“The Search” by Gene Luen Yang

I think this is the first time that I picked up this graphic novel of the Avatar universe (see here for the prequel to this). In some ways, this is the follow-up to the series that fans want after the animated show ends since it deals with what happened to Zuko’s mom.

The book starts with Zuko getting the gang back together to travel with Azula to the town that their mom is from. Azula is cooperating on and off with them, with the gang arguing that she’s too dangerous and Zuko trying to work with her and save their relationship. Along the way they meet another brother/sister pair who is looking for a spirit in the woods that can heal the brother’s face. Aang speaks to the spirit and the spirit agrees to one favor, which is when Azula cuts in to get information about their mother. It’s revealed that the spirit gave their mother a new face and altered her memories to not remember Zuko and Azula. The spirit disappears without helping the other pair, causing Aang to follow it and enrage the spirit. They smooth things over eventually, and the brother’s face is restored. They then head to where Zuko’s mom is to restore her memories. This way, they are able to repair a relationship between a brother and a sister, and a mother and a son.

This book feels much more… complete than The Promise. The Promise was primarily plot driven to update people on what the characters are doing post show. You would expect this one to be much of the same, given that so many fans want to know what happened here, but it’s got so much more going on thematically.

Relationships within families play a huge role. There’s the obvious ones like Zuko/his mom, but there’s also sibling relationships like Zuko/Azula and Sokka/Katara. Azula manages to escape in the end, leaving her without a redemption and also without repairing her relationships to either her mother or her brother. But it highlights the different parallels really well between the broken and the supportive relationships.

There’s also identity and how faces and memories construct a person’s identity. Zuko’s mom is still his mom, even if she doesn’t remember it. But once her memories are restored, you see her appearance change as she looks more stately. Same thing with the brother having his face restored, he clearly becomes more of a character who can speak for himself after that.

I need to make time to look at the rest of the graphic novels, but for now they work really well in between when I’m waiting for other books since it’s a quick read. But it is amazing that I haven’t gotten to them all yet and how good they are!