avatar, Momo did not participate until Sokka bought a pet messenger hawk, Hawky. Initially, the jealous lemur engaged in fights with the hawk before Appa calmed them down.

Aang was particularly nervous four days prior to the invasion and was uncertain about confronting Fire Lord Ozai. Consequently, he began over-training, leading to multiple hallucinations and nightmares. During one of Aang's visions, Momo appeared to speak with him before participating in a fierce dispute with Appa. Later, while wearing a kimono, Momo fought a samurai-style duel against Appa as koala sheep cheered them on.

Final battles


Before the arrival of Sozin's Comet, Momo followed Aang while he sleepwalked onto a giant lion turtle. Meanwhile, when the rest of Team Avatar met with the masters of the Order of the White Lotus, Bumi stated that an important member of the team was missing, then inquired about Momo's whereabouts. When Aang awoke, he was confused as to his location and began speaking with Momo, who only answered using his characteristic growls.

Preceding the final battle in Wulong Forest, Aang warned Momo that he should to fly to somewhere safe. Momo returned once Ozai was defeated by the Avatar. After the final battles, Team Avatar, along with Iroh and Mai, reunited in the Jasmine Dragon. Aang took a seat on the floor and airbent an object around while Momo gave futile chase.

Personality
Momo's personality was typical of his species: curious and intelligent, with a touch of mischievousness. He was an asset to the team with his friendly and playful ways, which helped to feed Sokka's humor as the straight man. This brought much needed levity to the group from time to time. Although rare between different animal species, Appa and Momo appeared to have a special bond, which may be due partly to linguistic understanding. Momo was also adept in many situations, such as when the pygmy pumas chased him for food only to find themselves on the menu. Momo aided them in their escape and at the same time made new friends. These traits all go into Momo being a cute and adorable creature within the team, as well as to others he met throughout his travels.

Abilities
Momo used his wings for gliding and flying. He could also swim short distances underwater while holding his breath. He did not prove any fighting skill, except flipping out on a target and bouncing on enemy heads, due to his size and capabilities as an animal, but he helped Team Avatar numerous times on various occasions. Momo also showed some type of intelligence, as he helped Katara when she was trapped, and helped Sokka with fighting Fire Nation soldiers. Momo showed on various occasions that he understood human speech but only to a limit; for instance, he did not understand Katara when she told him to go get water when she and Sokka were sick. Momo also had a lot of physical strength, as he could sustain a person in the air who was approximately Aang's weight or possibly more.

Appearances
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Avatar Comics

 * "Bee Calm"
 * "Fruit Stand Freestyle"

The Promise Trilogy
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 * The Promise Part 1
 * The Promise Part 2

Trivia



 * Momo played a more minor role in than in the original series, only appearing a few times.
 * Aang named Momo after the Japanese word for peach, the fruit which Momo seized from Sokka shortly before he became the Avatar's companion. Momotaro—"Peach Boy"—is a well-known boy hero from Japanese mythology. The creators later revealed that they had actually named him this way because it apparently just seemed to fit. He had already drawn up in a scene eating a peach only for the group to later discover that momo was peach in Japanese.
 * When Avatar: The Last Airbender was still in early development, Momo was intended to be a cyclops robot monkey that survived the destruction of a lost civilization over a thousand years ago. Originally, he possessed Aang's trademarked staff and arrows. His name was also different, being planned to be Momo-3.
 * Momo is also a common name for pets in Japan, much like Max in England or Lucky in America. The name is also the shortened form of the Japanese dwarf flying squirrel, Momonga (モモンガ). In "Tales of Ba Sing Se", Momo was written as, which means "touch imitate" in Chinese. It also can be seen as the phase in Chinese where a name is repeated twice to show affection or cuteness, as in Tom-Tom.
 * Momo is a Tibetan dumpling containing meat or vegetables
 * "Avatar Extras" revealed that Momo was originally intended to be the reincarnated spirit of Monk Gyatso.
 * Co-creator Bryan Konietzko has admitted that Momo is his favorite character to draw. He noted that many of the creature's poses, mannerisms and overall body language stem from the memories of his childhood cat, Buddy, explaining why Momo is reminiscent of a typical housecat.
 * In the commentary for "The Western Air Temple", one of the ideas Mike and Bryan had for the episode was for the team to discover an entire group of flying lemurs.
 * Momo was one of the few characters in the series to have his own theme song.
 * According to "Avatar Extras" for "The Southern Air Temple", flying lemurs were trained to bring Air Nomads their gliders. Momo was originally going to be able to do this with Aang raising the question of who trained Momo.
 * Momo was the first non-founding member of Team Avatar.
 * Tho commented he had seen a lemur before in a traveling show, so Momo might not be the only winged lemur left. Also, the pirate captain recognized Momo as a lemur, pointing toward other winged lemur's existence. More proof is how Professor Zei dismissed Momo while exhibiting interest in Appa and Aang, who were living relics.
 * Momo was also the name of the younger sister of Mako Iwamatsu, the voice actor of Iroh in seasons one and two.
 * Momo and Pabu both gain stomach weight in the fifth episode of their perspective series: Momo ate the food in King Bumi's jail chamber, and Pabu ate noodles with Bolin.