Less than one month until Lara Croft's adventure officially continues

Well, the "we've made it PC-game pretty without the fiddling" Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition comes out tomorrow for the PS4 and Xbox One - complete with a new Lara Croft model who looks very much like Gemma Arterton. (Trailer here)


However, much more exciting is the fact that it is now less than one month until Lara's story officially continues... on the printed page.

(Because, you know, some of us have been continuing the story unofficially...)

Issue #1 cover

Bridging the gap between video game reboot/prequel Tomb Raider 2013 and the announced, though-as-yet-unnamed sequel, is a new monthly Tomb Raider comic book series from Dark Horse Comics. You can read my initial thoughts on the announcement when it was made back in August '13.

The new Tomb Raider comic is scripted by Gail Simone - who has a reputation for bringing humour, heart and an authentic-sounding, suitably complex female voice to the likes of Batgirl, Wonder Woman and, currently, Red Sonja.

Now Simone does the same for Lara Croft. The Tomb Raider comic is essentially a Year One for the character - bridging the "new" vulnerable Lara with her "classic" daredevil interpretation.

For the record, Simone has actually worked on Tomb Raider before, scripting an episode of the Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider animated series. So I think it's safe to say that fans can trust in her to honour both iterations of the character.


The first issue of the Tomb Raider comic comes out on 26 February. It is pencilled by Nicolás Daniel Selma, which did a fantastic job in the first half of Tomb Raider: The Beginning. (The second half, by other artists, looked slapdash by comparison).

Following Simone's initial interview about the Tomb Raider comic last year, the writer spoke last week to Newsarama about the direction the new action-adventure series will take Lara Croft. Make sure to read the interview in full, but this is probably the most crucial bit for fans curious about what to expect.
"Sometimes a man follows a storm, sometimes the storm follows the man. Lara is adjusting to what happened to her on the island, and she finds gaps in her memory, gaps that people would kill for her to remember...
There are a couple new characters and some favorites, but I can't say more than that. But Sam's there, for sure. Dang!"

Issue #2 cover
Official Synopsis: Lara Croft and her friends are experiencing horrific visions in the aftermath of their ordeal in the lost kingdom of Yamatai. But those visions herald a darker fate than they could have imagined!
Issue #3 cover
Official Synopsis: Lara Croft is on the hunt for the strange force that is terrorizing the survivors of the Endurance crew! As ancient mythological creatures appear to wreak havoc on Lara, so too do the ghosts of her past!
Issue #4 cover
Official Synopsis: Currently unavailable.
I would be VERY surprised if they do it, but reading the various synopses above, maybe Lara will finally have to make that big sacrifice promised in the reboot... but which never arrived because the darker original ending was scrapped. Maybe Himiko isn't quite defeated after all?

The other big question is, of course, when we can expect a new Tomb Raider game? Unless they've REALLY been keeping things under wraps, my money is on a Next-Gen release sometime in the first or second quarter of 2015.

Now bring it on, chaps!

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