Season 2 however made me extremely disappointed, that whole good and evil spirit thing giving avatar their power kinda made me annoyed. Though what really ticked me off was Korra losing her avatar connection, I was looking forward to conversations with Aang. The spirit portal thing was kinda cool though.
Season 3 was perhaps my favorite, the 4 locked away prisoners getting together to form a unstoppable team was very awesome. Though I did kind of wonder how he mastered air bending the second he got it lol. Anyways it was amazing until the end of it. Korra AGAIN losing her avatar state made me see her as a weak main character. I understand that drama is necessary though I was annoyed seeing her still struggle with the avatar state on season 3. I hated how all the hype was built up to just poisoning the avatar. I was looking for something more.... out of the box I guess?
Season 4 was okay I guess, She STILL has issues with the avatar state....go figure. Though the plot was good, at least better then season 2. I also liked that fight with the mega super robot. The ending was alright she turned out to love girls and guys which I don't mind. That changes the typical ending with the girl falling in love with a protagonist male I suppose. All around the show was amazing, I liked the lava bending <3
Where's Romanians?
Overall, ATLA > LoK but they're still both great shows. (And yeah season two of LoK kind of blows, but I liked the first avatar segment).
As for Zaheer being a pro at airbending instantly, remember that the red lotus intended to capture Korra when she was a child and train her themselves. Although he was not a true airbender, he was going to be the one to train her in the airbending discipline because he was so well versed in it (hence the reason why he knew ancient air-nomad historical figures such as Guru Laghima). So he had undoubtedly spent years training the forms and learning their history.
My personal ranking for the seasons is 3>4>1>>>2. Pretty sure the second season is everyone's least favorite haha.
It is a shame that the connection to the past lives was severed, as they could have done a great deal with an adult Aang. But the creators wanted to make the two shows distinct, and I love the direction they went with it.
Also, am I the only one who was way more excited about the new spirit portal than Korrasami?
Lava bending was great, it's nice that it helped bring Bolin back from the depths of being a comic relief character lol.