Avatar: The Last Airbender returns to comics with Azula in the lead

(Image credit: Dark Horse Comics)

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a cult-favorite animated series that has a dedicated fanbase who grew up alongside the cast of complex characters. And one of the most surprisingly layered and complicated of those characters, Azula of the Fire Nation, will be the focus of a new upcoming Avatar original graphic novel titled Avatar: The Last Airbender - Azula in the Spirit Temple.

Set in the continuity of the original show, Azula in the Spirit Temple will be created by Faith Erin Hicks, Peter Wartman, Adele Matera, and Jimmy Betancourt, and focuses on the time after Azula left the Fire Nation in the wake of her brother Fire Lord Zuko's ascent to power.

(Image credit: Dark Horse Comics)

"Azula continues her destabilization campaign against the Fire Nation and her brother, Fire Lord Zuko. But after a failed attack on her latest target, Azula finds herself in a mysterious forest temple inhabited by a solitary monk," reads Dark Horse Comics' official description of Avatar: The Last Airbender - Azula in the Spirit Temple.

"What first seems like a place to safely pass the night is quickly revealed to be something horrifyingly different," it continues. "Azula is forced to confront her past and will finally face her chance at redemption…but will she take it?"

For the uninitiated, Avatar: The Last Airbender tells the story of a world in which people are able to control, or "bend" the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The people who control each respective element live in their own nations - with the Fire Nation engaged in a campaign to conquer the other three.

Aang, the "Last Airbender" of the title, is the so-called Avatar - again, like the title - who is destined to master control of all four elements and end the conflict.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Azula in the Spirit Temple goes on sale September 27.

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I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic book historian since 2011, and now I'm the Entertainment Writer at GamesRadar+. I've also been the on-site reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many weird pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)