Tomb Raider: Mystic Artifacts TPB (Top Cow/2001)

 

One of the big franchises around in the early part of the century was Tomb Raider a computer game about Lara Croft a wealthy adventurer and collector of ancient artefacts. Famously this became a film starring Angelina Jolie who played an excellent part but I thought was let down by the sequel. The modern remake is to be avoided at all costs. 

Inevitably Tomb Raider was to become a comic and frankly it made sense for Lara Croft to be part of the Top Cow Universe with all it's mystical artefacts and their bearers. Lara was friends with Sarah Pezzini the New York cop who was the modern host to The Witchblade. Team ups were frequent.

This volume is a collection of two stories from The regular comic book #5 to #10  and had a high standard of art as was expected from Top Cow. The series itself lasted 50 issues of which I have the majority. 

The first of the two stories is The Merlin Stone and leads Lara on a quest that gives her an unexpected encounter with dinosaurs though whether on an alternate earth, back in time or in an alternate dimension is pondered but never resolved.

Given the nature of the Merlin Stone of Arthurian legend it's hardly the villain turns out to be a certain Morgan Le Fay.....

The second story which was run across four issues introduces the reader to an unpleasant group of reactionaries who manipulate world events and are a conspiracy theorists wet dream are after the Eye of Shaherettin which allows the holder to see the future.

 

Rather useful if used wisely but the Midnight Squires (who refused to sign the American Declaration of Independence) want it for their own mad scheming. Throw in a renegade who has managed to build a huge complex with a magnetic railway for escaping if he and his harem came under threat is the third interested party.

The fight begins!

An entertaining couple of stories id somewhat derivative are good for a rainy or sunny afternoons distraction, nothing more. Top Cow hardly exist these days and have long lost the Tomb Riader licence but these are superior to the more recent Dark Horse comics.