Tomb Raider (Top Cow 1999 series) # 10

 By Mark Rodriguez

Lara Croft and her new assistant Madeline, have come into the possession of a gem called The Eye of Shaharettin which is said to allow the person holding it to see visions into the future. A secret organization called the Midnight Squires have set their eyes on Lara and want their gem back. Along the way a security expert named John Rivers and Chase Carver joined her team. Lara, John and Chase head for the Bayou swamps in search of the one man that escaped from the Midnight Squires and survived. As they try to cross a river, they get sucked into a whirlpool. How will this story conclude?

 

"Dead Center Part 4" opens with Lara, Chase and John being sucked up in the whirlpool. As everyone is flung around, the gem slips from John's grasp. Lara sees it and tries to grab it. She figures she should let it go and worry more about saving herself... but just not her style. Lara tries her best to hold out, but just as she's about to grab the gem, a man reaches out and take it from her. Lara drowns before she can do anything.

 

Elsewhere in Manhattan, Roetek wants an update on predicting Lara's next move. The woman says they identified the random drunk person that helped Lara and her friends was identified as Chase Carver, a treasure hunter and associate of Lara. He was trained as a Navy Seal and used his skills for his current adventures even though he has a small success rate. Intelligence has a theory on Lara's next move, she's going to see Quill. Roetek says Quill has been dead for three years.

The female Midnight Squire says they discovered that Carter encounters Quill five years ago in South Africa. Roetek says that means nothing. The woman shows him a photo of Carter and Quill hanging out in Brazil, two days before his death. Roetek says he recovered Quill's body himself. The woman says the body was so burnt they couldn't clearly identify his dental records. She adds that their satellites show Lara and her crew in Louisiana. Roetek tells her to send every Elite Squadron Team to Louisiana. He wants the gem back in his possession by the end of the day.

 

Lara awakens in a fancy bed in a luxurious room. She doesn't know where she is and what happened to her clothes. She comments that the room looks like the Ritz but without windows, so someone must be hiding something. Lara remembers the face she saw before she lost consciousness and wonders if he pulled her out of the whirlpool. She finds her clothes and gets dressed and finds all her stuff, except for the Eye. She finds her gun, still loaded, and figures that this man is confident. That makes two of them.

Lara leaves the room and finds several women dressed in togas. She think the place looks like a fortress that is also a Playboy mansion. She adds that this would be Chase's wet dream. She asks one of the women where their boss is. The woman tells her that she will find Quill in Sub-Level 3. Lara is surprised this underground base goes even deeper. The woman says if the Genesis Complex is to help relaunch humanity, they need room to house a great number of people.

Lara heads downstairs and finds Quill, sitting on a throne as he holds the Eye of Shaharettin. He tells Lara that he knows who the next six presidents will be, as well as when certain attacks will happen throughout the world. Lara tells him that the gem is hers. Quill says the only possession one can truly call their own is one's mind.

 

The man properly introduces himself as Samuel Quill. He apologizes for the method in which he brought Lara there and mentions that he's an admirer of her work. Lara says she'll have the president of her fan club send him a membership kit. She asks how he can see things with the Eye that she didn't see. He says she hasn't mastered it yet. Lara says that Chase mentioned he was a member of the Midnight Squires and can stand up to them. He says this mostly because they think he's dead. Lara says she knows the Eye is dangerous in the wrong hands, but she's not sure if the gem is any safer with him than it is with the Squires.

Quill says she should trust him, since to keep his identity safe he would have benefited to have just let Lara die in the swamp. Lara asks if the place was a commune for his followers and their families. Chase and John come in, and Chase clarifies that alongside Quill, they were the only men there. All the women Lara saw earlier are part of his harem. 

Lara says she won't be leaving the gem in he hands of a megalomaniac. Chase says she should hear the full story first. Quill explains that he once led the Midnight Squires. He says the Squires were originally a collection of wealthy Americans who refused to sign the Declaration of Independence. They wanted to work behind the scenes, extending their influence across Britain and the US. As time went on they became obsessed with orchestrating major world events, he was not inclined to do so. Lara says he'd be too busy pleasing his harem to find the time.

Quill says his chief interest is preserving the past while avoiding the looming disasters that await them all. Lara asks if the upcoming disasters he mentioned earlier were true. Quill says all of those disasters and worse will happen if the Squires get the Eye. One of the women suddenly runs in saying that dozens of black helicopters are approaching in an attack formation. Quill laments that Roetek knows. Chase asks what they will do now. Quill says they fight.

