Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Writer(s): Gail Simone, Rhianna Pratchett
Artist(s): Nicolás Daniel Selma, Juan Gedeon
Release Date: 27th August 2014

In 2013, Crystal Dynamics teamed up with Square Enix to completely reboot the entire Tomb Raider franchise. The game was a huge success and sold over 6 million copies worldwide – I was one of those 6 million. Tomb Raider was one of the first games I played as a child, and made a huge impact on my life growing up, teaching me the valuable life lesson that if something bothers you simply lock it in the freezer. So of course I was very excited to get my hands on the latest issue of the Tomb Raider comic series, a series which takes place after the events of the newly rebooted Tomb Raider video game.

Tomb Raider #7 is a psychological thrill ride which takes us on a journey through the damaged mind of Lara Croft. ‘Losing Her Grip’, as the issue is entitled, does more than impact the cover of Lara falling off a cliff. It also illustrates Lara losing her grip on reality as the ghosts of Yamatai come back to haunt her.

I was impressed with how this comic dealt with Lara losing her mind. This was an element which featured mostly in the background of the game and one which I was happy to see them continue here with the theme of mental psychosis. I mean, you don’t blow up thousands of people with a grenade launcher and stop a lunatic trying to extract a Sun God from your best friend’s soul and expect to walk away the same person… I mean at least I wouldn’t.

As the series takes place after the game we are greeted by many familiar faces including the ship crew Lara was trying to save for most of the game. It was a great way of staying true to the source material and gives us a chance to connect more with these characters that helped Lara through her struggles. It also made for some good shock therapy seeing a zombie like Alex mocking Lara from within her subconscious.

If you were a fan of the Tomb Raider reboot or just a Tomb Raider fan in general then I would most definitely recommend checking this book out. There are a lot of great character moments for Lara and some good throwbacks to the game it was based on, and offers a little taste of what we can expect from Rise of The Tomb Raider next year.

Rating: 4/5

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The writer of this piece was: Dean Walsh

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