‘The Legend of Korra’ (2012), the sequel series to the critically acclaimed ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ (2005), has officially received an order for 26 more episodes from Nickelodeon. The show’s huge viewership and steady ratings through season one, which premiered April 14, 2012, encouraged the Nickelodeon executives to give it another shot.

The new order for episodes will be in addition to the 14-episode second season, which is set to premiere some time in 2013. The creators of ‘Korra’ held a panel at San Diego Comic Con on July 13 where they showcased new character models and backgrounds for the upcoming season. The cast and crew for ‘Korra’ also showed up to answer questions and sign autographs for excited fans.

‘Korra’ tells the story of the 17-year-old Korra (Janet Varney), the new Avatar following Aang. It takes place seventy years in the future as she has learned to master earthbending, waterbending, and firebending, but needs to learn airbending to become a completely realized Avatar. Aang’s eldest son, Tenzin (J.K. Simmons), was set to teach her airbending, but he is called away to Republic City, a large city riddled with crime and tension between the benders and non-benders. Impatient, Korra follows him to the city and gets into trouble, but through her determination, Tenzin decides to let her stay at the airbending temple with his family and start her training.

However, Korra has a difficult time understanding that airbending requires patience, peace, and repetition. She feels frustrated with her inability to airbend and her isolation on the island. She sneaks out one night after listening to a pro-bending match. Pro-bending is a competition where benders compete to knock each other out of a ring and Korra finds herself in love with the sport.

She bumps into Bolin (P.J. Byrne), an earthbender for the Fire Ferrets, and he invites her to watch the match. Bolin’s brother, Mako (David Faustino), assumes Korra is just another one of Bolin’s many fangirls and treats her coldly until he realizes she is the Avatar. Soon afterward, their third team member quits and Korra volunteers to take his spot so the Fire Ferrets can compete in the championship tournament.

Tenzin discovers that Korra is playing in the arena and demands that she return home, but she refuses. She struggles to stay on her feet in the match, but then she remembers Tenzin’s training and eventually helps the team win. After seeing her improvement and her zest for probending, Tenzin agrees to let her stay on the team.

The main plot of ‘Korra’ is centered around the tension between benders and non-benders in Republic City. A mysterious masked man named Amon (Steve Blum) appears and claims that he and his followers, the Equalists, will stand up for non-benders. He demonstrates that he has the ability to remove a person’s bending, thus becoming a threat to all the benders in the city.

Furthermore, Councilman Tarrlok (Dee Bradley Baker), wants to hunt Amon down and secure himself as the savior of Republic City in the meantime. He and Korra butt heads repeatedly because of his misuse of the police force and blatant manipulation of Chief Lin Bei Fong (Mindy Sterling), daughter of Toph.

The 12-episode season ended June 23, 2012 and fans are still reeling from the action-packed, emotional roller coaster the show put them on. The season finale was one of the highest rated and widely watched shows on that Saturday morning and contributed greatly to the decision to order more episodes.

‘Korra’ is expected to return with a 14-episode second season some time in 2013. Don’t miss it.

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This is yet another game that will be added to the list of many Spider-man games that have come out over the years, but how does it compare to the others? The Amazing Spider-man is a third person adventure video game that is based on the movie of the same name. However, the game takes place after the events of the movie and for the most part serves as an epilogue to the film.

The plot of the game is very interesting, which is to be expected since the game was written and scripted by Seamus Kevin Fahey of Battlestar Galactica. The plot of the game is that Alistair Smythe, the new Oscorp executive, decides to continue Dr. Connor’s research and create more cross-species (a human and animal hybrid), but they soon escape into Manhattan. To fight against the cross-species, which unfortunately includes Spider-man as well, Smythe creates robots to take them out.

The robots soon begin to make everything worse, and Spider-man is forced to fight against both cross-species and robots if he wants to save the city. The characters are great and memorable. Even though they didn’t get any of the actors from the movie, they did get great and accomplished voice actors such as Steve Blum, Sam Riegel, Claudia Black, and even Bruce Campbell. The characters you have are, of course, the cheesy-joke spewing Spidey, the deeply troubled Dr. Connors, the brave and determined Whitney Chang and even more interesting characters.

