by The World Weary
Authors: Gail Simone
Illustrators:Nicholas Daniel Selma
Publisher: Dark Horse Books
Genre: Video Game Comic
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Rocky Start
This article features spoilers for Tomb Raider (2013) and Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition.
It has been a long time since I’ve read a Lara Croft comic. I remember the first one I ever bought. I was in an airport in Germany at the time, and while I was waiting for my flight I found a little newsstand with some comics off to the side. I quickly browsed through, not expecting to find much, until my eye caught the (then) famous Tomb Raider logo. Having been studying German, I bought the comic and read it over and over on the plane ride to London, trying to make sense of a whole new set of words that I had just barely begun to scratch the surface of. Self-imposed German lesson aside, I was genuinely excited to be reading about the world’s #1 video game heroine. It was the summer of 2000, and Lara Croft was at the top of her game. The Playstation and PC series of games were HUGE, and everything from feature length films, to action figures and comics, were all planned for the titular Raider. Over a decade later, Lara has come back to the forefront of gaming in a big way.
2013’s Tomb Raider, the second reboot of the franchise to date, was a massive critical and commercial success, and what better way to follow a massive success than to get the marketing train rolling again? Action figures, comics, books, they all made a comeback. Obviously though, these new things had to tie in with the new Lara. She wasn’t a femme fatale, ass kicker anymore, but rather a balanced and studious young woman who happened to get caught in a crossfire of mysticism and barbarism that changed her forever.
