#bounty hunter and tea brewer

[loopy777]

Mini-Review: The Bounty Hunter & The Tea Brewer

Mid-to-light spoilers.

Well, so much for my idea of a fanfic where June goes on one last hunt, in a changing world, to either bring in the infamous Princess Azula or die trying.

I like the themes this thing is going for. It's kind of a Western in that it's about violent people having to deal with a changing world and the coming of civilization. I like that it acknowledges the tricky morality of formerly bad people earning forgiveness instead of punishment. And I like that it doesn't completely remove June's edge.

That said, I think the story was kind of aiming above its head and intended audience. This should be a messier story with some real tragedy in it. Acknowledging some tricky morality isn't the same thing as actually dealing with it or exploring it, and it ends up feeling rather shallow and pat. The end result is a fun little action adventure, but I feel like it was aiming to be more and fell far short.

I like all the new characters. The new bounty hunter characters are fun, and even the goofier ones don't overstay their welcome. I really like the villain; his transition from spy/saboteur to businessman/gangster is very Russian.

June gets some additional backstory, and thankfully no one felt the need to explain why she dresses like an old-school goth. But I'm honestly not sure the expansion was needed, other than adding a mother where one was conspicuously missing.

Speaking of representation and feminism, Iroh's awfulness to June in 'Bato of the Water Tribe' is acknowledged and brushed away with a, "I'm sorry about that, I was in my Season 1 characterization where I had some flaws and also people still thought that kind of thing was hilarious outside of anime for incels." So that's that.

Peter Wartman's and Adele Matera's art is as good as ever.

Ranking of the Faith Erin Hicks one-shot graphic novels so far:

Azula in the Spirit Temple

Suki, Alone

Katara and the Pirate's Silver

The Bounty Hunter and the Tea Brewer

Toph Beifong's Metalbending Academy

[privatefire]

Uncle Iroh is still learning … and making things right.

ATLA: The Bounty Hunter and the Tea Brewer

Spoilers below

Remember this?

This is addressed in The Bounty Hunter and the Tea Maker.

This is a tiny bit of a really good comic.

I didn’t except any of what we got.

[mesapies]

I can and will choose to see sapphics in anything I pls.

June and her ex girlfriend that she ended on good terms with, Fan.

Proof? Because I said so

Katara x jiang

Toph x yaling

Now june x fan

All sapphic ships with characters(jiang, yaling, fan) that will probably never have another appearance but that will NOT stop me

[prying-pandora666]

The Iroh Comic was Kinda Bad…

The most baffling part about the Iroh comic “The Bounty Hunter and the Tea Brewer” IMO isn’t the way it seems to dismiss anyone hurt by Iroh in the part as either villains who need to get over it or crazy people protesting something no one else is upset about.

Those aren’t great at all but at least I can comprehend the writers wanting to glaze Iroh and excuse his checkered past, cowardly as that is. If only for pure fan service reasons!

No, the most confusing element is the implication that the bounty hunters who retired and became happy alpaca farmers are morally superior to the bounty hunters who are *checks notes* still bounty hunting?

But how is someone who has been nomadic their entire career supposed to suddenly come into possession of a plot of arable land for farming and ranching? Let alone all the resources to start up and maintain it?

The bizarre implication seems to be that the difference between the “good, redeemed” bounty hunters and the “greedy, traitorous” bounty hunters isn’t ethics. It’s land ownership.

Weird values for a show against colonization and imperialism.

[akiizayoi4869]

The Bounty Hunter And The Tea Brewer

So I read the Iroh and June comic back when it came out, and it was....ok, I guess. Wasn't anything too extraordinary. The plot is basically Iroh's tea shop running out of ingredients, and Iroh getting captured by June, which leads to him actually getting the ingredients that his tea shop needs. There was a lone random person protesting Iroh being in Ba Sing Se and being allowed to have his own tea shop, which was pretty cool. Would have been even better if it was just more than one person. That one guy cannot be the only one who has a problem with Iroh living there. Iroh eventually gets captured by June, who was hired by someone who Iroh suspects is from his past to capture him. There was two highlights for me from that part:

Iroh singing in order to get June to tell him who hired her and why, as well as Iroh actually apologizing for the way how he acted towards her in the show, something that I never thought would ever be acknowledged. It's been swept under the rug until now, so it was nice to see this. Something that confused me about this comic was the way how the Bounty hunters were handled.

