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The Legend of Korra: Kya and the Secret of the Sand
Join Aang and Katara’s daughter, Kya, in The Legend of Korra: Kya and the Secret of the Sand, as she embarks on a journey of self-discovery and uncovers secrets at the edges of the Earth Kingdom.
While helping Korra recover in the Southern Water Tribe, Kya shares a story from her youth of a time when she was lost and disconnected from herself, far from home in the Si Wong Desert…
Young and untested, Kya leaves her family to seek her purpose in the wider world. Hoping to test herself and help struggling communities, she heads to the Si Wong Desert, where scarce resources and fractured communities are making the fringes of the Earth Kingdom increasingly unstable. Kya, arriving in the community of Liyuan to teach healing and help the struggling community defend itself from bandits, finds that the wounds left from decades of conflict run deep, and may be harder to heal than she first thought.
Written by Eisner-nominated graphic novelist Kiku Hughes (Displacement) with artist Alex Monik (The Legend of Korra: Patterns in Time, Legend of Korra: Mystery of Penquan Island) in collaboration with Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko!
While helping Korra recover in the Southern Water Tribe, Kya shares a story from her youth of a time when she was lost and disconnected from herself, far from home in the Si Wong Desert…
Young and untested, Kya leaves her family to seek her purpose in the wider world. Hoping to test herself and help struggling communities, she heads to the Si Wong Desert, where scarce resources and fractured communities are making the fringes of the Earth Kingdom increasingly unstable. Kya, arriving in the community of Liyuan to teach healing and help the struggling community defend itself from bandits, finds that the wounds left from decades of conflict run deep, and may be harder to heal than she first thought.
Written by Eisner-nominated graphic novelist Kiku Hughes (Displacement) with artist Alex Monik (The Legend of Korra: Patterns in Time, Legend of Korra: Mystery of Penquan Island) in collaboration with Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra co-creators Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko!
80 pages, Paperback
Published July 28, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 29, 2026
Kya was really wonderful to read about. We know next to nothing about her and she's the middle child of Aang and Katara, ya know? I have to know more about her. My favorite moment from the show (of hers) is when she IDs Zaheer. I wanted to see what she was like when she was just setting out on her own. I got that here. Would looooooove more stories from Kya and Bumi’s youth (and Tenzin, Pema, Lin and Suyin)!
July 31, 2026
Kya, oh the lesbian you are 💙
August 3, 2026
Read this comic in one sitting. It’s so nice that the Avatar universe is slowly expanding. Getting to see a glimpse of Kya’s journey was “healing” to say the least (Pun intended 🤭). This comic explored themes of culture, heritage, history affecting the present, and adapting to change.
The art style was beautifully done. Kya’s waterbending and the earthbending looked really thoughtful. The feelings were clearly shown in characters actions and facial expression.
Definitely a good read.
The art style was beautifully done. Kya’s waterbending and the earthbending looked really thoughtful. The feelings were clearly shown in characters actions and facial expression.
Definitely a good read.
July 29, 2026
I really liked this. Always a fan of anything ATLA or TLOK related. Perfectly drawn and the story flowed nicely. There were some loose ends that I would have liked tied off better. But overall, a nice story to add to my collection of ATLA and TLOK comics.
August 1, 2026
This was a fantastic story to add to the Avatar universe. We don’t get to see a lot of Kya in the show, so it was nice to learn a little more about when she was younger. I also love how it gave us a little insight into how she helped Korra heal.
July 29, 2026
I love how the writers delved into Kya's perspective, it was refreshing to also see how she wanted to escape the heat of being the daughter of the Avatar and also the pressure and weight it came with. As it stated, she just wanted to find herself and found something more. I really love the drawing and art style. My only problem with it was that I wished it was longer and we had more fight scenes in the graphic novel. I recommend this!
August 4, 2026
My star rating is pretty low, but there is a lot I love about the comic.
Five stars for the BEAUTIFUL art.
Five stars for the worldbuilding; I LOVE the implication that sandbenders are closer to waterbenders than other earthbenders, in part because the desert used to be an ocean.
I love the characters. Also, Kya, in general. Marry me, Kya.
