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

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

Avatar: The Last Airbender ends with Zuko visiting his imprisoned father and demanding to know where his mother is, and the show never answered that question. The Search finally does. It's the second book on our list of Avatar comics set between the show and Korra, and it picks up right where The Promise left off, with Zuko asking Azula about their mom.

Dark Horse released The Search in three parts in 2013, on March 20, July 10 and October 30 (Wikipedia). Gene Luen Yang wrote it, the art team Gurihiru drew it, and show creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko have story credits. Part 2 hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, joining all three parts of The Promise (Dark Horse).

Why does Zuko need Azula's help?

Ozai is the only person who knows what happened to Ursa, and he refuses to tell Zuko anything. So Zuko brings Azula out of the mental institution where she's been held since the finale, hoping their father will open up to his favorite child. That plan only partly works. Azula discovers a stash of Ursa's old letters hidden inside the palace, burns most of them and keeps one for herself, and she'll only reveal what's in it if she gets to join the search (Avatar Wiki).

Zuko agrees, and Aang, Katara and Sokka come along to keep an eye on her, while Toph stays behind to run her metalbending academy. Azula struggles through the entire journey. She hears her mother's voice, schemes against everyone and attacks anyone she suspects of secretly working for Ursa, and Gurihiru draws her unraveling in a genuinely unsettling way (Appa does not enjoy this trip).

Who was Ursa before she married Ozai?

This is where The Search gets really good. Flashbacks show Ursa as a young actress in Hira'a, a small Fire Nation village, where she's in love with Ikem, her costar in the town's favorite play, and he asks her to marry him. Then Fire Lord Azulon and Prince Ozai arrive at her family's door. Ursa is Avatar Roku's granddaughter, and Azulon wants that bloodline in the royal family. Ursa accepts Ozai to protect Ikem, and she never returns to her hometown.

The marriage is cruel from the start. Ozai forbids her from contacting her family, and a servant delivers her secret letters to him instead. The flashbacks also explain the night Ursa disappeared. In the show, Azulon ordered Ozai to kill Zuko as punishment, and the comic reveals that Ursa prepared the poison that killed Azulon in order to save her son. Ozai agreed on two conditions, which were that she leave the capital forever and leave Zuko and Azula behind (Avatar Wiki).

Is Ozai really Zuko's father?

Here's the twist the whole story turns on. The letter Azula keeps was written by Ursa to Ikem, and it mentions "our son," so Zuko starts believing that Ikem is his real father. For most of the trilogy, everything hangs on that question. Aang even points out that if Zuko isn't Ozai's son, Azula could have a claim to the throne (not something you say in front of Azula).

The answer arrives at the very end, and Ozai is Zuko's father after all. Ursa explains that she wrote the letter to test whether Ozai was secretly reading her mail, and also to hurt him. Ozai believed it, and that suspicion helps explain why he treated Zuko so harshly for years (Wikipedia).

What is the Mother of Faces?

The search eventually leads the group to Forgetful Valley, a mysterious forest where travelers go in and never come back. There they meet Misu and Rafa, siblings from the Northern Water Tribe who are looking for a spirit that can give Rafa a new face. That spirit is the Mother of Faces, an ancient being who has made faces "since the beginning of time." She also turns out to be the mother of Koh the Face Stealer, the creepy spirit from the show (family drama runs in the spirit world too).

She grants only one request per season, and that's where everything falls apart. Zuko generously gives up his turn so Rafa can get his face back, but Azula seizes the moment to demand Ursa's location. The spirit answers her, and Azula races off to find their mother first.

What happened to Ursa?

Ursa is alive, and she's been living in Hira'a the entire time. After leaving the palace, she went into Forgetful Valley and asked the Mother of Faces for a new face. She also asked the spirit to take away her memories of Zuko and Azula, since she couldn't bear knowing she'd left them behind. She now goes by Noriko, and she's married to Ikem, who got a new face of his own and goes by Noren. They have a young daughter named Kiyi, which means Zuko has a half-sister he never knew about (Avatar Wiki).

Zuko and Sokka reach the family's house just ahead of Azula, and Noriko doesn't recognize her own son. Then Azula crashes in and turns on her mother, until Ursa gently touches her face and apologizes. The Mother of Faces restores Ursa's memories and her original face, and Zuko finally gets the reunion he's been chasing since the finale.

What happens to Azula?

Azula doesn't get a happy ending. After the fight, Zuko tells her that she's still his sister and that he spared her because he couldn't bring himself to hurt her. She runs off alone into Forgetful Valley, crying, and leaves Ursa's letter behind. Aang and Zuko see that as a sign she might be changing, while Sokka remains unconvinced, and that tension carries into the later comics.

Is The Search worth reading?

My read is that The Search is the best of the Avatar comics, and it might be the best Zuko story outside the show itself. It takes the biggest mystery the finale left unresolved and answers it with real care. Ursa's story is heartbreaking in a grown-up way, because she made impossible choices to protect her children and then couldn't live with the consequences.

It also gives Azula the attention she never really got in the show. Season 3 ended with her falling apart, and The Search treats her mental state seriously. The Ikem twist does drag a little, and the Mother of Faces resolving so much at once can feel convenient. Still, the emotional moments land, and Gurihiru's artwork is gorgeous from the first page to the last.

If you want to read it, The Search Omnibus collects all three parts in one 232-page paperback (MIT Press Bookstore). If you haven't read The Promise yet, start there, since The Search assumes you know how it ends.

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• Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Search Omnibus
• Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Promise Omnibus (start here)
• Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Rift Omnibus (next in the series)

Next up on our list is The Rift, where Toph comes face to face with her father.

More Avatar coverage is right here.

Header image shows the covers of The Search Parts 1 to 3 from Dark Horse Comics, art by Gurihiru. In-article panels are from Dark Horse's official previews.