Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Rift
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Caution: spoilers!

This is a 3-issue miniseries, released in 2014. It's the third miniseries based on the TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender, following the events of The Search. However, the current story involves things first introduced in The Promise, including Aang's "Air Acolytes" and Toph's metalbending students. It begins with a brief scene in Yu Dao, with Iroh talking to Aang and his friends. We also see the introduction of Yu Dao's first coalition government, which is a call forward to Republic City's council in The Legend of Korra. However, the main story gets started when Aang has a vision of Avatar Yangchen, though he can't hear what she's trying to tell him. Shortly thereafter, he remembers an Air Nomad holiday, Yangchen's Festival, which hasn't been celebrated since the Air Nomads were wiped out, over a century ago. So he takes his friends and his acolytes on a field trip to the spot where the festival was traditionally celebrated. However, he doesn't know many details about the purpose behind the festival. Meanwhile, Toph isn't really enjoying the Air Nomad traditions, and something Aang says brings back painful memories of how her father used to treat her, before she ran away. So it starts to seem like the "rift" of the title could be between Aang and Toph.

They discover that the area where the festival should be held, which is supposed to be devoid of human settlements, now has a town and an ore refinery, which upsets Aang. However, Toph again disagrees with him, because the refinery represents the future, which she sees as more important than the past. The refinery is co-owned by businessmen from the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. And Toph is quickly befriended by a young man named Satoru, a brilliant engineer who is the nephew of the Fire Nation businessman, Loban. There are some earthquakes and um... stuff. And part one ends with a shocking revelation, that the Earth Kingdom businessman is Toph's father, Lao.

I was kind of surprised that Satoru hadn't told Toph about this, because I couldn't imagine him- being a huge fan of Toph and her adventures- not knowing that one of his bosses was her father. However, in part two, it is revealed that Lao has told everyone that he has no family, and now he refuses to acknowledge that Toph is his daughter. This naturally upsets her, so we might think the "rift" is between the two of them. Oh yeah, and Loban had hired the Rough Rhinos as security, so there's a fight between them and Aang's gang. Later, we see another familiar character from the TV series: the cabbage merchant, who now owns a restaurant in the nearby town. It's there that Aang finally manages to contact Yangchen and talk to her about whatever she'd been trying to tell him. She tells him about her first act after becoming the Avatar, which involved stopping an attack by a giant spirit called General Old Iron. She had come to an agreement with him, which is what led to the establishment of Yangchen's Festival. Meanwhile, Aang's friends discover a secret mine beneath the refinery, which Loban had kept secret from Lao. It seems it may be the source of the earthquakes, and all the workers are in danger, so the kids try to evacuate them. Loban orders them to remain at work, while Lao orders them to go to safety. And then there's a disastrous earthquake, which brings Aang out of his trance before he can learn the exact nature of Yangchen's agreement with General Old Iron. When he and the air acolytes get back to the refinery, Sokka tells them that Katara, Toph, and several others have been trapped underground when the mine collapsed.

Toph is keeping them all safe for now, but she won't be able to hold out for long, and it isn't possible for Aang to earthbend them out of there, because of how much iron ore is in the ground above them (he still hasn't learned to metalbend). So in part three, Sokka goes to the metalbending academy to get Toph's students to come help. Meanwhile, Satoru talks to Toph, and something he says about his parents sets up the next miniseries, "Smoke and Shadow," coming in late 2015. Also, Lao finally apologizes to Toph, and they reconcile. Aang and the metalbending students finally rescue everyone, and Aang goes back to his talk with Yangchen, from whom he learns the rest of the story. Shortly thereafter, General Old Iron returns to wreak havoc in the present, and Aang has to stop him. Meanwhile, we see a little moment involving the cabbage merchant which seems to set up something in the future, from the "Korra" TV series, so that was neat. Anyway... what Aang has to do to try to stop Old Iron... well, I don't want to spoil that, but it once again pits him against Toph. However, he fails, and has to try to fight Old Iron, which he doesn't want to do. But this time, Toph and her students are on his side. I don't want to reveal the specifics of the battle, but of course the good guys win. However, Aang isn't really happy about the way it turned out, because it seems like there will be... a rift... between humans and spirits. This obviously ties into season two of "Korra," but one thing in particular that Old Iron said to Aang is something I already know, because of that show, that the spirit is wrong about. Which gives me hope that he's wrong about other things, but of course Aang himself has no way of knowing that. Nevertheless, Aang does end this particular miniseries on a hopeful note, by replacing Yangchen's Festival with a new celebration, which he calls the Spirits' Friendship Festival.

So. It's a pretty decent story, even if I didn't love it quite as much as the first two miniseries. It still has some cool battles, nice humor, and interesting ideas and moral dilemmas. All the usual quality of Avatar stories. Plus it's nice to see more of the characters introduced in previous comics, and some entirely new characters (most notably Satoru, but also a couple of friends of Katara's from the Southern Water Tribe, who were working in the mine). And um... I look forward to the next miniseries.