Tomb Raider

Publisher
Bandai
Writer
Dan Jurgens
Artist
Andy Parks
Country of origin
Japan
Year
2000

Tomb Raider V. 1

By David Rasmussen
5th Nov 06

First off no, if you’re wondering this isn’t Tomb Raider the Manga (unlike the recently released Star Trek the Manga (AmeriManga actually) celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Star Trek (Tomb Raider should be so lucky as to have been around 20 years)).
No, we’re talking Tomb Raider the graphic novel which is a reprint of Tomb Raider the comic printed by Top Cow which launched way back in the ancient Pre-911 year 2000... Wow, is it really that ancient no? Didn’t think so.

So the content is about as fresh as a Grand Theft Auto clone game (looking towards you Mr. 3 out of 5 Saint‘s Row for the XBox360), yes, so what was BANDAI thinking when they came up with their premiere launch titles and basically ran the gambut of something borrowed something mainstream? At least when Pioneer went this road years ago they had the good taste to go with 100% original AmeriManga based on popular Anime series content. Yes, they did fail at it quicker than your average Hollywood marriage, but at least they tried to be as original as possible (unlike BANDAI).

Of their five launch titles of their print titles we have two which they got the rights to reprint from Top Cow (Tomb Raider and Witchblade), one which extolls the CineManga glory of another company (Geneon who has the rights to the Anime version of Samurai Champloo the last time I checked though I could be wrong), and one title which extolls the CineManga re-glory of one of their few titles that they’ve repackaged over and over again forever (Cowboy Bebop) with the only original print release out of the line being Eureka Seven (not a good count to come up with 20% originality on the first go).
But since this is the hand we’ve been handed let’s deal with it. Tomb Raider V. 1, the graphic novel reprint. Let’s go.

(NOTE - I don’t have this volume, actually, but using Witchblade V. 1 as a guide I figured this would represent Tomb Raider #1-#10. I might be right, I might be wrong, but this is as good a guess as any. As such we’re reviewing Tomb Raider #1-#10 here).

Now it’s time for the long choking hazard that is the many many credits associated with this ONE little graphic novel reprint (which is the basic gist of all the people used on the 10 issues that make up this one book).

Writer - Dan Jurgens
Pencils - Andy Park
Pencils Assistants - Matt Marsilla, Billy Tan & Hak Kang (Issue #7)
Inker - Jonathan Sibal
Colorist - Jonathan D. Smith

Letterers
Issue #1-#4 - Dennis Heisler
Issue #5-#10 - Dreamer Design’s Robin Spehar & Dennis Heisler

Editors
Issue #1 to 4 - Matt Hawkins
Issue #5 to 10 - Renae Geerlings

Associate Editors
Issue #1 to 4 - Sonia Im
Issue #5 to 10 - Jason Ross

Editor in Chief
Issue #5 to 10 - Matt Hawkins

In this story we have three stories.
First off, from Issue #1-#4, has Lara hunting for a strange artifact called the Medusa Mask, which could fetch a high price (but instead has Lara asking for a price more personal to her). This is just as well, that Lara makes this one a personal job, since there are lots of people looking to kill her for the mask (including someone she trusted as a personal confidant).

Then a short two issue story which has Lara on a dinosaur dig only to end up confronting living dinosaurs oh, and then she gets thrown back into the distant past and has some totally whacked out female whose gone totally native in her face who has control of some artifact that used to belong to Merlin (which is ironic since she is a Morgan (you know the rest right?)

Finally Lara has to replace that totally formerly useful confidant that betrayed her and ended up dead at the first half of this book, so she ends up with a female assistant who ends up having a hard first days on the job with this whole Eye of Shaherettin (dropped into her hands by a dead agent of a secret organization called the Midnight Squires) comes knocking (in the form of the above mentioned dead body) without even asking if she was ready for this kind of on the job training.

Oh, the whole eye thing is nothing but trouble since it is a tool that can fortell the future (which is again nothing but bad bad news especially when the eye falls into the possession of a wrong person who has his own personal little harem which is… well… not so little). But that’s it. Let’s break this down now quickly.

Tomb Raider Breakdown the 1st
Tomb Raider saavy? Like Tomb Raider be it the games, the movie or what not? Strictly speaking this is about as good a deal as you’ll get on this franchise, with 10 issues packed into one graphic novel for $1 or so a pop per issue content per graphic novel (and how bad is that to get that much print content for a small price wrapped in a nice book you could probably carry with you for portable reading).

This is not going to hurt you in the pocket book either way, be it you wanting to get a new copy for your collection or wanting to read the issues for the first time. However that’s not the irker, the irker is that, well, for BANDAI’s first run of print titles they sure are packing such a low number of original content.

Once again with the exception of Eureka Seven the rest of the titles are either borrowed from a mainstream company (Top Cow), borrowed from a rival Anime company (Geneon’s Samurai Champloo) or rehashing one of their tride and true glories that they’ve milked to the point that the creator of the series should have some pretty sore nipples (aka Cowboy Bebop). I am hoping that, well, if BANDAI does a second gen of titles that more than just one title has somewhat original content and isn’t more Top Cow/Image titles or whatever.

Anyway since this comes from the “golden” era of Tomb Raider when it shone let’s give it a nice score a 4 out of 5. Now let’s also hope that BANDAI’s next trick is to introduce some new titles that are original and generate some buzz (ala Eureka Seven).
But this is not the end as there is already a Volume 2 (Issue #11 to #20 probably) to talk of, and a coming Volume 3 in the near future which… may actually be problematic if you think about the content because this batch comes during Endgame and that requires some additional content (Witchblade and the EVO One Shot) but that is a review to cross at a later date. Stay tuned for more.

-- David Rasmussen 5th Nov 06