Apparently ever since the end of the war, work for bounty hunters has dried up to the point where they..... sell each other out for money. Which makes no sense. This implies that criminals are no longer a thing in the world now that the war has ended, which is obviously not the case. There will always be criminals running around, so I really don't understand why this was added to June's part of the story.

Speaking of June, we get a little bit of a backstory for her. Her mother was a thief who stole from the rich and and gave to the poor, and her father was an Earth Kingdom soldier, who was eventually given the task of capturing her, along with some other soldiers. He ends up freeing her after thinking over why she was doing this, and they eventually fall in love, got married, and had June soon after. Their happy life doesn't last, and earth kingdom soldiers eventually catch up to them after searching for the both of them for however long it was. June's mom tells her father to take June and run, which he does. We aren't shown what happened to her mother, but I'm assuming she was either imprisoned or killed then and there. This results in her father deciding to become a bounty hunter, a profession that June takes up herself (obviously, as we can clearly see in the show) when she got older. They eventually arrive at the place where the man who hired June is waiting, and surprise, surprise!

It is indeed someone from Iroh's past. A man named Keung, who served under Iroh during the siege of Ba Sing Se. This was another part that shocked me, because it revealed that Iroh straight up abandoned his men when he found out that Lu Ten had been killed. I always just assumed that he had given the order to retreat, and he and all of his men left. That's how the show made it sound like. To find out that he abandoned them to their fates was an interesting addition to the plot (also an interesting choice because this honestly makes him look much worse in regards to the siege.)

Keung wants Iroh to pay for what he did with his life. At first, June tries to intervene and stop Keung, saying that he doesn't have to kill Iroh. She eventually backs down when Keung giver her the money that she was owed. June leaves, abandoning Iroh to his fate (a nice parallel with how Iroh abandoned his soldiers to their fates) but has a change of heart after talking with some former bounty hunter friends of hers who were in the area, living their own lives after leaving behind their days of bounty hunting. They help her rescue Iroh, who, after everything is said and done, is able to get the ingredients that he needs thanks to June's friends. The story ends with Iroh and June becoming friends, and Iroh apparently offered her a new job: instead of hunting down criminals or people in general for whoever will give her a high sum of money, she can "hunt" tea ingredients for Iroh.

Not the ending that I was expecting at all, but I suppose that it was inevitable, with the way how the comic was going and how it seemed like June was slowly beginning to forgive Iroh for his past behavior. So basically, this comic will probably interest you and you may even like it if you're an Iroh fan, but like I said it's not anything special. There really wasn't a need for this comic, imo.

[weneedtobeafandomofkindness]

YES things are getting SPICY

AZULA WAS RIGHT Im on TEAM Azula about this

[avatar-news]

Avatar: The Last Airbender—The Bounty Hunter and the Tea Brewer graphic novel featuring June and Iroh coming Summer 2024

Just announced at SDCC: A new graphic novel about June and Iroh, titled The Bounty Hunter and the Tea Brewer, is hitting shelves in Summer 2024!

The new Legend of Korra graphic novel trilogy, which was first announced at SDCC one year ago, and the first part of which was revealed to be focused on Mako at NYCC nine months ago, had no updates at this year's SDCC panel today. We also didn't find out about the next Chronicles of the Avatar novels after Kyoshi and Yangchen.

[kassandrasdisciple]

~spoilers for ATLA, LOK and ALL COMICS~

A critique of

(Significant Spoilers / final panel spoilers)

Tl:dr at the end

Disclosure

Hi, this is going to be a critique specifically about how June and irohs interaction in bato of the watertribe (BotWT) was delt with in the bounty hunter and the tea maker (BHatTB).

I recognize this is only 1 page in a 78 page long comic but I think it's worthy critiquing how this was handled. I've watched both shows, read all the ATLA comics, along with the one shot ALTA comics, I'm not meatriding for Iroh in this as you'll see, neither will I do the like for the writers of the show or the comics, I also won't demonize either, I'll just be stating what i disagree with and what direction I think would serve the world/characters better.

