I figured this is as good a place as any to make a thread about the Avatar: Tsu'tey's Path miniseries.

Sadly, it seems as though this comic has fallen through the cracks for many on-line comic book reviewers. I'm a reasonably long time youtube subscriber of ComicIsland, Comics Explained, Comicstorian and Fortress of Solitude as well as a recent subscriber of Blerd without Fear. None of them have discussed it, nor has long time comic book podcast Ifanboy (at least according to their episode descriptions).

With that slight towards the book out of the way, on to discussing issue two of the comic itself.

Two things I wanted to point out
IIRC (it's been a little while since I read the issue) there was a scene where Tsu'tey was able to converse with Sylwanin through the tree of voices (I think it was the tree of voices). It seemed to me that this Sylwanin was basically from the last time she communicated with the tree of voices herself. She wasn't aware she was dead until he told her and she didn't know the circumstances that lead to her death or what happened to the humans on Pandora. This is a rather major revelation in my mind because something like this would fundamentally alter how a species views death. Imagine if you could talk to all of your deceased relatives from the moment they had most recently interacted with the tree of souls.

It also helps explain why the destruction of the Trees of Voices were so heartbreaking to the Na'vi and why the tree of souls would have been such a terrible loss. In Avatar, Norm refers to the tree of souls as their direct line to Eywa, their ancestors. If the comic book is to be believed, he meant that literally. It is literally a direct line to their ancestors.

And as much as I was hoping to avoid all spoilers for Avatar 2, this could also explain how Grace could be in the sequels. Maybe Grace actually is with Eywa, and able to communicate with still living people through the tree of souls/trees of voices.

Finally, there have been other Na'vi characters in the first two issues that I had thought we had not seen before. But it turns out, we actually had. They were the other aspiring hunters with Tsu'tey and Jake when Jake got his Ikran. I hope we get to see more of them in subsequent issues, because as far as I know, that scene was the last we saw of them in the movie.

Wow. That thing about communicating with Sylwanin through the tree is moving and very interesting. Really fleshes out the whole hearing-the-voices-of-ancestors thing and how that works. And I think you've got a good guess on how Grace would appear.

I take it Grace will have a Na'vi name now, as a spirit existing/living through the network?

So issue three came out today, and I'm glad I picked it up as the comic shop I got it from only had one copy. This issue basically had the Sturmbeest hunt from the Special/Collector's Edition and the aftermath of that, including brief illustration of the unfinished post hunt feast that can be seen in the deleted scenes section of the Avatar Collector's Edition Blu-ray. Nothing earth shattering aside from the a never before seen plot element with Tsu'tey I'm not sure I should spoil.

It ends with the destruction of the Trees of Voices and some (but not all) of the ramifications that took place in hometree, ending with "you are not my brother" and Tsu'tey attacking Jake although we don't get to see the fight in this issue.

They left out Grace's "oh ****" for some reason.

Something that is annoying me about the issue and the series in general is that it seems to be telescoping events together. In this issue, it suggests that Grace being allowed to return , the sturmbeest hunt, jake joining the people, Jake and Neyiri mating all happened one after the other where in the film it appears to take several days/weeks.

I can't tell if this was deliberate or an attempt to streamline the story.

This has been one of my favorite things about the comic series so far. I sure never expected those two characters to show up with names, so it was a pleasant surprise. If any one is confused who we are talking about, they are two Na’vi seen with Tsu’tey in the movie from when Jake is first captured up until Tsu’tey dies. They were played by Ilram Choi, and Alicia Vela-Bailey.



The male is Ka’ani and the female is Saeyla.

I picked up issue #4 today. It was the first issue I didn't really like. I felt it had a really glaring omission. There is a scene in the special & collector's edition where Tsu'tey leads a war party to destroy the bulldozers that destroyed the trees of voices and kill all of the RDA forces guarding them. Not only was that scene omitted, but as the comic is presented, it couldn't have happened. The comic goes from 'Tsu'tey will lead the war party' directly to Tsu'tey planning (but not executing) his attack directly to Jake has returned and is warning the Omitacaya of the RDA's plan to destroy hometree. There are no gaps in between these events where the assault of the RDA heavy machinery could have taken place. The final page is the RDA gunships approaching.

