By Mark Rodriguez Lara Croft has rocked the world in 1996 as a thrill-seeking world-traveling adventurer when Tomb Raider hit the SEGA Saturn and Sony Playstation. Garnering a huge fanbase due to the action-packed gameplay as well as Lara's looks and overall bad-assness, it's no surprise she'd eventually branch out into other forms of media or merchandising. In 1999 she got herself a comic book series from Top Cow and Image comics. Thanks to Hipcomics I was able to grab a copy, so let's check it out. 'The Medusa Mask' opens in Iran as the narrator explains how dangerous the place can be, especially towards thieves. Several Iranian soldiers are looking for 'the westerner' and start taking off the hijabs of any woman they see. One of them takes the hijab off a particular woman who turns out to be Lara Croft. One of the men sets her gun to her head and she tells him if he shoots, he'll mess up the 2200-year old necklace he's been told to recover. ...
By Mark Rodriguez As some might or might not know, I lived in Vegas for a few years with my brother Johnny. We got to meet a lot good friends at anime cons and they have been in several of our older VGM episodes. We're planning to visit Vegas and see my brother again as well as the old gang. I haven't been there since 2019, so a lot of it is going to be seeing what has changed over the years. With Wendy coming along, this will be her first time visiting Vegas and seeing the sights and slot machines. In this case, I can see her reaction as a first timer. We'll keep tabs on what we see and what we do. We're not sure if every day will involve seeing the Strip and whatnot since a lot of this trip is more about seeing my brother and friends again than being tourists. I do intend to show the places that we got to see, so stay tuned for updates. I know the comic book reviews have been slow, but we'll get back to those once we return.