Avatar: The Last Airbender's Imbalance, Explained With Every Spoiler

Toph goes undercover. Sort of.

October 31, 2026

Spoiler warning. This breakdown covers all three parts of Imbalance, ending included.

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North and South settled things at the South Pole, so Imbalance sends Team Avatar back to the Earth Kingdom. It's the sixth story on our list of Avatar comics set between the show and Korra, and it picks up after North and South, with Aang, Katara, Sokka and Toph heading back to Cranefish Town, the factory town from The Rift.

Dark Horse released Imbalance in three parts. Part One came out on December 18, 2018, Part Two followed on May 14, 2019, and Part Three wrapped it up on October 1, 2019 (Avatar Wiki). It's the first trilogy written by Faith Erin Hicks and drawn by Peter Wartman, after Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru finished their run with North and South.

Why does Cranefish Town feel so wrong?

The gang is flying to Yu Dao when Toph talks Aang into a quick stop at her dad's factory, Earthen Fire Industries. Cranefish Town has grown into a full city since their last visit, and nobody seems to care that the Avatar just landed in the middle of it. Aang even does his airbending marble trick, and the crowd just walks past (tough room).

Lao Beifong explains that the town has dozens of factories now and no real government, so the business owners formed a Business Council to run things. Then a gang of earthbenders and a gang of firebenders start brawling in the street, and a badly built apartment building collapses during the fight. When Aang and Toph offer to rebuild it, the people who lived there turn them down because they don't want help from benders.

Appa flies over Cranefish Town, which has grown into a large city on the coast in Imbalance Part One — Cranefish Town, all grown up. Art by Peter Wartman (Dark Horse Comics).

What does the Business Council want?

At the council meeting, the benders and nonbenders sit on opposite sides of the room, and Lao's proposal to ban public bending immediately starts a shouting match. Aang rejects the ban and suggests a police force instead, and a bender councilwoman named Liling backs him up and offers her own bender security team as the first officers. The council votes yes.

Meanwhile, Toph and Katara visit the factory, where Satoru shows off a new production line. His machines can now do the work benders used to do, so the bender workers were let go or quit in protest. The same thing is happening all over town, and a lot of out-of-work benders are angry about it.

That night, a firebender gang sabotages the factory and one of the machines explodes. Aang chases one of the saboteurs to a cliff, but an earthbender knocks the cliff out from under the guy to keep him quiet. Aang catches him before he hits the water. The mysterious earthbender was Yaling, who hired the gang with her sister Ru, and the last page reveals that they work for their mother, Liling.

What happens at the secret meeting?

In Part Two, the saboteur tells Aang he was hired by two teenage girls. Several other factories were hit the same night, and every one of them was owned by a nonbender. Sokka puts on his detective hat (literally) and works out that machines have made nonbenders more equal, and some benders feel threatened by it.

Aang asks Liling to help repair the damaged factories, not realizing that she's secretly behind the attacks. During the visit, Toph recognizes Ru and Yaling's footsteps from the night of the explosion. Yaling is starstruck by Toph's metalbending and asks for lessons, so Toph pretends to teach her while digging for information. Suki also arrives in town on an eel hound, which makes Sokka's whole week.

Yaling invites Toph to a secret meeting, and the password is "imbalance." The rest of Team Avatar sneaks in behind her. In an old mine, Liling tells a crowd of benders that they're superior to nonbenders and lays out her plan to wreck the nonbender factories until their owners go broke and leave.

Not the kind of meeting with snacks. Art by Peter Wartman (Dark Horse Comics).

Toph drops the act and tries to arrest Liling, and a huge fight breaks out. Suki chi-blocks Yaling, Liling holds off Team Avatar long enough for her daughters and followers to escape, and Aang and Suki finally take her down. Liling ends up in a metal cage at the factory, and Toph suggests that Aang do what he did to Ozai and take away her bending.

Does Aang take Liling's bending?

Part Three opens with the group completely divided over Toph's suggestion. Katara tells Aang that waterbending is a huge part of who she is, and taking someone's bending would be like destroying a piece of them. Before Aang can decide, someone sets the Business Council building on fire. It's a distraction, and while Team Avatar is busy saving Lao and the council, Yaling breaks Liling out of her cage.

Suki starts training the factory guards to chi-block. Back home, Ru begs her family to leave town, and Liling explains why she hates nonbenders. They lost everything when Ba Sing Se fell, and she blames it on Earth King Kuei being a nonbender. Ru is a nonbender too, and she asks her mother if that's how she sees her. Later that night, Ru tells Sokka about her mother's plan to attack the factory.

Team Avatar is ready. Toph turns the streets into a moving maze, Katara freezes one group, and Suki's new chi-blockers handle the rest. Sokka knocks out Yaling with his boomerang and announces that boomerangs are the greatest equalizer (he's been waiting his whole life to say that). When Ru tries to stop her mother, Liling buries her in a crack in the ground, and Aang pulls her out.

Aang goes into the Avatar State and traps Liling in ice. Ru tells him to take her bending, while Katara reminds him not to do it out of anger or because it's easy. Aang decides to let her keep her bending. Later he explains that "it wasn't her bending that was the problem, it was her bigotry" (Avatar Wiki).

Katara waterbends to put out the fire at the Business Council building in Imbalance Part Three — Katara on fire duty. Art by Peter Wartman (Dark Horse Comics).

How does Imbalance end?

Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors stay to help build a police force with both benders and nonbenders. Ru isn't locked up, and Suki tells her that it's up to her to decide what she wants to do next. Aang tells Katara he feels a connection to Cranefish Town and wants to stay a while to help it grow. He jokes that the city needs both of them, plus a better name.

Is Imbalance worth reading?

My read is yes, and it might be the most important trilogy on the list for Korra fans. Liling's rally is basically an early, flipped version of the Equalists, and Toph sliding down a metal cable is a nod to the Metalbending Police Force (Avatar Wiki). That "better name" joke also feels like a wink at the city Aang will build one day.

It's not perfect. Liling is a pretty obvious villain from her first scene, and Wartman's art takes a minute to get used to after Gurihiru. Still, the moral question at the center is a great one, and watching Aang choose not to take the easy way out is the most Aang thing ever. Ru's story is the real highlight, though. She's the one character who has to pick a side against her own family, and Hicks handles it really well.

If you want to read it, the Imbalance Omnibus collects all three parts in one paperback.

Imbalance wraps up the six trilogies on our list. Tell us which of the standalone books you want us to break down next.

More Avatar coverage is right here.

Header image shows the covers of Imbalance Parts 1 to 3 from Dark Horse Comics. In-article panels are from Dark Horse's official previews.