Tomb Raider, Vol. 2: Mystic Artifacts

Tomb Raider: The Series #5-10

by Dan Jurgens, Andy Park

In this collection, Lara must figure out how to survive against both a Tyrannosaurus Rex as well as the Midnight Squires. This mysterious group is after an artifact in Lara's possession called the Eye of Shaharettin, an orb that allows you to see the future. When the Eye shows Lara what will happen if the Squires gain possession of it, the chase to end all chases begins

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Magic, Fantasy, Action, Comics Manga

136 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2001

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

The collects two of the Tomb Raider story arcs in a single volume. The story arcs are rather unrelated, as they seem to be trying to keep things more episodic. This is pretty standard for a lot of comics, but I feel like if there was an overarching story tying it all together, more than just Chase hitting on Lara, it would make for a pretty cool story. I have to say, both stories are much better than the prior book. The opening story was rather lackluster, and while these have their own problems, it felt more well written overall.

Lara Croft vs. Dinosaurs

It's really strange, but this two issue story arc has no title. It's rather baffling because all the other story arcs have titles. So is this just a filler story? I don't remember when the Turok games came out, but maybe someone over at Top Cow was like "dinosaurs are hot right now, do something with that!" It actually wasn't too bad of a story idea really, it was just massively too short for two issues. In this issue Lara visits a friend on a dinosaur dig and they find a portal that brings them to something like Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth. Or if you like that Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World or Edgar Rice Burroughs The Land That Time Forgot Collection. Given such vast inspiration, it seems weird that this would only be a two issue quick hit. It also detracts from the overall danger of the situation, as it seems Croft is incapable of going on any adventure for any other reason to save the entire world.

Essentially, one of the dig assistants was not who they claimed to be and Lara and Chase have stumbled into an ancient mystery involving Merlin and Morgana Le Fey. Again, due to this only being two issues, they are quite light on details. At the very least I felt like Chase was toned down a little bit and there was a bit more balance in the helping aspect of the Lara and Chase team.

Dead Center

The bulk of this collected works is devoted to the four story arc "Dead Center." In this portion the first arc has nothing to do with this new adventure. This story features some generally bad writing at times, but overall it's pretty okay. The whole first part of this arc is pretty bad writing and upon reflection seemed like an excuse for Lara to be drawn in her panties... which, I'm sure, was a total feature, but the whole journey to bring us to those pictures is entirely nonsense. Basically, Lara needs to hire a new assistant, so this lady shows up to Lara's yacht for the interview in Mexico. But Lara isn't around, she's sleeping? Lara, being a no nonsense girl one moment, seems way out of character for her to just sleep through a job interview she set up... So the lady wanders through the yacht looking for Lara and finds her way to Lara's bedroom and there's a dead body on the ground! Along with a mysterious object on Lara's bed... it's just such a bad setup I don't even know where to begin. Look, I'm not opposed to Lara in her underwear, but damn, I don't even know where to begin with how bad this setup is.

So the whole point of that setup is to motivated a story where Lara has to take on the mysterious organization known as the Midnight Squires. Essentially, they're the Illuminati, but founded during the signing of the Declaration of Independence in protest? They gave a bit of a background on it, but it didn't really make a lot of sense. At least by the end of this story the shadowy organization was still pretty intact, so if they become a foil for Lara to fight against, that could be somewhat cool in future issues. I must say the overall ending to this arc was a lot better than the others. The world did, sort of, hang in the balance, but this felt more like a small step on that journey rather than "look Lara saved the world in just four issues again!"

Sometimes I think the Lara vs. Chase dynamic is getting better, but parts of this arc have me worried that this is going to be a slog. Chase's hitting on Lara/sex jokes were a bit more toned down and instead of Lara always being saved by a man has changed a lot. This time they felt more like a team fighting together, which started to happen more in the dinosaur arc. The problem is that Chase's one liners are boring. I understand he's supposed to be the comic relief in this series, but he's a one trick pony. He just wants to have sex with Lara, that's it. That's his schtick. He has almost no other jokes. He started to tell a different joke in this arc one time and it was actually funny, but then it devolved and became boring again. If his entire repertoire of material is a single joke motif of "Lara's hot and I want to do her," the writing will just be boring.

Here's hoping they figure out how to come up with better jokes in the future... otherwise this is going to be quite the slog through 50 issues... and I am determined to get through them. The silver lining is the art... the art is quite good, so I have no complaints there. The next couple issues have a guest artist though, so we'll see how that goes. Andy Park does a good job of capturing all the standard comic book style of art of the 90's.

[James Caterino · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute joyous infusion of glorious four-color crack adventure, the "Tomb Raider" comic book series that ran from 1999-2005 is a shining beacon of Top Cow comics at its peak.

I tried so hard to get into the current Darkhorse rendition of the character, but just could not get past the dour (and at times downright ugly) artwork and bland layouts. I loved writer Gail Simone's work on DC's "Birds of Prey" in the early 2000s. But she had the great Ed Benes illustrating for her back then. In comics and graphic novels artwork is as important as casting and direction is in movies and television. The best script in the world means nothing without the right visual execution to bring it to life.

And the visuals in this trade paperback collection "Tomb Raider Volume 2: Mystic Artifacts" are just gorgeous. The story material by Dan Jurgens is a perfect match for the knockout artwork of Andy Park and company. This is pulpy "Indiana Jones" style exotic action at its most indulgent featuring secret societies, lost worlds, mystical treasures, mythic characters, and even dinosaurs.

This short book is a blast and will leave you craving more Lara Croft from the Top Cow golden era.

[Cupof Tea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty pictures. Random ass storylines.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

So ridiculous it turns into popcorn crunching fun!

See Lara Croft fight a T-Rex!

[Timo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This grew on me pretty fast. Super sexy 90s art and stupidly silly stories with funny plot twists.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

This thing begins to slide downhill when Lara Croft goes back in time with the dinosaurs. It was better than these goofball Midnight Squire wingnuts though. They are so over the top macho and then they meet the old guy who has his own underground lair complete with harem straight out of a James Bond film. I don't know how Dan Jurgens wrote this without snickering.

[Donavon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story 1: Lara vs Dinosaurs. Good

Story 2: Lara vs Cobra Commander wannabes. Not so good.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book sees Lara and Chase travelling back in time to the age of the dinosaurs to deal with the lost Merlin Stone. The immortal Morgan Le Fay is the big baddie for the first episode as she tries to recover the stone for her own purposes. Of course Lara chooses to destroy the stone and rescue Chase. That story is followed by Lara awaking in her bed to find a dead man in her room, a lost artifact on the floor, and mayhem soon ensues as a secret society tries to recover the stone. It is eventually stolen from Lara by a former member of the society leaving him on her hit list and she on the societies. As Chase would say, "Run away to fight another day."

[CJ - It's only a Paper Moon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this so you didn't have to.

[Cipryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the Chase Carver-Lara Croft action! They make such a great team.

[İlteriş · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another generic Tomb Raider adventure but it was shown more character dept for Lara. Also, Chase Carver was not as cringe as in the first volume.

[Abigail Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.6 stars)