Looking back over my first review of Rieber and Green's Tomb Raider, I see that I found it a bit confusing and not all that interesting. I found this issue to be even less interesting and more confusing, and though I'd love to blame it on missing out on #22, I have a strong suspicion that it's more endemic to the storytelling style these creators are using. Ney Rieber is bringing in some heady issues to what has always been something of a T and A property, including Hindu theology, but he doesn't seem to be explaining it awfully well, and Green seems to be drawing a completely different and more action-oriented comic.
Lara Croft's predicament is relatively simple and familiar: She's framed for something she didn't do, and she's trying to clear her name. Then you add in a clumsily shoe-horned childhood idol, some nonsense about a tiger in human form and a story that takes her into the very unreal world of reincarnation and fire, and the story just basically stops making any sort of sense. Once you've read the whole thing, it all comes together to some extent, but I never really connected to it.
Basically, the story is clumsy and rushed, which is impressive given that it took three issues to tell. But rather than establish Lara's relationship with Lydia early on, giving the ending perhaps some sort of power, Ney Rieber crams it into two panels in the third act, making it seem like a last-minute decision. Rather than building up some sort of relationship between Lara and the tiger man, he is introduced and they trust each other awfully fast. Rather than exploring what the artifacts actually do and what the consequences might be, we get a few panels that rush out cliched explanations of "bad things happen."
I still have a liking for Randy Green's artwork, although it's not a style I would call a favorite. Like many Top Cow artists, he seems to love the skimpy clothes on impossible female bodies, with Lara getting an implausible change in clothing this issue so that she can show off a little more skin, and always looking pretty much like Kate Moss on a hunger strike. In addition, there are some important story moments, such as Lara's dialogue showing her as unafraid of anything but being bored, which are incongruous with Green's decision to show consternation on her face. Basically, though Green's art is flashy and fun, it seems at odds with the story Ney Rieber is trying to tell.
In the end, the first three-part arc from this new creative team has served only to confirm that the Tomb Raider comic is not for me. It's not the pure T and A fest that many put it down as, but neither is it the fun and action-packed comic that it could be. For all its problems, though, I will say this: It's still a whole lot better than the Tomb Raider movie.
