Welcome back to Dear Watchers, an
omniversal comic book podcast where we do
a deep dive into the multiverse.
We are traveling with you through the stories and the worlds that make up
the omniverse of fictional realities we all love.
And your watchers on this journey are
me. Oh, I didn't get a good
one. but I'll just be tomb raiding.
Ah. and I'm Rob. And in the week we took off from our
podcast, you might notice, Guido, I've grown
an amazing long braid.
My video.
Yeah, it's not a video.
I was worried where that was going, considering the attributes
of our featured, protagonist today and
what she's most famous for. So glad you landed
with braid.
Yes, of course. And now,
before we begin today's trip through the
jungle of video games,
jungles 90 sness
Underwater M everywhere.
What's new with us, Guido, in our little section of the
multiverse?
well, I'm a little under the weather, so we'll see if
I still have low energy. I'm generally the
low energy one anyway. So maybe, in fact, me being
a little under the weather will propel me past
you today.
Well, we can say why we're under the weather because we got
our new COVID boosters, because we're
also prepping for New York Comic
Con.
Yes, it's very soon. So if you're going to be there, tell
us, because we'll be there every day, Thursday through
Sunday. And we're very excited. We'll be recording
our bonus episodes as we do every year. I've
been posting on social media. I already ordered some commissions from
just Legendary people. what I'm doing is trying to
distribute the huge expense of New York Comic Con a
little bit into September. So that's what I'm doing. And
it's going well, though. I will regret it
all in November, believe me.
And I love that it's in October. And it's going to even fall
over October 13, friday,
October 13, because there's a lots of great horror
stuff. John Carpenter is going to be there. Eli
Roth is going to be unveiling the long
awaited Thanksgiving, which I'd be curious to
maybe check out there's. Chucky going to be there. So much great
horror stuff.
Yes. And it is the fall. And that means that
we're late with our one last giveaway. That's because
we took, a little break last week. We were
getting things in order, getting ready, and we've
been weekly for two and a half years, so
we deserve it. We earned it. But thank you for bearing
with us. Thank you for checking out our back catalog
while you have these delays. We
might have more delays coming up, but we also have great stuff going
in October. We'll have an interview with someone very
exciting, and we again have that giveaway,
which might be as soon as today, but you'll have to keep listening to
find out.
And if you are joining us for the first time after
checking out our back catalog. Of course, we
have three parts of our journey through the multiverse
today origins of the story, exploring
multiversity, and pondering possibilities. So thank
you for joining us on today's swing through the jungle.
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appreciate you.
And with that, Dear Watchers, welcome to episode
115. Let's check out what's happening
in the Omniverse with our travels to today's
alternate universe.
Today, we lock the puzzle pieces into place
and do an impossible backflip out of the
golden tomb to find out the answer to
the question, what if Tomb Raider Laura
Croft made her comic book debut in New
York City alongside
Witchblade?
It's a weird one. And today we're talking
about a, video game multiverse. We've done this
a few times before and we're sure to do it
again. But other than the Super Mario,
which was much more about the movie and the Hollywood M
multiverse, this is, I think one of the first times that we're really
focused in on a property that started
as a video game because we are considering
the Tomb Raider game series to be our prime Earth
canon here. Which series? Well, the original, of
course. And we're looking at the multiverse
of her sort of first comic book debut
and definite first ongoing title. That'll all
make sense as we give you more history. We're going to call this Earth
Top Cow Lara. Or
the Earth of Many Breasts. And
before we get too deep down
this, underwater cavern, rob, tell
us who and what Tomb Raider is, and then I'll talk
a little bit about her history in comics.
Well, development began in 1994
by Core Design as a video game that came out
in 1996 for PC, PlayStation,
and of course, the platform we all love,
sega, Saturn. The British company
oversaw the first six games
of the series. Though depending on how you count
and including all retcons and reboots, there are
about 20 games on pretty much every
platform.
It's wild. That's wild. I'm curious. Obviously,
like, Mario has more, but I'd say that's probably in
the top few of game franchises, and
especially for a.