One thing that must be said before you play this game is that if you have not seen “The Amazing Spider-man” then this game will contain heavy spoilers, and in the first few levels, too. This would be fine if the game came out on the same day as the movie, but it came out June 26^th and the movie came out July 3^rd. While annoying (especially if you haven’t seen the movie) it won’t ruin the game for you, though, especially when it comes to the graphics.

The graphics look great especially when you are in the city it can look quite beautiful. What’s more important is that the gameplay feels great. Web-swinging, wall-crawling, and combat are all very simple to learn and soon you’ll feel like you’re Spider-man himself! One of the most useful gameplay mechanics the game has employed is the “Web Rush” system, which helps you easily pinpoint an area you want to get to.

By using the “Web Rush” mode you go into a viewpoint where time is stopped and you can pick which area you want to web-swing to or which enemy you want to attack. This gives you time to plot your strategy and figure out where you have the ability to web-swing to. Despite the fact that you have the ability to stop time, it does not make this game a walk in the park because of it. In fact, if you are in the “Web Rush” mode too long, time will return to normal.

The enemies you face will range from regular human enemies, to mutated humans, and robots. The combat is very smooth and there are two different ways you can take on enemies; you can either just attack all of them at once or you can take the stealth route and take out each of them one at a time. In regular combat you will be punching and kicking a whole group of people and if someone is about to attack, your Spider Sense will go off and you will be able to dodge their attack. Once you figure this out, the regular combat becomes simple and you will be able to get through ten enemies without taking any damage.

However, when your enemies are heavily armed, this sort of approach does not work, mainly because even Spider-man can’t easily dodge multiple bullets flying at his head. In this sort of situation it is better to sneak around and take them out one at a time. Even this isn’t easy, because once your enemies find out you have taken out one of their comrades they start searching for you!

They don’t just yell threats at you either; instead they start actively searching for you with flashlights and not just on the ground or in front of themselves, but on the ceiling and in the air vents. If you don’t keep moving they will find you and kill you! Then there are the boss battles which include giant robots, Rhino, Vermin, Iguana, Black Cat, Iguana, Scorpion, and the Lizard.

They all have their own way of attacking and fighting and you will have to employ different strategies to beat each of them. One example is when you are fighting Rhino; you can’t just attack him head on because his armor protects him. In order to beat him, you have to stand in front of a large van and wait for Rhino to charge at you and at the last second leap out of the way and he will be lodged in the van and you can then attack him.

However, there are critiques I have to make about this game and one of them is that the game is pretty easy when you get a handle of the controls. Even though you can increase the difficulty on the game, it doesn’t get that much harder, and besides maybe the bosses, you’ll find yourself breezing past your enemies. Another problem is that many of the side missions are very repetitive, basically all being the same except for a few exceptions.

Overall, this is a fun and enjoyable game and you will feel like Spider-man playing it, which is ultimately the most important expectation out of a Spider-man game. If you like Spider-man the character, the other Spider-man games, or if you just like feeling like a superhero you should take a look at it.

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Nickelodeon’s ‘The Legend of Korra’, the sequel series ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’, premiered its hour-long season one finale Saturday, June 23, 2012 with the two-part epic, “Skeletons in the Closet” and “Endgame.”

Major spoilers ahead for the finale as well as the entire first season.

Seventy years after Aang and his friends defeated Fire Lord Ozai, Korra (Janet Varney) is the newest Avatar and is training in Republic City to master airbending with Aang’s son, Tenzin (J.K. Simmons). She is also friends with Mako (David Faustino), a Firebender, and his brother Bolin (P.J. Byrne), an Earthbender. The three play on a team, the Fire Ferrets, in a competition known as pro-bending. Right now, Korra and her friends are embroiled in a struggle with Amon (Steve Blum), leader of the Equalists, who has developed the ability to remove a person’s bending permanently. He wants to conquer Republic City and destroy everyone’s bending abilities.

