Sometimes you can never leave a job behind.
Creative Staff:
Story: Gail Simone
Pencils: Nicolas Daniel Selma
Inks: Juan Gedeon
What They Say:
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!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While a lot of video games come and go, it’s a rare title that feels like it can have multiple revivals after facing a variety of odds over the years. My experiences with Tomb Raider are actually pretty minimal in that I had played the original game when it first came out but I was never hugely inspired to go forth from there. I liked what it brought to gaming at the time, but those types of game were just never my thing for a range of reasons. It didn’t help that I didn’t find much appealing with the movie either as that just kind of soured me on the whole franchise from there on out, especially with the way the games felt like they were turning with what I read about them. But when Dark Horse picked up the rights to work on a new comic series that spins off from the most recent game, it was seeing the visuals and the team attached that got me to check out this opening issue.
If there’s going to be a difficulty with this book, it’s that it is picking up from the game and leaping forward from there, which is a little jarring at first. But what we get in this issue helps to make it an interesting mystery that leaves you wanting to follow the story from here at least, if not pick up the game itself. Taking place after a job that had involved a lot of casualties, we get a flash of it from Lara Croft, one of those that had survived and is now just trying to cope with the aftermath along with her friend Sam, who had also been involved on the job. For Lara and everyone else that made it out, it seems like they’re fraught with nightmares about it and we see some of what Lara is coping with, which is pretty rough even for a hardy twenty-one year old young woman like her. With so many lost in what seems to be kind of violent ways, it’s not a surprise that she’s having nightmares. Sam on the other hand is denying it, but she knows she’s having them as are others.
What sets things in motion is that Lara gets a call from Jonah, who served as cook on the ship named Endurance that was run by a man named Roth. There’s a history to the name that certainly makes for a chuckle as it tempts fate, but we get a good rundown of the crew that made up the ship that went on that little adventure. Jonah looks like he served as the cook on the ship and now he’s calling her to come out in the middle of a place in the southwest US called Devil’s Rest. Which, she notes, is not like him since Jonah is of Maori descent and a place like this has nothing that connects him to the kind of nature that dominates his culture. But as we see, Jonah has gone around the bend from what they all experienced and isn’t handling it well, though he does set her on the right path by talking about the fact that they basically unlocked a curse with what they did. A curse that has some significant supernatural aspects here as a flood ends up dominating the area, which in no way could actually happen in this area.
With a title like this, it definitely has to connect both with script and artwork. Nicolas Daniel Selma has some really great panels here, including the opening one that reminded me a lot of Katniss from Hunger Games in a way, which may not be a bad way to approach a title like this. The opening segment of the book does a good bit of action with little dialogue at first and the placement works really well, making it energetic while flowing smoothly. There’s a little less firmness towards the final act here, but part of that comes from the surreal nature of events that you can’t be quite sure how to take it. Gail Simone certainly has the right voice to handle a character like this and the opening issue manages to cover a fair bit of ground, especially when you consider its ties to the game. With a three act structure, we get a good dose of action at both ends while the middle fleshes things out and really starts us on the journey. It may be a touch awkward in places, but that’s to be expected since there’s that feeling – for me – of just being dropped in the middle of things. But there’s a thrill to figuring out a story from that context and Simone places more than enough clues here to make it engaging and leaving you wanting to find out more.
In Summary:
I’ll easily admit that Tomb Raider is a tough sell for me since it’s never been a game I was enthused about and some of the interpretations over the years have been cringe inducing. Dark Horse is working off of the game here and the presentation works well in a fairly realistic way with some natural exaggerations to connect it to how the game mechanics work and what Lara is capable of. There’s a good flow to it here and Gail Simone easily drops you into the story while making it clear there is one here and making aspects of it tangible so you can work with it. Paired with Nicolas Daniel Selma’s pencils and Juan Gedeon’s inks, as well as some strong color style design from Michael Atiyeh, there’s a solid vibrancy and life to how the story flows here that makes it a good read, one that you can go back and find little bits to nibble on while wondering how they may figure into the bigger picture.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: February 26th, 2014
MSRP: $3.50
