The Legend of Korra and Comic Books by Gene Yang

Everyone must have heard of, or watched Avatar: The Last Airbender that aired on Nickelodeon from  2005 to 2008 right? It was an anime inspired cartoon series set in an Asian martial arts influenced mystical world somewhere in the far east. The main characters can manipulate earth, air, water and fire and are known as "benders". There was an epic struggle where good triumphed over evil. It was a really good show and we watched it every week on TV. When it was canceled in 2008, kids like us were sad.  Many people wrote to Nick to complain . . . and apparently, the complaints worked! We almost wrote to Nick ourselves.(Personally I hate all these new stupid teenage live action shows. The best are cartoons.....ESPECIALLY STUFF LIKE THIS. I liked how the creators of Avatar totally mixed up the story completely. BUT IT'S SO AWESOME.) I would be so happy if I lived in a world like this.

Now Nick brought the Avatar back in a new series called Avatar: The Legend of Korra. The series just came out on April 14, 2012, and is set seventy years later. The story is about the new Avatar, Korra, a strong, funny, powerful, and amazing girl, (a little defiant too.. :D) who is still learning to use her bending powers.  She meets her friends, Mako (handsome, and more serious firebender) and his brother Bolin, (funny and cute earthbender).  Together, they face an anti-bender revolution by a group known as the Equalists led by the evil Amon who has the power to take bender's powers away.

The show is on Nick TV every Saturday at 11:00. Each episode is 30 minutes. But each episode really packs a punch. Sadly, this series is going to be much shorter than the last one... that's why there has been SO much drama in only the first 5 episodes. It's amazing. IT. IS. AMAZING. WATCH IT!!!! REALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mr. Gene Yang

To top it off, one of my favorite comic book artists, Gene Luen Yang, (who drew the funniest version of the Monkey King story called "American Born Chinese"), is given the awesome task of writing Avatar: The Promise, a comic book series that bridge the 70 years gap between the original Avatar and the new Legend of Korra.

Eisner Award winner American Born Chinese

 Gene's writing and drawings are great, so you are really in for a treat if you pick up a copy of either Avatar: The Promise, or "American Born Chinese" or both. My copy, (along with copies of Lucky Luke and Asterix comic books) just arrived in the mail through Amazon today.  I will spend my weekend reading it, and watching Legend of Korra. CAN'T WAIT


EDIT: I SAW THE LEGEND OF KORRA EPISODE 5 AND I'M DYING HERE. POOR BOLIN. BUT NO I'M NOT SAYING ANYTHING BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT!