The Last Airbender (Paperback)
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: June 2010
Price: $8.99
Creator(s): Written by Dave Roman and Alison Wilgus; Art by Joon Choi
Format: 128 pgs.; Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-3455-1855-2
Age Rating: Teen
ICv2 Rating: 2.5 Stars out of 5

This “graphic novelization” of the movie works less well than it should.  While well-written [in some cases, the dialogue works more smoothly than that of the film], the end work is simply too short for the story that it tells.  Readers who have seen the film might be able to use it to remember key scenes, but anyone who has not yet seen the film will be left disappointed and wanting more.  The finished product contains only a few panels per minute of the film.  Since the film already abridges a full season of the animated series into two hours, the pacing is simply too fast.

The artwork of Joon Choi is very good.  His visualization of everything from magical martial arts to flying bison works very well.  His weakness is that he fails to convey any scope or grandeur in the “big” scenes from the film.  The writing of Dave Roman and Alison Wilgus is good… they simply needed more pages, so that they could slow down and tell it even better.

The price point is odd, and seems a bit high for a half-thickness manga volume.

On-page violence and off-page deaths may make this too intense for very young readers.

--Nick Smith: Librarian Technician, Community Services, for the Pasadena Public Library in California.

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