But the story itself was frustrating.
It had really cool, compelling ideas, and then didn't follow through on exploring them in a way I found authentic or coherent.
I'll break my critiques down, point by point.
SPOILERS AHEAD PAST THIS POINT!
1. The Depiction of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom Violence
The Avatar 'verse has touched on how the baton of corruption keeps changing hands. The Aang movie touched on the Earth kingdom as a violent colonial force millennia before the Fire Nation waged the 100 Year War.
One thing I do really like about this comic is that we see in real time how this corruption shifts, and the Earth Kingdom government uses infrastructure left by the Fire Nation occupation to oppress its own people, especially smaller villages like those of the sandbenders.
In this case, the Earth Kingdom government is using plumbing systems set up during Fire Nation occupation to divert water from sandbender villages and other smaller villages, and leverage these resources to pressure villagers into helping the Earth Kingdom military.
That's really interesting, compelling, and realistic!
But I did not think that this systemic violence was depicted well or accurately.
When the militia leader Bai Yin leverages access to water rations in order to force a sandbending teenager to help her, the fact that she's yelling gets more attention than the violence of offering conditional access to water.
This is a recurring problem with Bai Yin: the narrative behaves like she's too emotional and illogical to have any agency over what she's doing, and thus her later redemption feels unearned.
My personal opinion: it would have been much more powerful if Bai Yin hadn't NEEDED to yell in order to gain access to the sandbenders' resources. Because those in positions of power don't NEED to get emotional. All she'd need would be the implicit threat of withholding water.
That, or Bai Yin's screaming at villagers could be depicted as an unhinged authority figure rather than simply the byproduct of confusion.
2. Intergenerational Trauma
I like the idea of Kya connecting to this form of subjugation, and being able to process it as wrong because she recognized these similarities.
But I also don't think this was done particularly well. Kya is depicted as being oddly complacent while Bai Yin menaces villagers; even at this age, I think it would have been more true to character if she'd gotten involved, even if it led to her being reprimanded and even if she couldn't actually do anything.
In any case, witnessing this terrorism blocks off Kya's bending because she feels it's similar to the Fire Nation's terrorization of the Water Tribe.
This is an interesting and poignant concept, but the comic isn't long enough to explore it properly, and it's done a disservice because it feels like it's only there to connect Kya's trauma to Korra's disability in a forced parallel (more on that later.)
In the aftermath, Kya muses that they should really "bring (the teenager they abducted) back tomorrow," which in my opinion serves to downplay this further, and detracts from the violence of coercing this kid to go on a dangerous expedition.
The scene in which she regains her ability to waterbend with her companion Tsetseg is the best sequence in the book, but it also feels somewhat unearned, in large part due to the length constraints of the comic.
So then Kya, Tsetseg, and Bai Yin discover through Kya's waterbending that the Earth Kingdom is syphoning natural water sources. This allows for ease of access to water in larger cities, but is causing a longterm draught for smaller villages.
And, they solve it. Easily.
3. Quick and Simple Solutions to Big Problems
Kya destroys this infrastructure, and claims that the Earth Kingdom cities didn't notice that they had "a little less water."
I simply don't think that would be true, and I think it's disingenuous to behave as though destroying corrupt infrastructure will always yield a quick and easy happy ending with no penalization, unintended consequences, or potential scapegoating of the same marginalized people they were intended to help.
Realistically, this could have led to sandbender villages being blamed for "stealing Earth Kingdom water," for example.
Obviously, this isn't Game of Thrones, and we don't have unlimited time to explore these consequences. It's a short comic that requires a happy ending.
But I think there are alternatives that could fit within this page count:
a) It could have simply been eluded to that restoring the villages' access to water was simply the first step in a longer struggle to fairly manage this resource, that didn't end there.
Or:
b) Kya and the earthbenders could build a new infrastructure that allocates water to the sandbender villages AND the Earth Kingdom cities.
Of course, similar problems in our world seldom wrap up so easily, but I still think this would be more authentic than acting like the cities weren't built to rely on the water they were (perhaps in part unwittingly) stealing from the sandbenders.