The helicopters arrive and this time Roetek is with them. He orders them to fire all their missiles. Underground, Quill leads the team to a monorail he has that runs under the swamp. Lara doesn't trust any of this and says she'll find her own way out. Chase tells John to call Madeline. Lara snatches the gem from Quill, saying that he has no reason to trust him. Quill says she has every reason to do so. He has seen the future and... he suddenly kisses her. Chase is angry. Lara pushes Quill off her and says there's no way she'd be with him. Just then an explosion rattles the area and Lara drops the gem.

 

Roetek and his troops scale down the hole in the ceiling, shooting everywhere as they seek the gem. Roetek lands in front of Lara, and she asks if he's the one that has been chasing her to hell and back. Quill tells Roetek this is his domain as he socks him in the face. Roetek is surprised that Quill was actually alive. Quill takes his gun and shoots him dead. 

 

Quill says his place is rigged and explosives and they have two minutes before everything goes up. He offers them one last chance to join them. Lara says she'll rely on herself like she always has. Quill dashes towards the train, gem in hand and Lara tries to stop him. Chase grabs her arm and says they don't have time. Lara asks about the Eye and Chase says she can always hunt him down get it back later. Right now they have to escape.

Back on the surface, they see Madeline arrive in a helicopter. As they get to the chopper, Madeline said she feared the worst. Lara says the worst can still happen if they don't leave soon. The helicopter flies off with our crew as everything explodes beneath them. As they fly off, Lara ponders that Quill is no better than the Squires. He is too dangerous to be left alone with the Eye. She ponders that someone has to take it from him and soon.

 

My Thoughts- 

Wow... I had a feeling that things were going to be rushed in this final issue, but wow. So all Roetek does in the first three issues is bark orders and threaten his men. The only thing that stood out about him is he would constantly assume things about Lara only for his underlings to correct him and mention she's a lot more resourceful than he thinks she is. So when it comes to the actual confrontation between Lara and Roetek.... Quill punches him and shoots him dead in seconds... It all happened so fast she never even got to know his name. Worst main villain ever.  

 

Like imagine if Bison appeared in a few issues, just being in the shadows and running things. Then he finally makes his grand appearance in front of Chun Li and Guile, but before he can even properly introduce himself, Ken randomly shows up and shoots him in the head. And I mean before a single punch was even thrown. That would be lame, and so was this.

On top of that.... Roetek came down with all of his elite troops... and they all just disappear on the next pages? I even had to check to make sure I didn't skip a page or something, but no, it literally happens this way. Quill guns Roetek down, then everyone has to run due to the place about to explode... and we don't even see the other soldiers either fighting or running away or anything. The Midnight Squires just vanished. Then the other helicopters are just hovering in the air, without their pilots I assume, since Madeline is able to pilot her helicopter among them without a bit of resistance.

The story probably need an extra chapter or two to let it breathe. I feel we at least needed a scene where Lara and her friends are temporarily captured and she meets Roetek face to face in a more traditional manner. Have him monologue his plans or even explain where he first found the Eye of Shaharettin before Lara escapes and whatnot. 

Instead the story shifts to another direction. The man that escaped the Squires has his own agenda. He seems to have some sort of doomsday shelter with his own harem cult. The way his harem talk, they sound like the base is some sort of multi-level underground bunker for them to hide during the apocalypse so they can then return and repopulate the world. Like Lara says, it doesn't look like Quill is any better than Roetek. With a new writer taking over for the next two issues, it looks like her quest to regain the Eye will have to wait.

I am confused by what John Rivers brings to the table. I guess Lara went to consult with him, then the Elite attack and he had to come along for the ride. With him being a security expert, I was hoping he would have been trying to hack into the Midnight Squires hidden base or something. Instead he was just kinda there. An extra person to be impressed by Lara's feats. 

The letter column, now called Tomb Readers, was entertaining as always, and people continue to mention how much they love the series as well as Chase Carver. One fan liked seeing Lara in the Bayou, a place she hasn't visited in the games yet. The fan asks if the comics are directly related to the games and if Lara will recall some of the events of the game, such as when she found the Dagger of Xian or when she went to Area 51. The answer is that they try to keep as close to the games as they can but it's up to the writer Dan if she will draw from her past adventures.

One letter did criticize Lara and Chase's slight romantic drama. Between being engaged and having a long term relationship with Chase, the fan says he doesn't read the Tomb Raider comics for the romance. He adds that if they want to expand Lara's character they can bring in other adventurers or friends from her past, similar to how they brought in John Rivers. He also mentions that Lara had the perfect partner with her but then they had to kill him within the first story arc. Man, the fans are never going to let them live that down. I wonder if future letters will complain about Roetek's underwhelming performance as well.

There really weren't any ads that stood out to me this time around, not even ads for Pioneer Anime. I do see that The Magdalena # 2 was out at the time this comic was. We'll see what happens next issue as we start a new adventure with a new writer, Billy Tan. I hope Madeline sticks around.