How to Read Avatar: The Last Airbender Comics
Avatar: The Last Airbender is an incredible show set in an incredible world. The story of this world is mostly told through the Avatar: The Last Airbender series and its sequel, Avatar: The Legend of Korra. The events in between these two shows are mostly unexplored by TV. However, they are extensively explored through the Avatar: The Last Airbender comic series.
The Avatar: The Last Airbender comics pick up immediately where the show left off. They depict how the world reacted to the events in the show’s final episode and even begin addressing the mysteries introduced by that episode. In this way, they provide an extension to the universe that is essential to any hardcore fan. Today, we’re looking at how exactly to approach these comics.
Check the Order
The Avatar: The Last Airbender comics are a bit different than most comic books. The majority of the comics are released as a three-part series of graphic novels that tell a single storyline. For example, Part One through Part Three of Avatar: The Last Airbender- North and South (Review) depict a trip to the South Pole where Team Avatar visits Katara and Sokka’s father. Thus, the three parts of North and South can potentially be read as a standalone story.
However, each of these graphic novel trilogies builds upon the comics that came before it. For example, the Smoke and Shadow (Review) trilogy contains a single storyline but significantly builds on characters and concepts from The Search (Review). Because of this, in order to get a full grasp of Team Avatar’s journey through these comics, we suggest reading them all in order.
In addition to the main storyline running through these graphic novel trilogies, there are a few Avatar comics unrelated to any of the others. The stories collected in The Lost Adventures (Review) and Team Avatar Tales (Review) mostly just depict short stories that take place sometime during the events of the TV show.
The easiest way to discover the order to read these comics is to check ComicBookWire’s “Avatar: The Last Airbender Reading Order“. This explains the exact reading order for the entire comic series.
Pick a Format
The Avatar: The Last Airbender comics are available in a few different formats that each have their advantages and disadvantages.
The comics were initially published as small, paperback collections. These collections have a smaller trim size than an average comic book, so they are extremely portable. However, the small size offers a more limited view of the comics’ impressive artwork.
More recently, these paperbacks are being reprinted as new “omnibus” collections. These omnibus versions collect three paperbacks into a single volume. So, instead of having to jump from The Promise Part One, to Part Two, to Part Three, fans can simply read the entire The Promise (Review) narrative in one book.
Alongside these paperback collections, a line of hardcovers is also available. These hardcover “Library Editions” are oversized in format and include annotations from the comic’s creators. Like the omnibus collections, the library editions also include all three parts of a story arc in one collection. This creates an awesome reading experience, as fans can read an entire story arc, better appreciate the artwork, and learn some behind-the-scenes details regarding the comics’ creation. However, the increased size of these library editions makes them more cumbersome to read and, thus, less portable.
In addition to all of these physical formats, the Avatar comics are also available digitally. When purchasing digital versions of the comics the choices are more limited, as the library editions are not available. Because of this, we suggest going with the omnibus versions, when available, as buying one omnibus is typically cheaper than the three volumes it collects. Also keep in mind that the majority of these comics are available for free through Hoopla (What is Hoopla?).
The Future
New comics are constantly on the way from the world of Avatar. As more comics are published, we’ll be keeping our “Avatar: The Last Airbender Reading Order” up to date so make sure to check back there if you’re curious about new additions to the Avatar world.