FCBD: Legend of Korra

[espanolbot]

A bit from the FCBD story by Michael Dante DiMartino, co-creator of the Avatar series, and drawn by Heather Campbell, adding a bit of Avatar to the gap between the end of the show and the upcoming sequel comicbook series... A series I'm looking forward to, as it expands on Korra and Asami's relationship, but nothing's been mentioned since ComiCon last year.

Anyways, here's a bit of the FCBD story, wherein wee Korra hears howling from outside her parent's compound, and wanders off to see what's making the noise. Turns out that it's a polar bear-dog that's likewise wandered away from its group, who Korra befriends with some fish she has on her.

Shortly after this, Korra realises that she's lost, as wandering off into the frozen wastelands of the south pole in the middle of the night was a terrible idea for a 6 year old. Luckily, she's able to waterbend a makeshift igloo for them to crash in until morning.







Aw, that's Korra's season four outfit! ^^ Presumably being her look from the new graphic novel series.

Comments

[shadowpsykie]

i was half disappointed because i thought this was gonna feature Korasami but this was cute!

[ozaline]

yeah I really wanted some Korasami, but it was a fun book.

[dustbunny105]

Same. As soon as I saw baby Korra, I was torn between "aww" and "but Korrasami, though..." By the end, the "aww" had almost completely won out.

[commodus]

I always wanted them to do a comic about Korra and Unalaq's relationship.
He was her uncle, after all. The two disagreed about religion, sure, but I never understood why he'd hate his own niece, or got how everyone would be okay with him dying. I always sympathised with the character, personally speaking.

But that's just one story I'd love to see explored more. The Legend of Korra is full of them. Like Kuvira, who really deserves a happier life. I don't want to imagine her just being locked up like a criminal.

And then there's Korra and Asami! They could do a whole comic about all their adventures, and them just hanging out together. After all Korra went through, the character deserves some happiness, you know?

[crinos]

The guy set up his brother to get exiled so he could seize the throne of the North Pole for himself.

I think he hated Korra because of petty jealousy: He wanted one of his kids to be the Avatar. Which is why his initial strategy was to recruit Korra and turn him against his dad.

As for people being okay with him dying: He literally merged with his universes version of Satan and tried to destroy humanity. I don't really see him getting a candlelight vigil after pulling that shit.

Honestly, the Korra villains become more sympathetic as they go on. I hated Amon (Who I thought was a hypocritical piece of shit whose desire to destroy Korra was just his sick attempt to upstage daddy), I don't care for Unalaq, Zahir I kind of liked (At the very least he lived to see just how much he fucked up by killing the Earth Queen and letting Kuvira take over, and he helped Korra get over the trauma that he caused her) and Kuvira (Who I also like despite the fact she was a total monster).

[commodus]

I always felt bad for Zaheer and the Red Lotus. The way they were imprisoned seemed barbaric.
And as for Kuvira, I never really saw her as all that monstrous. She had been dealt a bad hand and was abandoned by her parents, and yet still found the strength of character to dedicate herself to helping others and rebuilding her country. I can't help but view her as a hero.

[crinos]

Well, considering that the Red Lotus consisted of the worlds only Lavabender (at the time), A combustion Bender, a woman who can water bend with such skill that she can use water to replace her missing arms, and the guy who was their leader and most dangerous guy of the four despite the fact he wasn't actually a bender at the time of his imprisonment, I can kind of understand the rather draconian imprisonment methods.

As for Kuvira... Well, I was pretty quick to make Nazi allegories with the Equalists and Amon (Especially when he was talking about how "Benders were responsible for every world war." Yeaaah...) But Kuvira went pretty Reichy herself, considering she was locking dissidents and non Earthbenders in internment camps.

Kuvira may have started with good intentions, but she went off the deep end pretty hard. So she was definitely NOT a hero by the end.