Female character way more than Samus and
Metroid and other characters. And
Laura, speaking of our female protagonist, she
was a technological marvel
built on its own game engine and a
cultural phenomenon, even including
three movies, an animated series every fan
needs to track down a, soundtracks, tie in
novels, and even a tie in book
about her presence in popular culture. From
1998 by Douglas
Copeland, writer, artist, and thinker
who brought the term Generation X to
popularity.
Yeah, it's cool. He's an
icon for people like my age and older.
He just was. Again, the person who started
using Generation x as a term. And the
fact that he loved Lara enough to write this book.
And the book had a short story with
illustrations in it, though it wasn't a comic. So we're not going to talk about it
today.
Comic adjacent. Well, there are also
art books, cookbooks. I mean, really
cookbooks. Well, she's in the jungle. She's eating monkey
brains and who knows what.
We can't let go of every sexist trope here in that game.
Believe me.
That's true. She doesn't eat a lot. Looking at
her figure, though, I don't think.
True.
There are, of course, toys, merchandise of all kinds.
And the sadly rare but awesome
history book Tomb Raider 20 by
Megan Marie, which is out of print. And
we got signed by journalist, writer and
cosplayer megan at New York Comic Con.
Speaking of New York Comic Con a.
Few years ago when that came out. So, I
mean, Tomb Raider is everywhere. Everyone,
I think, probably knows who she is, even if
you didn't know that backstory. But
her comic backstory is a little bit more
convoluted in
1995. So
interestingly, this is before the
game is out. There are,
four two page backup comic strips of Lara.
Now, the magazine issues might have come out parallel to the game,
but I couldn't tell because they are impossible to
find. You can read the pages on the
Internet, but the magazine is just impossible to track
down, probably because not a lot of
people were keeping magazines in the
90s in I guess UK video game magazines.
Probably didn't realize this was the comic book debut of Lara. So of
course, everyone gobbles them up now as the actual comic
debut.
Yeah. This magazine did not hold a candle
to Nintendo Power in probably
popularity.
Well, it was UK's number one video game
magazine. And they rebranded it as Sega. Mean
Machines after General.
Because it's Sega. It has to be mean.
And it was. Actually, though, what's cool is those eight
pages were written by the games writer Vicky
Arnold and drawn by Paul Pert Smith. And it's
issues 47 to 50. So very cool
to check those out. But we're not going to really spend a lot of time on them.
No, we read them for this. And it feels like
Vicky's, dialogue got
translated into French and then into Japanese and
then back into English. That's how they kind of
read.
I don't know what the deal with it is, but anyway,
main event for
Lara's comics is two years later, she debuts
in Top Cow Books, which we're going to
get into in a moment. That's 1997.
Then two years after that debut, there's a lot of
gaps in time for Lara. 1999, we get
an ongoing and a ton of miniseries from top cow
totaling nearly 80 comics until
2005.
Gosh, top Cow really, milked that character for
all it's worth, right?
Yeah. That joke with Lara on the table.
Is, hey, no, I'm talking about the comic book
company. Come on.
I know.
Get your mind out of the got.
Memories everywhere in this episode.
One quick note. In 1999, there was a French publisher who
gets the license to do one issue called Tomb Raider Dark eons.
But finally, in 2014, Dark Horse has the
license for the Rebooted games universe. They published
miniseries in ongoing by legends like Gal Simone and Marico
Tamaki for a few years, getting to about 50
issues before wrapping up Lara's time in
comics in 2018. So that
is the backstory for Alara. But
what Rob was your backstory
with.
Miss Croft, so my
backstory is that like you said,
Guido, I exactly know who Lara Croft
is. I kind of know her backstory, her origin
story. But I never have played a
tomb Raider video game. I think you and I played
well.
We played the Dungeon Crawler, Guardians of Light,
co op, but I never played.