4. Distractingly Modern Terminology and Concepts
In the aftermath of discovering this corruption, Tsetseg explains to Bai Yin that this kind of corruption is "all ANY kingdom is."
That sentiment would make sense to someone living in a democracy in 2026, but in the ATLA world, the United Republic is their FIRST republic, and when this story takes place it hasn't been established for long (if its government has been established AT ALL by this point).
Tsetseg could point out that all major governments are subject to corruption in a way that would make sense for a world where there's exactly one emerging civilization that isn't a monarchy of chiefdom.
I find it interesting that Tsetseg seems to identify her people as being separate from the Earth Kingdom, and perhaps her statement about kingdoms would make sense if she'd (even briefly) elaborated on that.
5. How All This Ties Back to Korra
Anyway, this leads to my final gripe, which is that all of this supposedly applies to the Kya talking to Korra while she was still physically disabled.
And that feels incredibly forced, because Kya's brief inability to use her bending is nothing at all like Korra's years-long struggle to regain her ability to walk and perform martial arts.
Closing Thoughts:
This isn't necessarily the author's fault, she's been open about the fact that this isn't the story she wanted to tell and the vision she had for this comic may very well have been much better.
As it is, there's a lot to like about the comic (stunningly beautiful art, characters I really enjoy, worldbuilding, more of Kya) but ultimately it doesn't capitalize on the very interesting themes it sets out to explore.
Five stars for the BEAUTIFUL art.
Five stars for the worldbuilding; I LOVE the implication that sandbenders are closer to waterbenders than other earthbenders, in part because the desert used to be an ocean.
I love the characters. Also, Kya, in general. Marry me, Kya.
But the story itself was frustrating.
It had really cool, compelling ideas, and then didn't follow through on exploring them in a way I found authentic or coherent.
I'll break my critiques down, point by point.
SPOILERS AHEAD PAST THIS POINT!
1. The Depiction of Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom Violence
The Avatar 'verse has touched on how the baton of corruption keeps changing hands. The Aang movie touched on the Earth kingdom as a violent colonial force millennia before the Fire Nation waged the 100 Year War.
One thing I do really like about this comic is that we see in real time how this corruption shifts, and the Earth Kingdom government uses infrastructure left by the Fire Nation occupation to oppress its own people, especially smaller villages like those of the sandbenders.
In this case, the Earth Kingdom government is using plumbing systems set up during Fire Nation occupation to divert water from sandbender villages and other smaller villages, and leverage these resources to pressure villagers into helping the Earth Kingdom military.
That's really interesting, compelling, and realistic!
But I did not think that this systemic violence was depicted well or accurately.
When the militia leader Bai Yin leverages access to water rations in order to force a sandbending teenager to help her, the fact that she's yelling gets more attention than the violence of offering conditional access to water.
This is a recurring problem with Bai Yin: the narrative behaves like she's too emotional and illogical to have any agency over what she's doing, and thus her later redemption feels unearned.
My personal opinion: it would have been much more powerful if Bai Yin hadn't NEEDED to yell in order to gain access to the sandbenders' resources. Because those in positions of power don't NEED to get emotional. All she'd need would be the implicit threat of withholding water.
That, or Bai Yin's screaming at villagers could be depicted as an unhinged authority figure rather than simply the byproduct of confusion.
2. Intergenerational Trauma
I like the idea of Kya connecting to this form of subjugation, and being able to process it as wrong because she recognized these similarities.
But I also don't think this was done particularly well. Kya is depicted as being oddly complacent while Bai Yin menaces villagers; even at this age, I think it would have been more true to character if she'd gotten involved, even if it led to her being reprimanded and even if she couldn't actually do anything.
In any case, witnessing this terrorism blocks off Kya's bending because she feels it's similar to the Fire Nation's terrorization of the Water Tribe.
This is an interesting and poignant concept, but the comic isn't long enough to explore it properly, and it's done a disservice because it feels like it's only there to connect Kya's trauma to Korra's disability in a forced parallel (more on that later.)
In the aftermath, Kya muses that they should really "bring (the teenager they abducted) back tomorrow," which in my opinion serves to downplay this further, and detracts from the violence of coercing this kid to go on a dangerous expedition.