Although, for what its worth, I do think she's the most redeemable of the main Korra villains, and would like to see that followed up on, if nothing else I would like to see her patch things up with Su.

[md84]

Kuvira's arguably the most sympathetic villain in the end for one simple reason: she's the only one who really admits that she did wrong and wants to make things right with the people she hurt.

And no, Zaheer doesn't count. He never really felt bad about what he did, only that it resulted in something that was the complete opposite of what he wanted.

[matrix_dragon]

Dear Lord, I hated his appearance in Book 4. No, no, his helping Korra overcome the hell she went through because of his stupidity wasn't needed. She had far better and smarter people she could turn to at times like that. All we needed from him was to never appear on screen again, and remain in the prison cell he'd earned. Again. Because he's a murdering idiot that screwed up everything he touched.

[espanolbot]

...But Kuvira had concentration camps where she rounded up political dissidents and people of "non-Earth Kingdom extraction". The reason why she did what she did made her sympathetic (Suyin's blunt rejection of her despite Kuvira being her adopted daughter was also understandable but still unpleasant), but she still did horrible things (wanton murder, blunt tyranny etc).

In the show each of the villains is meant to represent a form of political group that arose in the 20th century. Amon being a communist, Zaheer being an anarchist, Unalaq being a religious fundementalist, and Kuvira being... well... a fascist.

It's fine to feel sympathetic for them, but they still did terrible things to other people. Zaheer wanted to kill Korra when she was a child, leading to her being forced to grow up in a heavily guarded compound until she was a teenager, for example. And that's not even getting into his whole "governments are corrupt, so we should get rid of them as people are only truely free if they're living in a Mad Max-ish world where their only immediate concern if protecting their friends and family".

[md84]

Unalaq hated his niece because, to him, her being born the Avatar was just another way his brother managed to upstage him without even trying.

As for why no one is really mourning him...well, he did enough awful crap that there's a good reason not even his own kids feel too bad about his demise. They're only worried that their mom might feel bad.

[commodus]

I don't know. I am a religious person myself, and I felt an affinity with him, especially when he saw how their sacred festival had literally become a carnival fairground. And, rather than just being evil or power hungry, he was ultimately ready to sacrifice his body and will to bring back his God.

I just think it's a shame they didn't go more into his relationship with his children, or Korra for that matter. He was an interesting character, but glibly betrays those closest to him without a hint of conflict. I mean, he probably saw Korra when she was a baby, and was there when she was growing up. How could anyone just breezily betray someone they knew from infancy? Yes, religious zeal is a strong motivator, but so are the bonds of blood between a family.

[crinos]

Yeah, he saw Korra as a baby, and it was revealed he was part of the Red Lotus, and was trying to help Zaheer and the others Kidnap Korra (up until he betrayed him too).

If you saw him as sympathetic that's fine, but I did not. I saw him as the Water tribe equivalent of Ozai, or like the Anti Iroh to Zuko's actual Iroh. He just seemed like a petty, conniving manipulative asshole with no shred of care for his family, his people, or anything outside his own insane scheme to free Vaatu (Who, as a reminder, was planning on destroying the world pretty much).

[md84]

Don't forget that the oh so spiritual Unalaq caused a spiritual imbalance in the North just to get Tonraq banished so he could be chief. And he corrupted and enslaved Spirits to further his own goals. Let's not forget that part of his endgame was to kill the Avatar. Unalaq was a hypocritical desecrator.

[raspberryrain]

Well, it's not the same as official works, but there are some pretty good fan comics about Korra & Asami.

[thatnickguy]

ZOMG PUPPY NAGA! HE'S A PUPPY! LOOKIT THE PUPPY! PUPPYPUPPYPUPPYPUPPYYYYYY!

*ahem*

Sorry, I don't know where that came from.

[freezer]

Naga's a she. #nitpick

[thatnickguy]

Is she? Whoops, my bad. It's been awhile since I watched the show, and I don't think they mentioned Naga's gender many times. She became more fo a background character as the show progressed.

