Never saw the bodies so… That and assuming combustion man died Then how will they explain combustion woman I wonder? She won the bending lottery?
These deaths were never seen so that is where the line is… As far as other cartoons, remember when a show like Mighty Max was made as opposed to Avatar now. Times change.
Aw yeah, Mighty Max… I remember that episode with the immortal, literally axe-crazy viking dude, that was such a sociopath, even Norman was too shook to fight him.
That dude was stuffing branches in his skull, and racked up quite a kill-count… Pretty shocking stuff for a kid’s show back then.
They totally could have offed these benders. But I’m sure they’ll make up some passive bs with Zuko and Aang not wanting to have a nation founded on violence blahblahblah story telling.
Unless these criminals arose after Aang died, I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t just bend their power away. Korra may not have had the chance to address them (or rather, people to bring up the issue) because of season 2’s problems rolling up way too quickly.
If these benders are capable of wiping out nations like they say they can I’m sure they knew of aangs anti bending techniques and trained specifically to counter it which is why they were captured.
At least that seems like the logical reason…if Aang being a passive douche as always is the reason.