1. The Comic in Question

This comic is an okay comic, like the other one shots it's self-contained, if you don't read these, it's fine as they won't come up in any other works from avatar studios (apart from maybe Azula: and the spirit temple). Due to this microcosm, they have all focused on characters or world building that either the audience or the writers think is worthy of expansion (the metelbending academy, sukis imprisonment, ect). You'll also notice a meta theme in that all these comics are woman-focused, expanding the role and background of our female cast, this is a mystery mouse KaTool that'll help us later. This is interrupted by our deuteragoists of BHatTB.

The plot, in summary, is that June is hired to capture Iroh by an old soldier who served under iroh and wants revenge for Iroh leaving him in Ba Sing Sei. In the background is tea cartels and the dying career as a bounty hunter in a peaceful world.

The title would lead you to believe that both protagonists have equal impact but make no mistake this is an Iroh comic. I love Iroh as a character, bit this comic was written with the explicit effect of maintaining his pedestal. After hes captured by June he gives the "perfect" apology by hitting all the action points, initiating the apology and leaving June to accept it on her own time. Later we get an acceptance of the apology and she starts working for Iroh, making it explicit that he's been forgiven by June for how he acted in BotWT.

Secondly, in the beginning and end of the comic he explicitly rebukes his warmongering ways, apologizing to a earth kingdom protester (side note: this scene is a whole thing, I personally found it distasteful but I'll leave it to another day) and later apologizing to his ex-soldier while reinforcing his repentance for being a general. This is a more general apology to all the people who make "Iroh is a war criminal" memes.

2. Why was this nessesary

Because BotWT aged like milk. There's a conspiracy theory that the third writer, Ian Wilcox, was blacklisted from writing for the show after this, but I can't find any evidence other than the fact this was the only episode he wrote, compared to others writing multiple episodes, however he was a busy writer so he might've just not had time. Also both Bryan and Micheal are credited so their just as complicit.

It makes the most likeable fire nation character so far seem incredibly creepy. Unfortunately it aired in 2005 and this was an incredibly common gag, especially in anime(and still is), which avatar took a lot of inspiration from (think of master Roshi from DB or Jiraiya from Naruto). Iroh is filling the pervy old man trope and in the early 2000s that was perfectly fine.

Tragically time isn't stationary and as writers rooms for cartoons have gotten more diverse we've all come to the conclusion it's weird as fuck. I think it's weird as fuck. However why did 1 scene from 1 episode nearly 20 years ago (I just gave myself psychic damage FUCK I'm old) need a comic tie in?

Because media literacy is dead and CinemaSins.

Okay no, so the TL;DR is that Iroh has become a mascot for avatar studios, but also people make perv and war criminal memes about him, and you don't want to sell merch with the war criminal on. So they did the beauty and the beast remake move and made a follow-up to address all the CinemaSin-esque takes.

Unfortunately the interesting part of Iroh is that he was a war criminal (this is a joke, IK they dont have Geneva, chill). He was an interesting shade of grey but when you put someone on a pedestal they either stay in the sky or fall, and avatar studios decided to build some scaffolding. This entire comic was a way to scrub the morally bad parts of Iroh away, and personally? I think that's pretty boring, so what else could we do?

3. The ReWrite

So first thing what's the comics theme? I don't want to change too much so let's keep that the same, luckily I think June's mum sums it up.

Freedom, and along with that, responsibility to grant freedom. June wants to be free and gives freedom to Iroh, Iroh wants to be free of his guilt but to do so he must take responsibility, Fan and the others wanted freedom and took responsibility for their lives, making a homestead, and lastly Keung wanted Freedom from his past and was going to make Iroh take responsibility.

Metatextually this is also a comic about freedom for Iroh and June's characters by taking responsibility for what happened in BotWT, so we'll keep that theme.

Secondly, I lied about not making big changes, we're kicking out Iroh and the tea cartel plot. Our new title is The Bounty Hunter And The Fire Lord. Our new plot is going to be set after azula and the spirit temple, and follow an unsuccessful attempt my Zuko to find Azula with June's help. We're keep June struggling to find work, and even meeting Fan and the ex-hunters. We're also going to keep the fallout of BotWT.