In the previous episode, Amon declared war on Republic City and began attacking its citizens with airships. Tenzin took his family away from Air Temple Island while Lin Bei Fong (Mindy Sterling) fended off their pursuers, losing her bending ability in a selfless act to save them. Korra and her friends have been hiding underground in a colony for the homeless as they await the arrival of reinforcements led by General Iroh (Dante Basco), grandson of Zuko.

General Iroh’s battleships reach the city but the airships have been replaced with airplanes, which easily dominate the battlefield. Korra intervenes and manages to destroy the fleet, but she and Mako learn that there are more of them on the way. General Iroh sends word to his brother Bumi to send more troops while Korra and Mako head up into the city to take Amon head on at a rally.

While waiting to confront Amon, Korra and Mako find Tarrlok (Dee Bradley Baker) imprisoned. He reveals that Amon is actually his brother, formerly known as Noatak. They had been raised by the evil bloodbender Yakone to become bloodbenders as well, but as he continued forcing the two brothers to bloodbend, Noatak became angry and resentful of them both. He snapped and ran away from home while Tarrlok grew up alone, thinking his brother had died in a snowstorm.

Korra and Mako attend the Equalist rally and tell Amon’s followers that he is actually a waterbender, but no one believes them. Amon reveals that he has captured Tenzin and his family and Korra and Mako rescue them.

Meanwhile, Bolin, Asami (Seychelle Gabriel), and General Iroh head to the airfield to destroy the remaining airplanes in Amon’s army. With some difficulty, they are able to tear up the airfield and Asami defeats her father, who had been working for Amon.

Amon chases Korra and Mako through the pro-bending arena and after a vicious fight, he removes Korra’s bending. Mako manages to injure him and tries to get the both of them to safety, but Amon corners him and just as he tries to take Mako’s bending, Korra unleashes her airbending. He falls into the water outside around his followers and in his enraged state, he exposes his waterbending. Most of his followers give up on the cause and he lets Tarrlok out of his prison and escapes. While fleeing Republic City, Tarrlok explodes the boat, presumably killing them both because they have nowhere left to go.

Korra is taken back to the Air Temple to be examined and Katara admits that she cannot restore her bending. Korra is heartbroken and Mako tries to console her, revealing that he is in love with her. Korra runs off alone and in her despair, she contacts Aang in the Avatar state and he is able to restore her bending. She and Mako admit their love for each other and the season ends there.

The finale is a heart-stopping ride, to say the least. Every scene has a deep emotional impact on the characters as well as the audience. It is by far one of the most adult-oriented episodes as well because it deals with child abuse, war, and an onscreen murder-suicide, which may cause some parents dismay as they watch with their children. However, because these issues are handled with exceptional care and expert writing, the finale ends up being one of the most powerful in the show’s history.

Furthermore, while Mako has been receiving heavy criticism from the fans for his actions in the season so far, his utter devotion to Korra in the finale is simply amazing. He fights his hardest to stop Amon, and even when he fails, he still manages to save Korra, nearly dying trying to get her to safety.  If nothing else, his sacrifice and love for Korra deepen the bond between them more than words can say.

While the finale is excellent, the biggest flaw is the last minute restoration of Korra’s bending. This problem is largely due to time constraints and episode limits. Because the first season is only twelve episodes long, the writers have had to condense the story and rush the ending in order to resolve the lingering problem with Korra. Some fans have been waiting all season long to see Korra reach the Avatar state and converse with her other reincarnations, and so some feel cheated that they did not get to fully enjoy it. Plus, Korra’s restoration happens in less than a minute so it feels like a cop out as she didn’t have a long time to deal with only being able to airbend.

Still, even with its problems, the season finale of Korra is a magnificent ending to an already stellar show. Season two has already been written and is currently being animated, set for a release sometime in 2013.

