Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Those who forget history are doomed to star in a cheesy Top Cow comic book

Angelian JolieHey, look who it is! Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. Archaeologist-adventurer. Countess of Abbingdon. Clever as a whip. Daring as an eagle. Pretty as a picture. Dumber than a bag of hammers.

Yup. I went there. Deal with it, fanboys! Those of you who've spent umpteen hours wriggling Ms. Croft around caves and tombs, past alligators and mummies, picking off tigers and rabid monkeys with unlimited ammo have probably never considered how rock-stupid Lara is. Need more proof? Think about it: how long did it take you to train her to climb up a wall? Hours 'n' hours 'n' hours, I bet. And she probably died every time.

Want more non-video-game proof, bucky? How about the box office take for her two movies? (Haw!) Oh, wait, here's a better example of what I mean. For a woman who is supposedly as knowledgeable about historical events—she was designed to be a pneumatic Indiana Jones—Ms. Croft displays a shocking and possibly dangerously deadly ignorance of twentieth-century cultural history when she goes out on a motorcycle ride. As they say in the Latin primers, Viz.:

Tomb Raider #25
Two-page spread from Tomb Raider #25 (November 2002), script by John Ney Rieber, pencils by Michael Turner assisted by Joel Gomez, inks by Jonathan Sibal and Billy Tan, colors by Jonathan D. Smith, Tyson Wengler, and Brian Buccellato, letters by Robin Spehar and Dennis Heisler*

Click image to double-D-size


I call shenanigans on that image. No way can Lara get that kind of height without whirling mighty Mjolnir around.

Anyway, so you're asking me, what's so dumb about that image? Go ahead: Google "how did Isadora Duncan die". I'll wait here for ya.



Find it? Yep. You are basically looking at how Lara Croft will accidentally kill herself. (Frankly, though, I wouldn't get all choked up over it.)

Then again, this is the issue where Lara gets turned into an Ice Vulcan:


Tomb Raider #25


So. Suspension of disbelief? Why, you'd need underwires to keep that much disbelief suspended, lifted, and separated that high.

*I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure that exceeds the U.S. Recommended Daily Requirement of Creators on a Top Cow Comic Book.


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