Written by: Rhianna Pratchett & Gail Simone
Art by: Derlis Santacruz
Publisher: Dark Horse
With Square Enix’s rebooted Tomb Raider game, we’ve also gotten a reboot of the comic book iteration of Lara Croft from Dark Horse. Whereas the franchise has long approached Lara as an unflappable adventurer in the style of a more aerobatic Indiana Jones, the reboot focuses on Lara as a survivor. There was a lot of discussion around this fact when the game came out, and I don’t want to go too far down that rabbit hole here. For the purposes of this review it’s enough to simply say that this forms an ongoing narrative that’s very different from what some may be expecting from the comic. The comics picked up where the game left off, following Lara’s early adventures post-Yamatai Island. Lara and her supporting cast are all still dealing with the fallout from the events on the island, emotional and otherwise.
Interestingly, while the first arc of the series was very directly tied to the events of the game, with Lara and others returning to the island, this second arc has seen the series begin to stretch its legs a bit more. Lara is still taking actions that stem from what happened on Yamatai (helping the sister of someone that saved her life on the island), but we’re starting to see her overcome the emotional scars that seemed to be omnipresent in the first arc. This is made all the more interesting by the fact that Rhianna Pratchett, the lead writer of the game, has joined Gail Simone on writing duties for this arc.
With this issue, it is becoming more apparent that Simone and Pratchett intend to play a long game with Lara’s development from the survivor of a horrible incident to something potentially a bit closer to what most people think of her as. Although, I do hope they don’t go all the way toward that direction, as that would undo the depth that has been added through this reboot. Here, she’s written as increasingly capable and resourceful, but she’s still very human, and this is a balance that the series should aim for as it continues. It paints a realistic picture of the struggles that I can only imagine someone in Lara’s situation would be going through while not leaving readers with a Tomb Raider comic in which we watch Lara wallow in the messed up nature of her life, which is a line that the first arc occasionally fell on the wrong side of. As it stands, the writing is still occasionally a bit clunky and overly expository, but it’s moving in the right direction.
The art, by Derlis Santacruz is serviceable. The action oriented scenes in the book look a bit stunted, and they lack a feeling of movement, which is problematic for a series that’s this action oriented. In one scene in particular, Lara gets injured, and, due to the art, it’s difficult to tell exactly how badly until exposition fills us in. In addition, the characters also seem to have a tendency to look a bit indistinct. There’s nothing about the art that’s a deal breaker, but if the fairly simple elements of this issue are problematic, I can only imagine things getting more out of hand once Lara starts, you know, raiding tombs.
Readers that are looking for the action movie blockbuster type stories that Tomb Raider used to focus on may feel left out in the cold still. But, with the last couple issues, the creative team seems to really be building toward a world where we get those elements, but also profit from the added character depth we’ve seen from Lara since the reboot. If they can iron out some of the kinks that are still popping up, that seems like a great combination to me.
