Following the path of a child.
Creative Staff:
Story: Rhianna Pratchett
Art: Derlis Santacruz
What They Say:
Lara finds a missing child in a seemingly haunted jungle who leads her to the organization holding her friend hostage! Can Lara infiltrate their stronghold and rescue her friend?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
This arc with Snakes Who Walk has had some interesting twists and turns along the way, though not all have been engaging as the previous issue fell flat for me. What’s sometimes good about falling flat though is that when you return for the next installment, the progress that can be made can turn your opinion around depending on what it does. Tomb Raider does just that here by providing a solid installment that feels like it answers some questions, provides some background and begins to put Lara back on the path to finishing things out. Which always seems to happen more when she ends up being tied up, since so many of those she faces like to brag about what they’ve done. A little clarification can go a long way.
This issue feels largely about background material being brought to the forefront in an interesting way. The opening is a dream sequence for Lara that takes her back to Scotland where she’s on Loch Ness with Grim and has to deal with a Nessie that’s wanting to eat her. Seeing Lara go from present form to a child is certainly cute, and it reaffirms some of her subconscious fears in a way. That plays well to seeing Lara in the present, where she’s now working with the child Mari, in an effort to figure out where the Snakes are. The two make for a fun pair overall with what they have to do here and Lara is definitely impressed with Mari in a lot of ways, and rightly so for how she handles herself in getting them back to the village. But it’s also a lot of fun because she makes a map for Lara to follow to take her to the Snakes base, which Lara has to change in a way by putting herself in Mari’s shoes to really translate it and navigate it. But it just endears her to Mari all the more.
Lara’s grownup time leaving Mari is definitely solid as it does take her to the base after a bit, allowing us to see more of her jungle skills, but the base itself is intriguing because we get to see those in charge and what they’re really after. While it is as simple as money, the reasoning behind it is good in order to provide a defense of the environment, and believing Lara really did have money meant she was a prime target, not realizing that she truly had abandoned the family. But the really welcome part is that she discovers that the Queen of Snakes was actually a friend and lover of her fathers from years back, and that flashback sequence gives us a look at Richard Croft and the kind of similarities and differences he and his daughter share. It’s a good kind of background flashback sequence that fills in some of the gaps about Lara, at least for me by not having played the games and whatever may have been revealed there, and it makes him an interesting character in a generational sense with her. The book does a good extended piece here, though it also provides for a fun little shift in events at the end with Grim in order to serve as a proper cliffhanger to draw you back for more.
In Summary:
Tomb Raider gets back on track for me and ends up being the most engaging issue of the Snakes arc so far. The exposition may be a bit much for some, but it’s presented well through the dialogue and artwork to feel connected, but from a different place in time, so that it advances the narrative overall and gives us an insight or two into the woman leading the Snakes. Lara’s story is one that feels like she’s taking control, albeit with a few obstacles in the way, and seeing her time with Mari really works well since she even makes the amusing offhanded comment about how she hopes her own kids are like Mari in the future. The humor in this issue works well, the story feels like it’s finally coming together and making some cohesive sense and it’s once again very well illustrated and colored, giving it a solid life of its own just from that perspective.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: May 27th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
