Over 800 pages of Dan Jurgen's Tomb Raider comics series collected in a colossal hardcover!
When it comes to recovering priceless artifacts from lost civilizations and bygone eras, there is no one more capable than British archeologist and adventurer Lara Croft.
Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of history, years of experience, and dual pistols, Lara will go to the ends of the earth to preserve the world’s most precious treasures from a shadowy organization intent on her destruction. Luckily Lara won’t have to go it alone as she’s joined by roguish playboy Chase Carver and her buttoned-up assistant Madeline Hovan! Join Lara and her friends as they face down unfathomable foes, betrayal, and ancient secrets!
This colossal, hardcover volume collects #1–#24 and #26–#34 of the Top Cow Tomb Raider series from 1999 to 2003 and features stories from legendary creators Dan Jurgens, Adam Hughes, Michael Turner, Andy Park, Marc Silvestri, David Finch, and many more!
Dan Jurgens is an American comic book writer and artist. He is known for his work on the DC comic book storyline "The Death of Superman" and for creating characters such as Doomsday, Hank Henshaw, and Booster Gold. Jurgens had a lengthy run on the Superman comic books including The Adventures of Superman, Superman vol. 2 and Action Comics. At Marvel, Jurgens worked on series such as Captain America, The Sensational Spider-Man and was the writer on Thor for six years. He also had a brief run as writer and artist on Solar for Valiant Comics in 1995.
Who doesn’t know Lara Croft… the teenage dream of every gamer growing up in the ’90s. And yes, I was one of them, which is why I was really looking forward to this edition. Of course, I wasn’t expecting any kind of masterpiece. What I got, however, was a pretty entertaining comic full of action, humor, and unapologetic sexualization of the main heroine… not that I’m complaining. Sure, the teenage dreams are long gone, but it’s always nice to be reminded of those carefree and simpler times. And honestly, Lara’s obvious sexualization was part of that era as well.
Anyway, to my pleasant surprise, I had a good time reading it, and I especially enjoyed the first half of the book. As I said, it’s not a masterpiece, but it read well, and sometimes simple exotic adventures really hit the spot. Unfortunately, after Dan Jurgens left, the quality of the scripts went downhill fast, and I was left shaking my head at how stupidly someone can write a comic. Confusing, pointless, without a shred of tension, and utterly dull and uninteresting. Honestly, the second half of the book is a huge disappointment.
The only thing keeping that part afloat is the amazing art. It’s perfect throughout the whole book, and it was nice to see some of today’s big comic names back in their Top Cow days! By the way, another unforgivable thing is the absence of the Witchblade crossover… Yes, I understand that Witchblade now belongs to Image Comics and Lara to Dark Horse, but they could have made some kind of deal, right? It’s not like this was just a random side crossover… this is an essential story for the entire run!
Oh well… As you can see, I have mixed feelings about the whole book, but I don’t regret that it’s part of my collection. Whether I’ll pick up the second volume, though, I’m still not sure.
This book is exactly what a Tomb Raider fan needs! It's full of action, treasures, and beautiful art! Dan Jurgens did a bigger part of this book, and by far, his stories are the best because he developed supporting characters for Lara, and to be honest, he did a cracking job! She also gets to fight dinosaurs,find mythical city or saving lives of her lovers.I only give it a 4* just because when Jurgens left, the stories aren't bad, but they don't have the same feeling or vibe. But overall, it's a really fun book to turn your brain off.
1-4, The Medusa Mask, ☆☆☆ 5-6, Ancient Futures, ☆☆☆ 7-10, Dead Center, ☆☆☆ 11-12, Shangri-La, ☆☆☆ 13-14, Jungle of Honduras, ☆☆☆ 15, Without Limit, ☆☆☆ 16-17, 19-20, Pieces of Zero, ☆☆☆ 18, Year of the Cat, ☆☆☆ 21-23, The Trap: Path of the Tiger, ☆☆☆ 24, Medusa's Garden, ☆☆☆
This is pretty terrible. It gets even worse once Dan Jurgens and Andy Parks leave. The stories all seem more or less the same. Someone in Lara's life betrays her or a new love interest appears only to disappear and never be heard again after the end of the story. It's like this title exists in a vacuum. Then there's issue #25 which is missing, presumably because it was a crossover with Witchblade and The Darkness (Top Cow originally made all these before Dark Horse reprinted them.) The stranger thing is that Witchblade and the Darkness both appear in the issues afterward but only in their civilian garb. Anyway, Lara apparently dies in #25 and is in some kind of Egyptian underworld in #26 and you have no idea what happened. The whole series is nonstop poor writing and surprisingly poor art considering all these artists became much bigger after this was published.
I only read the Dan Jurgens stories because of the overall negative reviews of the ones not written by him. Dan understood the assignment and made a great three dimensional Lara and incorporating the mysticism and wonder of the video games. Andy Park who is the main illustrator for Dan's stories is a master at his craft and gives the best depiction of our heroine. A must for any Tomb Raider fan featuring the "real" Lara, not the "survivor trilogy" phony that was forced upon us in the 2010's.
Although I prefer the first comics of the book it's a cute compilation carefully crafted into a huge book
It has a nice bonus by the end where it introduces the first ever comic in 1996 that lead to the ambition of making the future comics that are presented