Release Date: April 23rd, 2014
Rating: 3/5 Stars
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Written By: Gail Simone
Art By: Nicolás Daniel Selma
Price: 3.50
Review:
I have a confession to make. Usually, titles adapted from video games are things I stay far away from. They just aren’t that good. BUT…Tomb Raider isn’t horrible. The new hard ass, tough as nails, cleavage-less Lara Croft from the latest in the long series of games is one of the best character revamps I’ve seen in a long time. The game was awesome as I watched my wife play a female character whose boobs weren’t bouncing or whose butt went unexposed and one who had more lines than a giggle or snicker here and there. It was a good game and Tomb Raider is now is an awesome role model for girls in my opinion. No more khaki booty shorts.
The comic book is a continuation of the game in a sense but it’s done thoughtful enough that you can still follow the storyline if you never played it. Lara Croft is being pursued by some psycho, gangster, yakuza, cult type cats who believe she angered their goddess when she was traipsing about in their mysterious island of death. And they want what she has. The only problem is she has no recollection where said item is. Or what it is. So that means her usefulness has run its course. The muscle is rounding up all her friends that were with her on the island and it isn’t pretty when they get ahold of them and the artifact that each one took home. In this issue we get back story of two major characters, a scary standoff and subsequent shootout with Reyes’ daughter in the line of fire, and a new mysterious ally. There’s also a shocker at the end that keeps bringing me back to Lost for some odd reason. My only complaint is that I’m ready for the story to kick it up a notch and start the fireworks. I see where it’s going. Someone just needs to get it there already.
The art is gorgeous. It’s different but still feels classic. It feels minimalist but it doesn’t lack in detail. The anatomy suffers sometimes in action scenes but nothing glaringly bad. It reminds me of Fiona Staples meets cel-shaded animation. There are several poses and especially a few running scenes that could be confused as motion capture they look that realistic with the bodily movement. The minimalist approach really made those two guests of Lara’s friend look insanely creepy. On the other hand, it takes away from any intimidation factor the bad humans have. The facial expressions are lacking unless close up so it’s hard to hate people who look like featureless mannequins from far away.
This is a good book with a ton of potential for revisionist history buffs like myself. Sprinkle in some ancient hoodoo mystical magical end of he world threats and you’ve got my attention. It may be hard to keep it though because the story is moving rather slowly. For it to be the 3rd issue there is a surprisingly sparse amount of storyline. It also took 4 issues to get to the obvious conclusion of returning to the island. Who didn’t see that coming as soon as this comic was announced? I’ll give it a chance for a while but it may only be a little while.