5. Why Zuko

For this story I envision a fire nation that is returning to pre-war mentalities, and I think in this nation sexism would be returning hard. Just like the UK after WW2 women had been moving towards egalitarianism but were shoved back to the household once peace was established. In this climate Zuko doesn't know what to do, remember, the 2 non-genociding states are both patriarchal with misogyny baked in, the Water tribes are Overt, but outside of Kyoshi island we don't see women in power in the Earth Kingdom. Zuko doesn't have a societal reference for equality other than his homeland, and he's previously been erasing alot of fire nation culture (dragon hunting, colonies, royal deification), he's now dealing with advisors trying to tell him how women should act and he's frozen, should they be like the water tribes?

Secondly, Zuko has no female advisors, he has Katara and Toph as friends, he has Suki and Mai in the palace but none of them know the court machinations, not like Azula would. His mother has been out of the court longer than she was in it, and is still pretty traumatized. So, spurred on by his need to do the right thing and as another excuse to bring Azula back into the family, he hires June to help him find his sister.

I know it might seem out of left field but personally, it would be great worldbuilding for how we went from the treatment of Zeisan and Ursa to fire lord Izumi. Secondly Zuko is always itching to reconnect with Azula in the comics and he loves making bad decisions, he's also got more backstory with June than Iroh.

Onto the meat of it, on their road trip June opens up more to Zuko, same as she did with Iroh, and zuko uses June as a sounding board for all these questions he wants to ask Azula. June has traveled the world's underbelly, she knows what women are capable of and the calculating demeanor means she gives similar answers Azula would.

Eventually Zuko says he could've asked Iroh for his help on the topic, but June snorts at him, she tells the story of what happened to her from her POV. We don't have Iroh to give us a perfect apology, we have Zuko having to choose if he defends his uncles honour or not, who does he believe? This is what his story is about, does he believe his advisors or the women of his country.

Let June use her knowledge of what the dark side of the world is like, let her say what a noble fire nation man probably grew up hearing about women, especially when in the beginning of the war we see no female soldiers, so the gender roles where probably still enforced.

If you want to address Iroh's actions then have them serve the greater narrative, how have women been treated by the fire nation, and also don't have the interaction be kept to just June and Iroh, have it between a woman extending trust and a Fire lord who all to often puts Iroh on the same pedestal as the audience.

If you want, you can have a final scene with Iroh, where he sides with June and apologizes, but I think what we where given serves only the male cast and relegates June's story to a checklist, instead of treating it like a narrative she should get to control.

TL:DR

BHatTB whimped out on adressing Irohs actions, and it's easy to see that they did so just to get people to stop bringing it up. I'd instead propose this conversation happens with Zuko; with Zuko being treated as the audience, glamourisng Iroh, and June reinstating that he's still a human man, and that he isn't free of societal influence.

Have it be about freedom, both individually and societally, and responsibilities; to those you hurt and to those you've sworn to protect.

Again, this critique was focused on this one interaction, if I was to do a full rewrite I would change other aspects and flesh out how I think a June/Zuko road trip would go, still it would be vastly more interesting than what we got.

[thena0315]

June's childhood

[desperatecheesecubes]

Absolutely nailed their personalities-10/10 no notes

[azulas-daddy-kink]

It'd be cool if the upcoming Iroh&June comic included Iroh apologizing for being a creep who sexually harassed and groped her but I'm not holding my breath.... but seriously, what even is this? Who thought this was a good idea?

[privatefire]

The Bounty Hunter and the Tea Brewer

My heart skipped a beat.

I didn’t know what to expect from the comic. Silly me thought this was going to be Azula.

[mesapies]

SPOILERS for The Bounty Hunter and the Tea Brewer for ppl still waiting to read it.

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So june retires being a bounty hunter because of iroh? And then starts working for him? Idk how to feel about that.

June redemption arc? Ok, sure, whatever. Although i think it'd be better if she stayed a bounty hunter.

But redemption arc because of iroh? Umm

[atla-confessions]

I understand that they want to explore a redemption arc for June, I think that's a cool concept. But I don't see why they have to make Iroh the vehicle for it. The character who faked paralysis so he could be under her and cop a feel when she literally couldn't move her body? They could have had literally anyone else be her mentor in growth and help her find a new purpose outside of bounty hunting.

X

[akiizayoi4869]

Thinking about making a post about The Bounty Hunter And The Tea Brewer later on.

[weneedtobeafandomofkindness]

YEAH YOU TELL HIM

holy shis this got dark