Social inequality for those on the go
Creative Staff:
Story: Faith Erin Hicks
Art: Peter Wartman
Colors: Adele Matera
Lettering: Richard Starkings & Comicraft’s Jimmy Betancourt
What They Say:
Aang and Team Avatar race to resolve rising rensions between benders and non-benders before a town is torn apart!
There’s something fishy going on in Cranefish Town, and it’s up to Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph to find out what before the simmering conflict between benders and non-benders boils over into violence. But danger lurks where they least expect it, and uncovering the truth will reveal a threat unlike any they’ve ever faced– and a fateful choice for Aang he can never unmake!
Written by Faith Erin Hicks (The Nameless City) and drawn by Peter Wartman (Over the Wall), in collaboration with Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, this is the ultimate continuation of Avatar and the perfect companion to Legend of Korra!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
When Legend of Korra aired as a spinoff series to the original Avatar: the Last Airbender, its first season told a decently solid albeit very self-contained arc centered around the social inequalities revolving around the world’s benders and non-benders. The season does a good job picking apart and dissecting what a world where only a random amounts of citizens are granted elemental magic, but is immediately dropped once season two starts up with its own story.
Imbalance part 2, while chronologically taking place decades before Korra, reignites the discussion around benders and non-benders to some mixed results. For one, its opening pages came off as incredibly dense and text-heavy. As Aang and co. meet with councilwoman Liling to address the attacks on local factories, the discussion feels less like a genuine back-and-forth, and more like a hollow means to eventually work up to a fight scene. We never get the full heft behind what’s being discussed because the scene plays itself straight– as a discussion between two separate parties and nothing more. Yes, the topic of bender/non-bender equality is important within the world itself, but we’re rarely given any reason to care about this outside of characters essentially saying “this is important.”
Liling’s kids Yaling and Ru would have been the perfect new characters to help better dissect the issue, but they’re played more as direct villains than characters with any amount of nuance. Yaling, wanting to learn metalbending, shares ample scenes with Toph, who in turn is fully aware that Yaling and Ru are behind the factory attacks. Toph is stubborn in her ways and would have been the perfect unfeeling wall for Yaling to talk to, further building up sympathy for her cause. Instead, we’re met with Toph feigning empathy for the sake of infiltrating Yaling’s ranks because the story has already decided who the heroes and villains are. By the time we’re at Yaling’s underground rally, it feels almost too late to discuss the issue from a sound state of mind, as the characters are already prepared to fight each other.
The art fares similarly. Establishing scenes beautifully illustrate everything Cranefish Town has to offer, while following panels will feel dull and lifeless. More often than not, we’re treated to talking heads and empty backgrounds, with nothing to really move the plot forward on a visual level. One awkward transition re-introducing Suki and later Satoru feels so hastily laid out that I actually wondered if I skipped a page while reading. It’s the same problem with Wartman’s artwork and paneling in the previous volume, and yet anticipating it still doesn’t soften the blow any.
In Summary:
Imbalance part 2 lives up to its namesake. Between the top-heavy writing and inconsistent art, there are plenty of good and bad in the volume, resulting in this odd mishmash that tries its best to be a coherent story. The buildup so far is enough to make up for any shortcomings, but it will be in its third and final volume that will ultimately decide how this middle segment fares.
Content Grade: C+/B-
Art Grade: C+/B-
Packaging Grade: A
Age Rating: All Ages
Released By: Dark Horse
Release Date: May 15, 2019
MSRP: $10.99
