In serviced of the sun queen.
Creative Staff:
Story: Mariko Tamaki
Art: Phillip Sevy
Colors: Michael Atiyeh
Letters: Michael Heisler
What They Say:
As the destructive Priestess of the Sun Himiko consumes Sam Nishimura’s mind, Lara Croft desperately searches for a way to save her friend. From a university library to an underground séance, Lara will go anywhere to find answers. But with Trinity on her tail and Sam getting more lost every minute, Lara is running out of time to find the answers.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
When dealing with characters like Lara Craft and others that dabble in the historical side, the draw to dig into the supernatural is always there. Often it’s brought into the light to be shown how it’s connected to science or just theatrics dressed up in a new way to appear as though magic, but sometimes you end up fully engaged in the supernatural. Which can be problematic for some readers because you’re looking for something that’s not that. You can take it in small doses sometimes, such as the Indiana Jones works, but when it’s the main feature it can bring a very different feeling to things. This Tomb Raider arc has definitely been the latter for me and it’s proven to be further and further difficult in getting into.
Lara’s time with Professor Morrow at the start here for the first half is a lot of fun as they’re trying to get away from the Trinity goons that are after them. The dustup in the church is nicely played and lets Sevy have some fun in architecture design while also harkening back to some of how Lara would do things, such as escaping across rooftops. Morrow’s not as good for that so they end up on the sewer path, an expected escape route after eight centuries of building around the church, and it’s an enjoyable action sequence that lands them in a fun place toward the end as they crawl up into a residence. This book has succeeded the most for me when it’s more traditional with what it does in action and story so it’s no surprise that this area delighted the most with what it does, both in writing and artwork.
The rest of the book… well, that’s a bigger dip back into the supernatural side. Morrow has a group of women that can help them for the moment while hiding out and that leads them to a woman named Greta who is serving as a host to be possessed by spirits. One of them knows what’s going on, lightly, when it comes to Sam in making it clear that Sam is indeed possessed. That runs in parallel with seeing Sam with the same black possessed eyes doing her thing and working her own larger goal, albeit with the pitstop along the way of knowing she needs to kill Lara first before they can really move forward. The whole possessed angle has been a weak link for me in this run as it just doesn’t do anything for me as I’d rather have it be something like a current incarnation of a believer or a family line or something else. The spirit of Himiko over the centuries controlling people? A bit of a yawn, unfortunately.
In Summary:
Tomb Raider has a strong opening half and a weak back half and that makes the issue a mixed bag for me. Sevy continues to be the strong player here with some solid layouts and some really fun pieces, such as the imagined escape across the church rooftop as well as the actual underground escape, especially the final piece showing them climbing up into the residence. The supernatural side is very meh at best for me, though I like that Lara does her research even if it’s so light and superficial that you kind of just gloss over aspects of it. I’m curious to see how far this arc will go overall and what it really wants to do, but this is a series that’s still on the razor wire for me.
Grade: C+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: November 23rd, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
