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 Doctor Doom has brought forth what he calls the Superior Avengers, heroes hailing from a future where his rule proved beneficial to mankind. However, these heroes actually villains that come from a timeline ruined by Doom and secretly plan to take him out. The new team was called in to deal with Graviton, which also got the attention of the real Avengers. As the teams fight among themselves, Vision fires a blast that goes right through Ghost, leaving everyone surprised. "Panopticon" opens with a flashback to the era Anno- Doom + 128 as a mother shields her child as everything is destroyed around them. Ghost shows up, blasting people and telling them to return to their cells or be dealt with. Ghost asks the woman where she is going with the kid. The mother calls her a psychopath, and Ghost says she is powerless to stop her. Suddenly a giant monstrous version of Annihilus appears saying that Doom's era has ended and his era has begun. Ghost is distract...