Beasts of the Four Nations

Avatar: The Last Airbender & The Legend of Korra artbooks #6

by Michael Dante DiMartino (Creator), Bryan Konietzko (Creator)

Dive into the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra with this in-depth exploration of its animal inhabitants!

Part of what everyone loves about the Four Nations is all the strange and wonderful (and sometimes scary!) creatures that inhabit them! From the Air Nomads’ flying bison, to Kyoshi Island’s elephant koi, to the Earth Kingdom’s singing groundhogs and the little purple pentapus, look to this hardcover collection for images and information on Avatar and Korra’s creatures large and small, including many from the spirit world!

• The deluxe edition includes a gorgeous slipcase, a deluxe cover treatment, an art print, and folio to celebrate the unique and wonderful creatures of the Avatar world.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Art, Comics, Fiction, Animals

192 pages, Hardcover

Published September 23, 2025

About the author

Michael Dante DiMartino is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. His directing credits include the animated series King of the Hill, Family Guy, and Mission Hill. He is a co-creator of the award-winning animated Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sequel, The Legend of Korra. DiMartino lives in Los Angeles with his wife. The Rebel Geniuses series is his debut prose work.

Reviews

[Geo Mdg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy lecture, not much information but full of Easter eggs. Outstanding illustrations.

[LB · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book got delayed for 3-4 years before it came out. Originally, it was marketed as some sort of encyclopedia containing information about animals and even the posting on the publisher's website today mentions including animals from the spirit world. However, none of that turns out to be true. Instead, the narration provided is more of an in-universe narration from Aang, which leaves some problems in that a lot of the text is simply referencing events that have happened in the show itself (and maybe some comics) but not really new information. Put simply, this is not the book that was originally advertised.

There were also some instances of timeline or lore inconsistencies. Here are some examples. In the first episodes of Last Airbender, Katara mentions that she used to go otter-penguin sledding as a kid. In the entry for that animal, it mentions that Aang brought otter-penguin sledding to the Water Tribes but that is directly contradicted by the aforementioned first episodes of Last Airbender. Another inconsistency is Aang somehow knowing the lion turtles from Wan's story in the Legend of Korra. Except it was Korra who was told this story in the series, not Aang.

Which brings me to my next point: although it has The Legend of Korra in the subtitle, there isn't that much text for that series in this book. I was hoping to have something a little more of substance from that series so this wouldn't come off as false advertising. For example, the Wolfbats entry (name of a pro-bending team in the Legend of Korra series) is narrated by Aang so there isn't any references to the pro-bending team in that entry. Although there are snippets of extra text from characters in ATLA and TLOK I wouldn't liked some more snippets from the Legend of Korra characters to really justify TLOK in the subtitle. As it stands, there were only TLOK four characters (Korra, Bolin, Meelo, Ikki) with five total small snippets in the entire book. It would've been nice, for example, to add an Asami snippet as well to the Sand Shark entry since both her and Korra see that animal in that series and it's the only instance in the franchise where we see that animal.

Those two stars I give are exclusively for the artwork. The artists have done an amazing job and they deserve credit it for it.

I would only recommend this book if you are an ultra fan who wants to complete their collection or really want to own the artwork here. Overall I found this a dissatisfying entry after such a long wait.

[sarah :) · Rating 2 out of 5]

i love atla so much but this was just not what i was expecting. i was hoping this book was gonna fit more of a national geographic animal almanac vibe. instead it feels more like a picture book with random bits of knowledge given by aang. the timing of when this book is written in universe is also confusing to me. i wish they would’ve spent more time on fleshing out the details and biology of the animal hybrids and that the pov wasn’t from aang…

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art in this book is spectacular. The content? Not so much. I was hoping for a lot more information on each of the animals and more of a biology / zoology perspective, not just Aang and friends anecdotes. Very little is added that is new to the ATLA and TLOK universe unfortunately, and having everything from Aang's perspective takes away from creatures featured in TLOK. A bit disappointing after such a long wait...

[Raimo · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable read, though I would've appreciated some more detailed/extensive descriptions of the different animal hybrids, maybe including some spirit animals.

I'll give this book 3.5/5 stars, with bonus points for the fact that The Boulder may or may not have a pet croco-cat called "The Pebble".

[Fiore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous illustrations, wish there was more actual information on the critters. But I'm charmed by Aang narrating it with side notes by other characters. How can I really fault the silliness of a bestiary with a section for rideable wild animals and unrideable ones?

[Tamara Morrill · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

this is a great companion to the avatar world
this is a bestiary of species seen in avatar the last air bender and the legend of korra