One growing up because I was a Nintendo boy, so I did
not really play PC games. I didn't play Sega,
PlayStation games. And she wasn't on Nintendo, so I never
really played her there. I knew the movies when
they came out, but I think they kind of fell in a weird
time, probably in my movie watching, so I didn't really
go to them. So I know that image of her. I kind
of know the basic
setup. But, yeah, I was never a Tomb
Raider person, but I know that is not the
case with you.
Well and I made you watch the movie, and for
this, I made you watch a History of the
Video Game Universe, so you'd get a sense, a little bit
of what her deal is.
And I never liked a lot of those kind of
puzzley games. I kind of liked my
Mario, which I guess is puzzle, but I liked that. Or
I liked my shooting games, and I didn't really mix the two
as much, I guess. But
yeah. Guido, what was your background? Because I know you are
a huge Lara Croft tomb raider fan.
I am, I think probably it's my second
favorite game series. I don't know. My top three game series
are BioShock resident, Evil and Tomb Raider. And tomb
raider. I have played, since the first one debuted.
I was 15 years old. I remember it well.
All of the marketing leading into it. I had a PlayStation
One I played it on. That what was really fun
in my memory. And we'll bring her down
memory lane because she listens to us every week. My
mother used to and I was
1516. Like, I'm a teenager here, but my
mother used to help me play Tomb Raider.
So what would happen, especially in like, two,
three, four, which are notorious for getting a little
hard, in part because development was rushed.
I would buy the strategy guides, and my mother
would sit in the same room I was playing.
And she would give me the tips if
I needed them as I was playing. So that is a
very fond memory for me. I have played
every single Tomb Raider game that has ever
come out. Generally, I played it when
it came out, and I
loved Angelina Jolie. So I loved the
original movies. I have not seen the Alicia
Vickinder movie you and I didn't go see it. It
then got such mixed reviews that I didn't bother. And once
it was sort of canceled as a franchise, I never went
to revisit it. I love the
character, but most of all, the games are
fantastic. The gameplay is so good. The
puzzle solving mixed with the action, I actually think
you'd really love it because
it balances out.
You don't tend to like games that require a lot of speed,
and these games don't always there are some
when a trex is chasing you, you have to be fast.
But generally it's a little bit of a logic
puzzle. But also with some action and
the world that they built and the fantasy
Sci-Fi kind of, but mixed with
tons of mythology is just
so strong. I can't wait to
talk about these versions. And I definitely can't wait to talk about
the future of this franchise because I love it.
Well, let's unlock the key to the
ancient temple and go all the way back
to our origins of the story.
Right now on this very show, you're going to
get the answer to all your questions.
Our amazing story begins a few
years ago,
and today we are discussing Tomb Raider
video games, all of them, but especially
the original three. And the first one is
Tomb Raider, out in October
20 496.
It's developed by Core Design, published by Eidos
Interactive, programmed by Paul Douglas. The
artist is Toby Gard, written by Vicky
Arnold. Great score. Composed by
Nathan McCree. And so
what do you think about this world? You have such little
exposure to it, but even like watching that history video
and the bit, you like, what is your sense of this world?
What do you like about it, or what are you unsure about
it?
What I like about it that I didn't really know
about this aspect of Tomb Raider because I think I was just more
familiar with the movie is some of the more
fantastical elements. Like you just mentioned Superman getting
chased by a trex. So I didn't really know
that was there. I thought it was more puzzle solving and
shoot them up. And I was actually surprised, listening, especially
for this first game. And I think this went
away as the series went on. But you weren't really
shooting human characters. You were shooting
like, creatures and monsters and a lot of
animals. And I was just thinking, I've been going
back playing on our switch and on
our, steam deck and stuff like that. One of my
favorite games of all time. Another female character. Led.
Game perfect. Dark. I played that game.
What year is that?
oh, gosh, I don't know. Probably the early
2000s or 99.
So it definitely is probably inspired by
Lara.
