TOMB RAIDER #1 Review

By Harrison Rawdin on Thursday, February 27th, 2014

Does this literary extension raise or lower the stakes of the re-imagined property? Read on to find out.

The official description from Dark Horse:

Superstar writer Gail Simone picks up Lara Croft’s story where the smash hit Tomb Raider game left off—in a new ongoing comics series!

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!

Let me start off by saying I love this franchise. Been following since the original Tomb Raider arrived on the PlayStation, and I’ve enjoyed the highs while stomaching the lows as the series continued to survive across mediums. Even bought the Top Cow comic where she was friends with the wielder of the Witchblade, Sara Pezzini. so you can imagine that I was excited about another book staring this particular heroine.

Gail Simone offers up a promising start but let me first say that if you haven’t completed the most recent game avoid this one because there are spoilers within these pages. We’re dealing with a direct epilogue, and the author knows how to write a Lara Croft who survived the horrors of Yamatai. It’s still fun watching her fight on, even as she faces things that are downright impossible to believe. I did feel the biggest downfall of the piece was the fact that it relied on an audience who beat Tomb Raider and because of that it might have a smaller pool of potential fans.

The art by Nicolás Daniel Selma is sleek and elegant as it captures the current style of the franchise. He nails each character as moments of horror and terror plague the survivors of the Endurance. The talent has a wide birth of skill but there are moments where I was a bit underwhelmed by certain panels that seemed rather rushed. Thankfully we have Michael Atiyeh on board to further smooth the transition between mediums with a lavish color display.

Tomb Raider #1 doesn’t set the stage for a new era but it continues the current one with hearty ingredients. Highly recommended.