The Promise: Good but a Little disappointing for continuing such a great show
Plot: The Promise story arc starts directly where the show ends. The king returns to Ba Sing Se and has a meeting with Team Avatar minus Suki. They decide they must remove the Fire Nation colonies from the Earth Kingdom. Zuko gives the movement to get rid of the colonies full support. Then their is a firework show. Everyone is having a great time except our dark, flawed character, Zuko. He makes Aang promise to kill him if he ever becomes as corrupt as his father. This is how the arc gets the title "The Promise." It cuts to two years later and Zuko is having trouble sleeping, he always thinks someone is going to assassinate him. The useless Fire Nations guards attempt to reassure him that he is fine, and then a earthbending assassin comes out of the shadow. Eventually, Zuko goes to see the colonies and sees that the several centuries of history of the colonies has caused them to fit into the Earth Kingdom. Getting rid of the Fire Nation colonies means that families would be teared apart. Zuko removes his support in the movement. We see that Toph opens a metalbending academy and joins Aang as he enters the Fire Nation colonies to try to win back Zuko's support. Aang schedules a meeting between Zuko, himself, and the Earth King. It cuts back to Zuko as Mai gets the Kyoshi Warriors to guard him. Zuko still, however, can't sleep and goes to visit his father for advice on how to be a good Fire Lord!
Good: Sadly, it was hard for me to think of something to put in this section. It carries the same great feel as the show but being transferred into a comic book it's lost some of his magic.
Bad: The main thing that this suffers from is the fact that the story has ended. Ozai is defeated and the world is fine again. They will never be able to cause that epic of a scale without converting to some gimmicky storyline. The art is the same exact art as the cartoon, which is fine with me. WHEN IT'S A CARTOON!!!!! The art is not the type of art I personally enjoy, while it's good for modern comics, I don't like the art in modern comics, I like vintage comic art and manga art. This art is so in-your-face that it's annoying. Many people, including me, were glad when these graphic novels were announced as they would fill the loose ties. e.x. Where did Zuko's mother go? The major problem with this story arc is that it doesn't fill any major loose ties. If you just want to know what the characters did after the show, then this is great. However, no major questions from the show are answered. This lack of answered questions makes this feel much more like a fan-made comic then a official release.
Overall: I'm sorry to say, this is not what I as a Avatar fan was hoping for. If you wanted major questions answered, then this isn't for you. If you just want more Avatar, pick it up. If you want to know what happened to Zuko's mom, skip this and go straight to The Search arc, which is better in my opinion.