Yeah. It's like, basically, I think, like Laura Croft
in GoldenEye, basically. And there's aliens
and stuff. But playing it now as an adult, I still
love the game. It's so much fun. But you're, like, shooting a lot of human
beings and they're like, oh, my God, help me. And they're like,
slowly dying. And now as an adult, it's like,
OOH, I don't know. That kind of rubs me a little wrong
way.
An adult living in a country that has exactly.
Regular mass shootings.
Yeah. And it's not like you're playing, like, the Friday the 13th game
where it's, like, completely ridiculous.
Right.
And it's horror world and shooting people. So
I kind of love the idea that these original games were
set more especially the first game were set more in
this fantasy world of
mystical creatures and that kind of thing.
Yeah. It's probably part why I liked it,
because I, too, have never been into
I mean, I've played with friends just because there are so
few couch co op games, so I've played some of those
types of shoot them up games,
but on more next gen
consoles. But this always
held a place. And I wonder how much of it was that
element of it without me even realizing it.
I also think you have been telling me about Perfect
Dark since you've been replaying it a lot. I did not play it for whatever
reason. And I guess in 2000, I was in college
and I just wasn't playing too much. But
this game, in spite
of the way her design
has been sort of turned into a thing on its own,
this game is remarkably feminist. And
it doesn't, I don't think, try. I think what's
cool is, as you saw in the
like, when you get her backstory, you start to get
a little bit of a more overt
explicit like, lara was
not someone who her father
thought could do this. Right. She was a girl in a
very upper crust British family. But at the
very beginning, the first few games, because there is not
too much backstory in there, she just is awesome.
And it doesn't mean
anything. She's just awesome. I mean yeah.
Is she scantily clad from the beginning?
I guess she is. She gets in her wetsuit every time
she needs to swim, and she's in her tank
top. But the
narrative aspect of it and certainly the action
aspect of it, I think is remarkably
feminist. And that always resonated with me and
I suspect with my mother.
And not to say, well, okay, they did it with
men, too, but I mean, I am thinking there was a
few male characters like Simon in
Castlevania. They were there that were pretty
scantily clad as well at the
time. Especially like on the box art. So I mean, I know
it's not like apples to apples, but there was
just a history of these sex cells, even if
it's to kids in video games.
Well, and unlike comic books where you have just
countless examples of females and
they all have to be wearing skin tight clothes,
there were so few
female protagonists in video games. You really
only had Seamus in Metroid and she was
dressed as a robot. So there really
were not female protagonists that
led video game franchises. So you just
really didn't have too much to compare her
to. So m yeah, she might be more comparable to the
men around her.
And what were some of the other things that
you liked about? Because you like these kind of
puzzle games and watching that video kind of the
history, I don't know if I realized that was such a
big part of it. It almost reminded me of a show
that I grew up with, with Legends of the Hidden Temple,
where you're oh, got to solve the Silver Monkey
and certain things and unlock stuff.
And maybe that was very much like.
That was even influenced a bit by these video games, or vice
versa, even. So, yeah. Was that something that you
really enjoyed about it? That kind of puzzle aspect?
For sure. That's an aspect I loved. But
anyone who knows video games can tell that my top
three franchises are really heavy
on the story. I like linear story
games. And this gave you
that each entry
installment in the franchise deepened the
mythology. And even as it starts to contradict itself
or does things that are stupid and have been
retconned, or now obviously it's been totally rebooted,
it still just gives you this really
interesting universe as we talk about on our show
all the time. World building is what
draws you and me both into
multiversal stories. And the world building in
Tomb Raider is so fun.
Again, it's not super intricate, but
it's just really fun. And as
the mythology starts to come in, like
Greek mythology, like explicit mythology starts to
come in as Aztec and Mayan cultures. And I'm sure
there's all sorts of cultural simplification, if not
exploitation going on there's obviously
the colonist narrative here,
but there are times it subverts it too. There are times
she's returning treasures, there's times she's sort of
fighting the colonist British
folks, I think, to a certain extent.
So it's a world
I can get into and that's really fun.