The scene in which she regains her ability to waterbend with her companion Tsetseg is the best sequence in the book, but it also feels somewhat unearned, in large part due to the length constraints of the comic.
So then Kya, Tsetseg, and Bai Yin discover through Kya's waterbending that the Earth Kingdom is syphoning natural water sources. This allows for ease of access to water in larger cities, but is causing a longterm draught for smaller villages.
And, they solve it. Easily.
3. Quick and Simple Solutions to Big Problems
Kya destroys this infrastructure, and claims that the Earth Kingdom cities didn't notice that they had "a little less water."
I simply don't think that would be true, and I think it's disingenuous to behave as though destroying corrupt infrastructure will always yield a quick and easy happy ending with no penalization, unintended consequences, or potential scapegoating of the same marginalized people they were intended to help.
Realistically, this could have led to sandbender villages being blamed for "stealing Earth Kingdom water," for example.
Obviously, this isn't Game of Thrones, and we don't have unlimited time to explore these consequences. It's a short comic that requires a happy ending.
But I think there are alternatives that could fit within this page count:
a) It could have simply been eluded to that restoring the villages' access to water was simply the first step in a longer struggle to fairly manage this resource, that didn't end there.
Or:
b) Kya and the earthbenders could build a new infrastructure that allocates water to the sandbender villages AND the Earth Kingdom cities.
Of course, similar problems in our world seldom wrap up so easily, but I still think this would be more authentic than acting like the cities weren't built to rely on the water they were (perhaps in part unwittingly) stealing from the sandbenders.
4. Distractingly Modern Terminology and Concepts
In the aftermath of discovering this corruption, Tsetseg explains to Bai Yin that this kind of corruption is "all ANY kingdom is."
That sentiment would make sense to someone living in a democracy in 2026, but in the ATLA world, the United Republic is their FIRST republic, and when this story takes place it hasn't been established for long (if its government has been established AT ALL by this point).
Tsetseg could point out that all major governments are subject to corruption in a way that would make sense for a world where there's exactly one emerging civilization that isn't a monarchy of chiefdom.
I find it interesting that Tsetseg seems to identify her people as being separate from the Earth Kingdom, and perhaps her statement about kingdoms would make sense if she'd (even briefly) elaborated on that.
5. How All This Ties Back to Korra
Anyway, this leads to my final gripe, which is that all of this supposedly applies to the Kya talking to Korra while she was still physically disabled.
And that feels incredibly forced, because Kya's brief inability to use her bending is nothing at all like Korra's years-long struggle to regain her ability to walk and perform martial arts.
Closing Thoughts:
This isn't necessarily the author's fault, she's been open about the fact that this isn't the story she wanted to tell and the vision she had for this comic may very well have been much better.
As it is, there's a lot to like about the comic (stunningly beautiful art, characters I really enjoy, worldbuilding, more of Kya) but ultimately it doesn't capitalize on the very interesting themes it sets out to explore.
August 8, 2026
M Y T H O U G H T S:
Kya is a fucking queen! I mean that the power and aura she posses is rather unique. She is strong and powerful enough to realize that she needed aid and listen to her heartbeat, which she carried through to Korra.
I'm not coward enough to admit that young Kya can get me pregnant! I mean look at her with her big and caring heart. She went to the deserts to teach people the way of healing, which sums up her character to a T.
trigger + content warnings:
─── ･ ｡ﾟ:☆. *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
↠ Genre:
↠ Reputation: Lesbian
↠Published: July 28, 2026
↠ Pov:
↠ Type: Series
↠ Worldbuilding : 10
↠ Character: 10
↠ Story: 9/7
↠Overall Rating: 10
Kya is a fucking queen! I mean that the power and aura she posses is rather unique. She is strong and powerful enough to realize that she needed aid and listen to her heartbeat, which she carried through to Korra.