Grade: 4/5

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Nicktoons premiered ‘The Legend of Korra’ (2012), the animated sequel series to the beloved cartoon ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ (2005), on April 14. The series takes place 70 years in the future from the time of Avatar Airbender Aang and his gang of friends who saved the world from the wrath of Firelord Ozai. Sadly, most of the characters except Katara have passed away but they each have family to carry on in their place.

Spoiler alert!

The Avatar is “the physical embodiment of the world’s spirit” and is capable of bending all four elements: water, air, earth, and fire. In the first episode, “Welcome to Republic City,” we find out the new Avatar is named Korra (Janet Varney), a Waterbender from the Southern Water Tribe.

However, where Aang was a cheerful, carefree young man, Korra is high strung and impatient. Her bending skills are excellent, but she lacks restraint and does not think ahead while fighting. Having learned water, fire, and earth already, Korra is set to be taught her final element, air, by Tenzin (J.K.Simmons), the son of Aang and Katara.

However, when Tenzin visits her home he informs her that he has been called back to Republic City: a settlement several miles away where benders and non-benders live in an urban setting. Upset, Korra follows Tenzin to Republic City and is blown away by the technology, rules, and the corruption she sees on the streets.

She stops a group of men trying to extort a poor shop owner and gets herself arrested by Chief Bei Fong (Mindy Sterling), the daughter of famous Earthbender Toph, one of Aang’s friends who helped save the world years prior. Tenzin bails her out and demands that she return to her home. Korra argues that Republic City needs her help to get rid of the crime and Tenzin reluctantly agrees to train her just outside of the city limits.

In the second episode, “A Leaf in the Wind,” Korra has begun training with Tenzin to learn how to airbend. It requires a lot of meditation and patience, which Korra hates because she is passionate and loves fighting.

Friction arises between her and Tenzin because she wants to continue exploring the city but he refuses to let her go until she has learned her lessons. After hearing a radio broadcast of a probending match, where benders compete in a tournament to knock each other off a platform using their bending, Korra sneaks off to Republic City to watch a match.

She meets Bolin (P.J. Byrne), an Earthbender, and his brother Mako (David Faustino), a Firebender, and both are a popular probending team called the Fire Ferrets. Bolin is cheerful and flirtatious, inviting her to watch the match from great seats, but Mako is serious and brooding.

Mako assumes she is just another one of Bolin’s fangirls, but when Korra reveals she is the Avatar he acts a little less cold around her. The Fire Ferret’s third team member quits just before the match that would put them in the championship and Korra volunteers to take his place, much to Bolin’s delight and Mako’s disapproval.

Tenzin overhears of her appearance in the ring and shows up, demanding that she go home, but she refuses. She struggles through the matches, but then remembers the training Tenzin gave her and helps Mako and Bolin win the tournament. Tenzin is impressed by her bending abilities and apologizes for being so hard on her and she apologizes for losing her temper with him.

‘The Legend of Korra’ stands up well to its predecessor. ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ has been celebrated for its excellent storytelling, wonderful spread of characters, beautiful cultural inspirations, gorgeous animation, and top-notch voice acting. ‘Korra’ is no different. The new time period provides many interesting opportunities for Korra and her friends to explore as well as new threats to test their fortitude.

Whereas the villain in ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’ was Firelord Ozai, the villain in ‘Korra’ is Amon (Steve Blum), the leader of the anti-bending movement. So far, he has only been shown in promos for future episodes and is implied to want to take over Republic City to wipe out all the benders, providing a very real threat to Korra and everyone she cares about.

In just two episodes, ‘Korra’ has already proven it has the ability to go the distance. The characters are introduced well and have their own distinct styles to them. They carry the familiar air of the characters we loved in ‘Avatar’—Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko, Appa, and Momo—but make their own mark in the world the generation before them made.

‘The Legend of Korra’ comes on Saturdays at 11am EST. If you loved ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’, or if you love great stories in general, make sure to tune in.

Image Courtesy of   The Legend of Korra

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