Yeah, I think we'll get into this now in our next
segment. The 90s isms of all of it. But
watching that about the games, I know another thing that you really
love is the TV show Alias, which was
another kick ass woman who is kind
of solving these puzzles. And there's a lot of
ancient history and mythology
involved there. And there was just something I think
we'll get into it more now in our next segment, but there was just
something about that time where we were
like, let's really explore that. So I can see
how Tomb Raider is a part of this
larger mosaic that was just
happening in the early
2000s.
Yeah, and I think for a long time they did it
with obviously with men.
But it's funny. Like, James Bond doesn't do it. The big,
huge franchises don't do it. But I'm thinking
about things like big Trouble in Little
China or Romancing the Stone, or, of course,
Indiana. Jones? You have a few movies and
franchises where they try to fuse
mythology with a realistic
contemporary action movie. And this
does that. And I love it. And you're right, Alias does it,
too.
Well, let us just uncover
the super secret
crystal that is exploring
multiversity.
I am your guide through these vast new
realities. Follow
me and ponder the
question,
what if?
And today we are asking the most 90s
question of all. What if Tomb Raider Laura
Croft made her comic book debut in New York
City alongside
Witchblade?
And that is Tomb Raider
witchblade number one from Top Cow comics from
December 1998. And the story is called
Vendetta.
Well, actually, we read the revisited
version from, December 1998,
so the original version was published
in 1997, but we
fell victim to the fact that I could
not find the original because, like a lot of
licensed books, of course, they're
hard to find. So the original is from December
1997, but I could only find
a not totally kosher download of the quote
unquote, which is just like a refreshed
re, inked recolored version. Anyway.
This book has story and
pencils by Michael Turner, with some pencil assisting
from Brian Ching inks by Joe Weems, with
some inking assisting from Marco Golly and
Victor Lamas. Colors by Jonathan D. Smith letters
by Robin Spijar and Dennis Heisler. The
editor is Brad Foxhoven.
So for those not familiar with
Blade, join the club. Neither of us are
familiar. We know she exists, but
that is about the extent of our knowledge
of Witchblade. Now, of course,
Witchblade is created by Michael
Turner, and so he is
writing this. And for whatever reason,
through his Top Cow at image imprint,
was able to get the license to
Lara Croft. And for whatever reason and we
can talk about our thoughts on this, they decide to
debut Lara in comics with
Sarah Pazini, the character of
Witchblade, who herself debuted in 1995. So, just
a few years prior to this.
And the other co creator of Witchblade is a,
comic legend, Mark Sylvester, who was
also very busy in the 90s with
alternative characters.
But the alternative characters who always like to be
scantily clad,
this pairing almost felt like
that was what they thought made sense
here. Yeah, they were like, oh, wait, these are
two scantily clad, busty action hero women.
Let's make an issue with, them.
Yeah, just an off the cuff summary.
So basically it's New York City
and there is a big giant bat
demon devil creature that's stampeding
through an apartment building. Laura Croft is chasing
it. Then Sarah the witchblade
comes in and basically says to
Laura, what's going on here? Laura tells her the
story that Laura was contracted by
this basically crime boss to get
this ancient gem to take
revenge on another crime family that killed all of
his family.
Which is a typical tomb, raider narrative, by the way.
Exactly. And he set this demon out even though
the family that he's killing now are like the great grandsons.
So they didn't have anything to do with the death of his family. This guy
is like in his 90s or 100 years old. So Sarah
and Laura team up, they confront the big
demon, which they discover is of course probably not
really a big twist here the actual crime boss himself.
And you think like, they stop him. But in the end, the
crime boss is still alive and is up to no
good.
And just real quick, fast forward, we did not
read it for this episode, but they did a sequel, one
shot called Witchblade Tomb Raider,
which comes out few ah, years
later. There's then a wizard little
ashcan that comes out. So prior to
Lara getting her own ongoing, there's all this
activity with her and Witchblade. So what do you think
of the pairing here?
I was joking that it's like the most 90s thing, but
just reading this, it is just so ninety
s. And the thing that it really reminded
me so there's a little in joke about the X
Files in here.