I'm not coward enough to admit that young Kya can get me pregnant! I mean look at her with her big and caring heart. She went to the deserts to teach people the way of healing, which sums up her character to a T.
trigger + content warnings:
─── ･ ｡ﾟ:☆. *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
↠ Genre:
↠ Reputation: Lesbian
↠Published: July 28, 2026
↠ Pov:
↠ Type: Series
↠ Worldbuilding : 10
↠ Character: 10
↠ Story: 9/7
↠Overall Rating: 10
August 3, 2026
"I can't be the Avatar anymore, I can't help anyone--"
"I know it feels that way, but it's not true. You're so young, Korra. And I'm old and withered with experience, so I can tell you a few things you don't know yet."
Beautiful addition to the universe, with all the best ingredients for any Avatar adventure (elemental superpowers, exposing corruption, gorgeous strong girls, and saying FUCK imperialism) with new, nuanced characters as well as further fleshing out fan favorites like Kya. It's very much a self-contained story, definitely not required reading, but it adds some more color to the world we already know and love. Korra's arc in Book 4 is hugely important to so many people, I loved seeing a bit more of it, along with her close relationship with Aang's family.
P.S. Kiku Hughes I will pay you one bajillion dollars for more Legend of Korra comics with your writing in them 😭 An Asami-centric I B E G
August 8, 2026
I've read the Kya comic and liked it well enough.
Somehow I found the bid how sandbending is similar to waterbending oddly endearing - though I am not sure how much sense it makes, like they suddenly had to develop sandbending - which is earthbending - instead of water.... unless there is some water tribe people mixing heritage with them... I mean that might be?
What I didnt like was that Kya's bending was suddenly gone because of doubt or whatever... I expected a logical reason like chi blocking or a fever.
And I just wonder if they forgot that Kya, Katara's mother, was a non-bender. Or are they refering to that new girlfriend of Hakoda and claim Kya calls her grandmother?
Somehow I found the bid how sandbending is similar to waterbending oddly endearing - though I am not sure how much sense it makes, like they suddenly had to develop sandbending - which is earthbending - instead of water.... unless there is some water tribe people mixing heritage with them... I mean that might be?
What I didnt like was that Kya's bending was suddenly gone because of doubt or whatever... I expected a logical reason like chi blocking or a fever.
And I just wonder if they forgot that Kya, Katara's mother, was a non-bender. Or are they refering to that new girlfriend of Hakoda and claim Kya calls her grandmother?
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Thank you to the publisher for this free eARC! All opinions are my own.
Kya tells Korra a story of her youth while helping Korra heal. Kya goes to the desert to help the people learn about healing. She discovers groups of people struggling to work together and missing water.
I liked learning more about Kya. I feel like we don't know enough about her. #Edelweiss+
Kya tells Korra a story of her youth while helping Korra heal. Kya goes to the desert to help the people learn about healing. She discovers groups of people struggling to work together and missing water.
I liked learning more about Kya. I feel like we don't know enough about her. #Edelweiss+
April 19, 2026
Based on e-arc from Edelweiss
July 29, 2026
(3.5)
Really liked the new lore with the sand benders, and having Kya be the one to tell the story was such a smart choice. I hope we get more stories of Aang and Katara’s children.
Really liked the new lore with the sand benders, and having Kya be the one to tell the story was such a smart choice. I hope we get more stories of Aang and Katara’s children.
July 30, 2026
Solid pre-Korra tale of Aang and Katara’s daughter Kya. It’s 80 pages so the change of heart arc arcs pretty quickly.
July 31, 2026
Kya has such a lesbian aura
August 2, 2026
3 stars
Did a complete re-watch of TLoK and decided to pick up the graphic novels to see what happened after season four.
Did a complete re-watch of TLoK and decided to pick up the graphic novels to see what happened after season four.
August 2, 2026
“No amount of upheaval can erase our connection with our heritage.”
August 2, 2026
Three stars for the environmental message, but ultimately just more IP slop.
August 4, 2026
2026.07.29–2026.07.29
Hughes K, Monik A, & Sousa D (2026) Legend of Korra, The - Kya and the Secret of the Sand
Hughes K, Monik A, & Sousa D (2026) Legend of Korra, The - Kya and the Secret of the Sand
August 5, 2026
Loco pensé que era una historia de kya y me ponen a KORRA también, que bendición.
August 6, 2026
3.5 stars
August 8, 2026
Why was this only two seconds long
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews