Tomb Raider Volume 1: Season of the Witch TPPublisher: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: November 25, 2014
Price: $19.99
Creator(s): Gail Simone (writer), Nicolas Daniel Selma (penciller)
Format: 152 pgs., Full-Color, Trade Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-6165-5491-0
Age Rating: 16+
ICv2 Rating: 3 stars out of 5
I am somewhat familiar with the Tomb Raider franchise. I know who Lara Croft is and I have a general idea of places she's been on her adventures and so I thought that it would be fine if I were to pick up the trade paperback version of the comic written by the legendary Gail Simone. I was wrong.
In this book, the story picks up after the story of the 2013 video game and takes Lara and her friends back to the land of Yamatai. A secret organization wants to obtain some legendary artifacts that Lara possesses and revive a goddess. They've even kidnapped Lara's friend Sam in order to do it. Now Lara and some friends must all band together again and reface the nightmare that they thought that they had left behind them.
Make no mistake about it; this is a book for fans of the franchise who already know all of the characters within this book and what they've been through. This is not a book that any beginner can get through without some kind of help from a seasoned veteran. As I read through this volume, I tried my best to follow what was happening but all I could gather together were the basic story elements that were being fed to me by the dialogue and I'm certain that important details regarding some of these characters back stories were completely lost on me along the way.
Even despite that I didn't hate the time that I spent with this book. The action scenes are well drawn and compelling. Seeing Lara and her friends evade the antagonists is fun and can even be thrilling in places. Once you get past these scenes however, you're back to Lara trying to piece together a puzzle which will lose those of us who are new to the story and don't even know what the final picture is supposed to be.
If you've played the video game that this volume picks up after, you won't be disappointed by the efforts placed here and will find this to be a worthy supplement to the time you spent with the story. Until you've done at least that much though don't even bother with this one as there just isn't enough here to convert anyone into a new fan.
--L.B. Bryant
