A new adventure reveals itself.
Creative Staff:
Story: Corinna Bechko
Art: Randy Green, Andy Owens
Colors:Michael Atiyeh
What They Say:
It’s up to Lara to stop a group of cultists from causing worldwide cataclysmic devastation, and ancient ivory artifacts hold the key to both salvation and destruction! It’s a race against time in Lara’s new quest, filled with incredible action, dual pistols, and high-spirited adventure.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Having enjoyed the Tomb Raider ongoing series, I’ll admit that I like the idea of a series of miniseries instead simply because it feels like something that can be packaged in a better way and draw in casual readers more, both in bookstores and on the shelf with a new first issue a couple of times a year. This series brings us a different tale of Lara Croft, one where she comes across a bit younger and before the events of the series we just had (if connected at all, not that it should matter), and it draws upon Corinna Bechko for the script while Randy Green and Andy Owens step up for the visuals. It’s a pretty solidly put together book overall, though there are quirks that just took me out of it more often than not.
The book does a nice little prologue piece to throw us right into the action so we can get a sense of how this team handles Lara. Her going up a cliffside to recover a tagged falcon for a friend works well both in character and visual design and in pacing overall to make it pretty fun to read and see how not only Lara interacts with the bird, but also her friend Carter in the ship that has a lot invested in it. What it provides is a larger story hook as well since he has some knowledge of ivory that you know will be important later as the main focal point of the series in this opening issue is a ten thousand year old piece of ivory that has been stolen. While Carter doesn’t make a second appearance, why else mention it after all? Lara’s got a large number of friends throughout the world so that always works in her favor as she “knows a guy” for whatever the situation.
The situation itself is weird, as we see her working in the British Museum and the piece goes missing right in front of everyone on camera with a weird shadow effect. It’s a complete mystery, one that Lara dives deep on as she’s not sure what’s going on with Jon, the elder curator that was working on the piece and is out of sorts. He essentially comes across as mildly hypnotized and that has him scurrying off as she realizes his complicity, leading to a decent chase sequence to Belize and a greater clue towards what’s going on.It’s a smooth enough progression, but the quirks are definitely there. Lara is continually illustrated in her standard gear and it just feels out of place to wear it throughout the museum. Even more so to stroll into the airport with it on and apparently get it through customs to Belize. That and the lack of costumes, the quickness of getting on a plane and flying and just some of the sharp turn pacing left me feeling a bit disconnected from the book.
In Summary:
Green and Owens do a solid job with handling Lara’s look and the overall movement choreography, which isn’t always easy to do. I just wish there were a few more costume changes in play and the weirdness of the gun dealt with. Bechko’s script is one that fits in with the character we’ve known from the previous series and in a more general sense to the game adventures. The basic points are ticked off well enough and Lara is quickly thrust into something bigger than she expected, and as she says she didn’t expect to end up in Belize when she went to work in London that morning. Though the mention of sleet in London and what looked to be a summer day was a little disconcerting. It’s hard to say how this arc is going to go simply because we know so little, but Lara is Lara and that’s the big takeaway here at the start. Having liked the previous series and wanting more, this feels like a decent progression overall and fans should find it mostly easy to change from one book to the other.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 7th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
