Tomb Raider #2
Script by Gail Simone
Pencils by Nicolás Daniel Selma
Inks by Juan Gedeon
Colors by Michael Atiyeh
Letters by Michael Heisler
Cover by Dan Scott
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: March 26, 2014
Cover Price: $3.50

Last year, the Tomb Raider universe was given the reboot treatment with Tomb Raider, a new video game which retells the origin story of adventurer Lara Croft and resets the franchise’s continuity. With the new video game comes a comic book series tie-in from Dark Horse Comics that picks up Croft’s story after the harrowing events that took place in the video game.

The comic book series was launched last month with Tomb Raider #1, which shows us the 21-year-old Lara Croft, the young adventurer who is one of the few survivors of the doomed ship Endurance. Croft and the crew had been on a quest to find the lost kingdom of Yamatai when the ship was hit by a storm and its passengers were marooned on an island. Now that she’s home, the young Lara can’t recall all of what happened to her on the island, but each night’s sleep bring nightmares that remind her of the painful experiences. She’s racked with guilt because it seems as though it was her decisions on the expedition that caused the most damage.

The action really takes off with Tomb Raider #2, showing Lara flying thrown the air with a climbing axe in a U.S. desert, then jet-setting off to Trinity College in Dublin to investigate some of her recent finds. While she might have survived the shipwreck, there’s obviously more dangers waiting out there for Lara, her friends, and the possibly the world.

I have not played the new video game, but I did watch about 20 minutes of gameplay footage just to check it out (looks great!), and even with that, I still went into this comic book series with fresh eyes. If you have little to no familiarity with the game, you might be hesitant to jump onto the comic, but I implore you to give it a try anyhow. While Writer Gail Simone does land us right into the middle of things without much explanation up front, as the new story unfolds, so do the revelations about Lara’s doomed expedition, courtesy of flashbacks. In these flashbacks, we slowly learned what happened to Lara and friends, as well as what her relationships had been with her fellow crew members. The comic is meant to keep us guessing and wondering what dangers will befall the novice explorer next.

Lara Croft has always been a more limber, female version of Indiana Jones, but previous comic book incarnations of the character had her as a gun-toter defined by tight, skimpy clothes, massive cleavage, and disproportionate measurements. Here, Lara, with merely a climber’s hammer in hand, is still a beautiful young woman whose sex appeal shines through even under stress and adversity, but her body is not the selling point.

If you’re not already reading this new ongoing series from Dark Horse, then definitely grab issues #1 and #2 (released March 26) and hop on for an exciting, smart adventure with a young Lara Croft. Tomb Raider #3 will be released on April 23, 2014.

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