Also, for some reason the cover image is Neytiri guarding Jake's prone body after Quaritch ejected him with the caption "Deadlier than the male".



Just....... what? What even is this? That caption with that cover makes me think Neytiri is about to kill Jake and.... thankfully they don't go that far off script or anything like that.

A good point I had totally missed that. That being said the comic has been messing with contuniuty for a while now by compressing evens or making it seems like events take place directly after the other.

For example the comic suggests that grace arriving, the ikran hunt, the hunt festival, Neytiri and Jake mating all took place one after the other.

So, I really don't want to get into a full review of this. I bought this issue this past Wednesday and.... the messing with continuity continued with issue #5. I didn't like it. There was so much they could have done with this series, but this issue has left me wondering if I even want to see an Avatar comic in the future.

Ultimately I think its a mix of trying to do too much in too few issues, note how Ka'ani and Saeyla's subplot is barely in this issue, while having to stick to the film's plot.

Thankfully as this is an adaptation we need only take what we like as canon and disregard the rest.

Fundermentally I'm interesting in future avatar comics but I feel they need to be more focused on telling their own story, not have fitting itself around the film. Also having more varied character designs so its easier to identify people. Toruk:first flight got that.

I really think they could have gone a completely different route sticking to the plot of the movie. Between the time hometree was destroyed and Jake returned with Toruk, what was Tsu'tey doing? That wasn't really shown in the movie. It wasn't really shown much here either.
In the last issue, we could have seen Tsu'tey lead the war party against the heavy machinery that destroyed the trees of voices. In this issue, we could have seen him as Olo'eyktan trying his best to keep the Omaticaya together after the destruction of hometree and demonstrating any leadership abilities he did or possibly did not have.
In the next issue we could see him ride out as fast as the wind could carry him and recruit other clans, I can almost guarantee you were won't see that in the next and as far as I know final issue. It's just going to focus on the battle we've already seen.
Instead we got to see Tsu'tey inserted into scenes he wasn't in, in the movie delivering completely out of place lines of dialogue to faceless (and I don't know if it was a misprint, but I mean that literally) Jake Sully. This isn't Tsu'tey's Path. This is Tsu'tey made up side love stories followed by Tsu'tey's insertion into scenes he wasn't in.

I'm buying the comic more out of duty than any enthusiasm - it is mostly just a rehash of parts of the movie. The artwork is competent, but a few scenes have been directly copied or traced from those in the movie (a trend I dislike). It is strictly for established fans, and would do little to entice newcomers into the fandom. My general feeling about it is just "meh".

Edit: Sale's over.

Looking back at the free comic book day comic really throws into perspective how bland the background work is.



Now to be fair the artist of tsu'tey path is more of a figure artist but still for a film that relies so much on its visuals that might have been a mistake.

So the final issue of this comic came out today. I don't recall them explicitly saying so, but the first two pages take place in Tsu'tey's imagination. He basically imagines Jake showing up on Toruk, declaring the clan is his and then killing someone (I assume him). And then after those two pages, we basically transition immediately into the actual events of the movie where Jake dismounts and asks for help saving Grace.

I thought this issue was an fairly significant improvement over the last two. It didn't do anything to contradict what we've seen on screen, but it didn't add much either. The answer to the question Tsu'tey asks himself early in the comic "What do I do?" is apparently fade into the background as Jake assumes control of the clan (not violently as he assumed) and then die.

Two nice touches I liked in this issue were the ending scene after Tsu'tey died (which I won't spoil) as well as the Na'vi translation of Jake's speech. Most of the dialogue in this series has obviously been in English, although all of the dialogue that is *supposed* to be in English has brackets <like these> to indicate a foreign language being translated.