[lieut_kettch]

And she's a polar bear dog, which should make her a cub-puppy. #evenmorenitpicky #goshimanal

[janegray]

I wish they did FCBD in my country :(

One of the previous FCBD Avatar comics in particular was excellent, the story where Mai saves her baby proder from her crazy father.

In any case, I'm very glad they continued the Avatar series with comics. I was so relieved they finally addressed the dangling plot thread of Zuko's missing mother.

[espanolbot]

I like how the Post-Airbender comics are actually getting a lot of interesting worldbuilding going on, like the whole post-Fire Nation colonies issue, Aang getting angry over cultural appropriation/intregation (he thought the nations will only be at peace if they're seperate, only for Katara to point out that that's a kind of hypocritical perspective, what with him dating a Water Tribe person and all), the history of Zuko's family etc.

[janegray]

When they announced that they would continue the avatar story with comics, one of the most common complaints was that it was "totally unnecessary" and "the story is over, there is nothing to continue!"

And I was like are you shitting me?

Nevermind explicit plot threads like Zuko's mother. How would the Nations learn to coexist peacefully after 100 years of war?

One the one hand, the Fire Nation committed genocide against one of the four, almost drove the second one to extinction, and invaded the capitol city of the third one after killing countless of its people. And we are supposed to believe that the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe would be all "welp, time to get along now, no need for grudges :)"?

On the other hand, Fire Nation citizens have been brainwashed by propaganda since birth to believe that their country did absolutely nothing wrong and merely acted out of selfless generosity and/or self-defence. Even in RL we have seen how utterly and completely (and rightfully) pissed Korea and China get when Japanese people keep denying the issue of comfort women (and this is the age of the internet, when any Japanese person can simply google it and find out the truth, but they keep being told by the authorities that it's false so many of them keep believing the lies). And we are supposed to believe that there wouldn't be any conflicts when some FN dude casually mentions that Ozai helped out the other nations in the presence of foreigners who lost their family in the war?

And the 180° turn in foreign policy. We know that Fire Naton officials exploited forced labor in conquered territories, would they really quietly give up their source of profit? What about the ones, like Mai's father, who hoped to profit from the war by keeping the conquered cities for themselves?

The idea that "Aang has defeated Ozai, there is no more story to tell" always baffled me.

[espanolbot]

That's one of the things that I've loved about the Avatar franchise, the fact that the first series is a high fantasy series that actually a) deals with the fallout of the fall of the Evil Empire, and b) culture doesn't remain socially and culturally stagnant, which is something that's bugged me about Lord of the Rings and Narnia for years.

Although I think that I've seen more people who've stated that they'd've prefered more Aang and his friends to getting Korra which... yeah, I'll admit that Korra didn't really hit its stride until season three (the relationship drama in season one, and the... uneven plotting in season two weren't great, despite some stand out stuff like Amon and the Avatar Wan episodes, for example) but I'm glad we got it AND will be getting more in the near future.

Kind of bummed that we won't be getting a show about a Cyberpunk Earth Kingdom/Empire/Republic (I forget what they settled on) Avatar who comes after Korra, and a possible post-apocalyptic Mad Max-ish Fire Nation one who comes after that. I like the progression, and them circling back to a high fantasy post-apoc show would be interesting, as it would continue their trend of being influenced by different styles of anime.

Airbender being the Princess Mononoke-brand of Miyazaki work, Korra being a more broad mix of that with his Kiki and Laputa stuff, with a third show focusing on stuff like Ghost in the Shell and a fourth being on Fist of the North Star.

[mrstatham]

Yeah, this was pretty delightful. If this is the kind-of standard we're going to get from the actual LOK comics Dark Horse'll be publishing, I'm all over that.

[espanolbot]

The comic'll be written by the above co-creator, while the other co-creator will be assisting on art duties. :)