Tag: Killian Ng

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Review

“The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire”

Bryan Koneitzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, Michelle Wong, Killian Ng

What was I gonna do, not read the next one? Don’t be silly.

This wasn’t quite as queer as Turf Wars, but I did still really enjoy it. Kuvira is a really interesting character, and seeing some of her backstory was super interesting. The redemption arc she was going through felt rushed, honestly, but it is, after all, a graphic novel, so the pacing is different than a prose novel.

I also really enjoyed touching on some of the broader-scale changes taking place in this world. Two geopolitical things going on at once, in overlapping territory: the collapse of what I viewed as a USSR-analogue,12 and the voluntary dissolution of the monarchy in a China-analogue, to be replaced with democratic elections. Both of which are messy, messy things; the fact that they’re happening in the same place makes it even more of a mess. Good luck, everyone!

For bonus points, they also pulled in some dangling threads from the previous series. Yeah, I get that the Gaang was horrified by Long Feng’s mind-control program and tossed it, but… a whole lot of Dai Lee knew how to do that mind-control trick. It was probably written down somewhere, too. That’s an awful lot of temptation for a ruler…

Another great expansion of the Avatar universe; also, absolutely worth the read. Check it out.3

  1. Mostly by dint of “Republic City is clearly a USA-analogue” and “season 4 was about the invention of nuclear weapons.” ↩
  2. Footnote on that footnote: if you think plutonium is unbalanced in our world, spirit weapons are bonkers in this universe. So, you take a certain vine, electrocute it, and then it’s a nuke? That’s all it takes? Oh, don’t worry, the vines can only be found in one giant mystical swamp in the middle of nowhere- oh, wait, they also grow everywhere in Central Park. This is probably fine.
    (The best take I’ve ever seen on this was in Repairs, Retrofits, and Upgrades, which I also recommend as a read.) ↩
  3. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars”

Bryan Koneitzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, Killian Ng, Irene Koh

As this is the comic tie-in to a show I liked, my expectations weren’t exactly sky-high going in. I think the Avatar universe works reasonably well as a comic, but it still feels like it’s losing something of the kinetic energy of the action scenes by not being fully animated.

That said, this story was delightful. I suspect because it’s the comic tie-in, and not The Show itself, it was able to do the sorts of things that corporate overlords tend not to like. In this case, that meant giving more than a meaningful holding of hands and Word Of God to show us that Korra and Asami are lesbians, Harold. And, beyond a cute little first date vacation montage, we got… a genuinely nice coming out arc for Korra with her parents, Kya casually dropping in her own queer history, and then extending on to tell us about the queer history of the Avatar world as a whole.1

Beyond that, there’s just some expansion of the world going on that I greatly enjoyed; a whole campaign cycle, some of the politics of running a city that suddenly has an interdimensional portal in the middle of it, and some gang violence to keep the fight scenes running. This was a lot of fun to read; I highly recommend it. Check it out.2

  1. Short summary: the air nomads are chill as hell, the water tribe is culturally Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the fire nation was fine with it up until—you guessed it—Fire Lord Sozin attacked, and the earth kingdom is… conservative. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