The Avatar Comics and the problem they pose for Avatar Studios
With apparent confirmation that Bryke are aiming to create new works within the lifetime of the Gaang, one readily apparent issue I see is the Avatar Comics. One of the first things Disney did when they bought Star Wars was to declare the entire existing Extended Universe noncanon, as otherwise it would be entirely impossible to create a sequel trilogy. Avatar Studios very much faces the same problem if they want to create media set in the 40 or so years immediately following the Hundred Years War.
There are three issues that the Avatar Comics present:
1) They suck bigtime and are not great media, and the fandom knows it and tends to heavily dislike them(for one example, “comics compliant” fics on AO3 have become quite rare).
2) Very few people have actually read the comics, particularly the later instalments. Moreover, the fans brought in by the Avatar Renascence are less likely to have read them, as are more casual fans, two demographics critical for the success of anything Avatar Studios puts out.
3) Despite #1 and #2, Bryke have been heavily involved in the Avatar comics since the beginning, and have always clearly declared them to be Official Canon. This seems like it would likely put the Disney route off the table.
So we have a situation where new movies set after the Hundred Years War must work off the premise that the comics are canon, even though very few people have ever read them, and a very large portion of the people who have heavily dislike them and their depiction of the postwar world. Moreover, as I will discuss a bit below, the comics have already done many of the postwar plots that would be most interesting for a movie.
Can’t the movies just gloss over the events of the comics? Theoretically be canon to them while largely ignoring their existence? The issue is that, while surprisingly little important actually happened over the course of the six comics trilogies, they still managed to include many important plot developments that would be very difficult for any movie, particularly a Firelord Zuko movie, to ignore:
1) Ursa’s postwar fate(i.e. Zuko finding his mother)
2) Azula’s postwar fate(and really her actions in the comics trilogies would be impossible to ignore, in addition to being completely nonsensical outside the context of the comics).
3) Azula and Ursa’s relationship.
6) How Republic City got founded, and the fact that the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom nearly fought another war over it.
7) Zuko and Mai breaking up.
8) Political opposition in the Fire Nation to Zuko, including Mai’s father.
9) The Kyoshi Warriors randomly becoming palace guards in the Fire Nation.
10) Toph founding a metal bending academy.
11) Hakoda picking up a new girlfriend.
12) The entire conflict between the Northern and Southern Water Tribe in the North and South.
It would be very hard for a new movie set postwar to ignore all of these developments, yet including them, with many of them not making very much sense on their own terms, means relying on the audience to read the comics, even though very few of them have, and those who have are likely not to be very interested in continuations off of them.
