A new threat lurks around the corner.
Creative Staff:
Story: Gail Simone & Rhianna Pratchett
Art: Nicolas Daniel Selma
What They Say:
Lara’s risking her life to reveal a terrifying secret—however, while she’s globetrotting, things aren’t right at home. What price must Lara pay to learn the truth?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Tomb Raider had some fun stuff going on with its previous arc, a lot of it having to do with the location and the surreal nature of an empty city and area. As the book goes on, we’ve gotten a decent handle on Lara overall with who she is, thanks to some flashback pieces and getting to know more of her in the present, but she still feels a bit like a cipher to some degree. She’s been on one adventure after another and that hasn’t allowed for any downtime to really get to know who she is, at least outside of the standard concepts of wanting to be a good friend to those she knows and obviously protecting Sam from everything out there in the world. I’ve enjoyed the stories so far, but I’m also enjoying it more now that it’s gotten further away from the game story itself with the island and its craziness that I never felt connected to.
With this installment, things follow up a bit from the previous storyline as we see how Cruz, having been taken down hard by Lara and the others in that arc, hasn’t died yet but is in pretty bad shape in the hospital in St. Petersburg. What starts there though is definitely a lot more interesting as he has a visitor named Auger Ramile, a member of Trinity that has come to pay him a visit. While Cruz thinks it’s to kill him, it’s actually for a touch of information before going off to complete the original mission. Because Cruz has done a lot for Trinity, they’re not eliminating him over this incident, but Ramile is going to finish it out and take Lara down along the way as well because she’s become a real target. Considering what Cruz has gone through, it’s little surprise that he really, really wants Ramile to make her suffer.
And Lara is most definitely suffering back home where she’s participating in the play Pride and Prejudice that her friend Jonah is putting on as a small piece at a local theater. She is plainly horrible, but Jonah doesn’t have enough actors and he won’t let her quit since she owes him. Which is a really bad idea because she’s so awful that the good actors are starting to quit because of her. We do see her trying her best to salvage things with Andrea, and this leads to probably the best part of the book so far as we see her, along with Sam and Kaz, just hanging out at a bar, talking and drinking together. It humanizes all of them in a good way and makes them more accessible. Naturally, things won’t go good for long as we do see how Andrea and Lara manage to connect a bit, but when they get accosted on the street later, Lara defends easily, but that display of force, and looking so alive during it, is so scary for Andrea that she flat out quits on the spot and refuses to have anything to do with her.
What I like beyond this is that it doesn’t focus on just Lara but rather shifts to Ramile, who has been watching his target for a bit to get a feel for her and what her routine and life is like. He comes across as someone with a different plan for things and is, in his own way, protecting her for now. Not that she needs it in the short term, but we see the thugs getting ready for another run at Lara latter and he takes them out before they can be any trouble. And he does it in a pretty rough way. Amusingly, since he’s taking his time in all of this, Cruz finds out about it and practically puts himself into an even more dangerous place in the hospital with how he acts. But that kind of outburst is enough to motivate him to get on it himself, which will complicate things even more down the line. Ramile’s plans make sense a bit as we learn what he’s going through, but his end goal is still a bit shrouded.
In Summary:
I always feel a little conflicted with this series because it’s one that I feel like could be so much more, but isn’t sure how to be that when aligned with the style of the current game itself. We’ve seen so many licensed properties become better than the original, or deviate in ways for it to become even more engaging, but this one feels like it’s stuck between two worlds and not quite sure what it wants to be. This issue starts up a potentially interesting arc that works more in just the characters themselves and the fallout of the previous arc, which will be good to see if it doesn’t include any archaeological expeditions or the like. While that’s a necessity for the game, here it should be able to expand things more and we get a taste of that here in a good way. I’m hoping for more of this as it goes on so that we can become more invested in the characters.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: December 24th, 2014
MSRP: $3.50
