Free Comicbook Day: Rebound

[espanolbot]

AKA, what Mai got up to after dumping Zuko in the Promise...

Since this WAS a free comic... that does mean I can post all of it, right? Will cut down if necessary.













Interesting, I thought that groups like this would exist in the Avatarverse, I didn't think that we'd ever see them though. It's nice to see that they're continuing the expand the universe by showing that thinks weren't just fixed by Zuko assuming the throne.

The fact that Mai just took her brother and DIDN'T go on a Wolf and Cub style wandering across the world while her dad sends pseudo-neo-Nazi ninjas after her was kind of a surprise, though considering she was trying to keep him out of harm's way her going all Shogun Assassin have been counter productive.

Comments

[kd_the_movie]

Cosign the thought of Ozai loyalists existing. In fact should they ever have done a season 4 for Aang's series, I thought the principal antagonists should be Ozai loyalists and Koh the Facestealer.

[icon_uk]

Free Comic Book Day comics can be reproduced in full if the poster so wishes.

And it IS nice to see some political ramifications from Zuko taking the throne from Ozai. It would be interesting to see what happened to Ozai after he lost his powers, Mai's father claims to be acting in his name, but I doubt that Ozai would be in any position to take power, or whether, broken of spirit as he was, he'd ever seek it out again.

[hybrid2]

Thank you!

My comic store did'nt have it.

[arilou_skiff]

"after dumping Zuko in the Promise..."

Wait, wait WHAAAT!?

[espanolbot]

Ah, this is what you get for not reading the comics.

Basically, Zuko had a lot on his plate regarding trying to rule his father's former kingdom, in addition to juggling reparations for the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes for the actions undertaken during the war AND trying to figure out what to do with the former Fire Nation colonies (the Earth Kingdom wanted the Fire Nation citizens deported from their land, while the people living there had done so for the past 100 years and even had mixed Earth Kingdom/Fire Nation heritage, so they had no intention of leaving).

Suki (having been hired by Mai to act as Zuko's bodyguard following at least four assassination attempts from people who considered him to be a traitor) realised that the pressure was starting to get to Zuko, so she asked Mai to talk to him about it. Unfortunately, Mai took this to mean that Zuko didn't respect her enough to share his troubles, so she left him.

That's the cliff notes anyways.

[freezer]

To be fair to Mai, Zuko wasn't talking to ANYONE about his problems (Something Iroh calls him out on when he FINALLY goes to him seeking advice).

[arilou_skiff]

But... But... MY OTP!?

Now who am I going to ship Zuko with? :p

[terrykun]

Jin! :)

[nefrekeptah]

So start rooting for them to get back together. It could still happen.

[kurenai_tenka]

Ah thankyou so much for posting this! I'm not in the position to go anywhere to get the comics from free comicbook day, so. =/

It's really cool that they've chosen to fill out what's going on with Mai, since she's basically vanished off the grid as of late (though I expect she'll make an appearance before The Search is done).

Randomly, I wouldn't have though Mai's dad would've been the type to plan out something like this, idk why.

[northstarfan]

I was in the same boat!

Comixology has a few of them up in the freebie section, at least? I really enjoyed the Molly Danger/Princeless offering from Action Lab.

[kurenai_tenka]

Ah, that's great! Thanks for the link. :)

[silverzeo]

Oh shoot! Yesterday was Free Comic book day!?!? I totally slipped my mind! I had to do chores around the house, cleaning the patio, moving dead baby possums, cleaning plant stains from a plastic porch chair...

[janegray]

The only thing that stopoped me from liking Mai is that she didn't seem to give a damn when her baby brother was kidnapped. Normally I would have been fangirling her like crazy: she is an intelligent and competent fighter, she has fantastic lines, and she "saved the jerk who dumped her"; but she was so horribly cold about Tom-Tom, it poisoned my opinion of her.

So. Glad to see that has been corrected, and I can now proceed to fangirl Mai like crazy :)

[shadur]

She was cold about Tom-tom because she was /very/ well aware of what Azula was, and when a manipulative sociopath shows up 'to catch up on old times' and ask how you're doing, the LAST thing you do is give them any more potential leverage than they probably already have...

[espanolbot]

^ This.

[janegray]

I heard that rationalization, but frankly it never convinced me. I may remember it wrong since I saw those episodes a long time ago, but IIRC, Mai was cold about the kidnapping even before Azula showed up, whereas she had no trouble showing emotions about other subjects Azula could have manipulated her about (for example, she blushed and looked coy when she was informed that they were going after Zuko).

[shadur]

Azula already knew about her crush on Zuko, so that was a 'safe' subject to let her see.

[janegray]

Azula knew that Mai had a crush on Zuko when they were young children. While it's true that Mai still cared for Zuko ten or so years later, Azula couldn't be sure of that. If Mai wanted to play it so safe that she pretended not to give a damn about the survival of her baby brother, then she could have been all "oh, that boy I liked when I was five? Who gives a crap about him anymore" when Azula mentioned Zuko.

Honestly, I believe that whole kidnapping deal with Mai was an example of Characterization Marches On.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CharacterizationMarchesOn

Mai developed into an awesome character as the series went on, but her introduction tried too hard to introduce her as imperturbable and ended up portraying her as an asshole. Her horrible behaviour in that episode can be rationalized away by fans who are fond of the character she eventually becomes, but personally I could never forgive her for it.

So, to me, this comic where Mai is protective of her baby brother was a much needed fix.

[northstarfan]

I was curious about this one -- thanks for sharing!

[nefrekeptah]

By the time I went to my local comic book store, all the free comics had been taken, except for something called "Puzzle Man," which honestly didn't look all that good.

Serves me right for leaving so late, I guess.

[blackruzsa]

This makes me VERY happy.