Tomb Raider #1 (Dark Horse Comics: Simone / Selma / Gedeon / Atiyeh)
“Superstar writer Gail Simone picks up Lara Croft’s story where the smash hit Tomb Raider game left off—in a new ongoing comics series!
Following the game acclaimed for its bold and sophisticated new vision, this series launches Lara Croft on the formative adventures that will change her life forever!”
Oh boy, this is a tough one to write. Not because I didn’t like the book, I enjoyed it very much. This is tough to write and keep it spoiler free!
If you haven’t played the latest Tomb Raider video game then you’re going to want to look up what happened. Without knowing the events of that game, a reader is going to have a hard time jumping in and knowing the what’s what and the who’s who. I have not played the game, and didn’t look up anything, so the only character I knew was Lara Croft. Every other character, living or dead, was completely new to me. Without the background knowledge, it did make it hard to read. Sure it was action packed and full of Lara Croft awesomeness, but do the leg work of finding out what happened in the game and you’ll enjoy the comic more.
The art team of Nicolas Selma, Juan Gedeon, and Michael Atiyeh do a nice job with setting a tone of action and setting. Personally, I liked that they did not make a 21 year old Lara look like she came off a pole in a strip club. The new and improved Lara is much more your realistic adventuring type than a overly busty gun toting Angelina Jolie type character. This version is much more believable.
Even with the design flaw of assuming the readers played the game, this is still a solid start to a new Tomb Raider series.
Grade: B
