Dark Horse Comics 2017
Written by Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly
Illustrated by Ashley A. Woods
Coloured by Michael Atiyeh
Lettered by Michael Heisler
Lara Croft has unfinished business. After facing Trinity in Siberia, she's more confused than ever about her father's mysterious death. She's been training and following flimsy leads, preparing herself to figure out what really happened to Lord Richard Croft. Now, she's ready to put everything on the line to uncover the truth.
Well I do love me some Tomb Raider and over the years I’ve had that up and down ride of her adventures. Some were great, some not so much at least for me so here are we go again another first issue of an arc or limited series with Lara and company. I’ll tell you what I really liked about this issue and that’s the writing. The creative use of using voice mail the way it’s done here not only tells us what Lara is doing, where she is and why, along with the story we see, but it expands the story in ways you don’t expect it to. That and the characterisation here is incredible to see.
Lara is off on her own and honestly that is how she works best. I like that while this follows everything else that’s come before and that it’s new reader friendly at the same time. We’ll get into why I haven’t read her adventures lately later on for now we’ll stick with this. So with the rather creative storytelling technique in play we get to really see what, how and the why of what Lara is doing. Backstory is for another day as I’m sure we’ll learn what the events were that led her to be where she is now. In the meantime I gotta say she sure does like to do things the hard way doesn’t she? Like getting into the city of Corniglia.
There a few massive story elements here that just make me so happy and sad at the same time. That huge statue carved out of the cavern wall is something that should be but is and the scale of screams out for explanation. Then that moment she see the map of Antarctica from 200A.D. well that brought an even bigger smile to my face. OH you have no idea how much I hope that this arc takes here there and she discovers some sort of ancient city underneath the ice. Or that Erebus somehow created a pocket where life still flourishes, see yeah Antarctica makes me geek out.
Alright so here’s the hard part for me. While I like the style of artwork Ashley does I don’t think it fits this book. The wall carving we saw earlier had no depth to it, it was bland and boring when it should have been fantastical! Better is the background we see when Lara gets to that room with the brick walls, the statues there again not so much. Maybe I got spoiled over the years as the comics were done in a way that had sleek tight linework and the attention to detail was through the roof versus nowadays where it seems this style is all the rage. It screams kids book to me that pre-teen/teen reading. I miss that strong, intelligent and sexy woman that she’s supposed to be.
I love the story here and that more than makes up for everything else. What I want isn’t what I’m always going to get so you make the most of it and move on. I have to admire the fact that this entire issue had Lara sending the message then deleting them until she got it right, or at least the way she wanted to which coincided with the end of the issue. The structure of the book through the writing with it’s ebb & flow between action and pure storytelling is superbly used along with the characterisation that we get.
You can’t keep a good woman down and this is proof of that.