So you've got some X people watching an episode.
Exactly. And of course, here the mix matched,
although they're really not that mixed matched, couple
that are hunting down mystical
things. And the other thing that this super reminded me of, and I'm
wondering if this reminded you of it as well, was angel.
I was just getting heavy duty angel vibes because the
New York City and there's mystical creatures and everyone's
wearing trench coats and it's all taking place
at night. So did you get any of those vibes from
it?
I didn't, though I can see it.
Ah.
Again, not knowing anything on Witchblade, the fact that she is a
homicide detective who I guess has this, I don't know,
watch that turns her into Witchblade. I don't know anything about
that. But yeah, I could see that
how it connects to stuff like angel
and.
Witchblade was also a show on TNT
around also in the early
2000s too. So yeah, it was
a lot of TV at the time, kind of exploring these things, as
we mentioned.
Yeah.
All right, I don't know where to begin. Let's begin with
the story and the character and then I want to get into the
art a little. The story and the character.
I think they capture Lara well enough.
Here you have that she's a little
sarcastic, she's confident,
she's bound up in this mythology.
She wants to do good, but she's, like,
willing to be an anti hero sort of
vigilante in order to
accomplish whatever her good mission of
goodness is. And so I think all of that
is well constructed.
And for someone who, doesn't know anything about Sarah and
Witchblade, it does make a little
sense as a pair up. To me, it's weird that it's her
debut, for sure. It's very strange,
but it makes sense to me. You do have these two
sort of fantastical, but grounded in
narratives for Sarah, I suspect, based on the
opening page, that it's really grounded in a X
Files like case Files
procedural genre, and Lara is more like
the Indiana Jones genre. But
I do see why they connect. I think it's just strange to
me that you're putting her in this other property.
Yeah. And Sarah wants to bring the criminals to
justice and let the system sort
it out. And Lara is just like, I'm going to kill
them. I don't want to kill them, but I'm going
to do that. So that's kind of the push and pull, because the characters
are very similar in many ways, but they have
that Sarah has that,
moralness, while Laura is definitely much more in the
moral ambiguity area.
Yes. Willing to do whatever it takes, for
sure. Now, I wonder if this is
possibly one of the first Michael Turner books you've
read. I mean, Michael Turner was
totally ninety s to the
extreme. Like, could have been up there with
Rob Leafield. Michael, Turner has passed away,
but everything he did has this look.
And it was a very typical look for every
book that he created, including both
the shape of women's bodies and
the skin exposure, as well as the awesome
pencils. So did you agree with that?
What do you think of his art?
Yeah, I love the bat demon.
I love the ancient, the old
mobster who's like 100 years old. You see every
kind of wrinkle, and there's all this pencil work
there, so that's really cool. And New York City,
you really get a sense of kind of it's that dark. It's. Ninety
S, New York, right? So it's like seven. Like the David Fincher,
everything's raining and dark.
So there's that. And then there's how
the women characters, especially Laura,
sarah kind of gets away being a little bit
more realistic, but Laura is
just crazy proportions.
Yeah. And he might be working off of
the video game likeness, but he
always takes these things to extremes. Again, that's what
he's known for. And there's even
some pretty, again, gorgeously
executed but ridiculous pages. Like
when Sarah and Lara
first team up as Witchblade tomb
raider. You just have Lara in her. Wetsuit
Lounging in a chair, which is kind of fun because she's
cocky as hell, which is great. But it is this
ridiculous panel know, she's got
these short shorts on, her legs are up on the chair,
large breasted, like just a ridiculous
panel that's clearly meant to be like a poster
someone would hang up in their room. Who wants
cheesecake?
Yes. You could totally see a young teenage
boy or girl
cutting pages out of this comic and putting it
up on their wall.
I mean, I had Lara on my wall, but not because of how she
looked.
Yeah, so it's fun.
I mean, do you want more? Do you want to read the
sequel.
Of it like the
last pages where it kind of continued the story. I
was like, oh, I'm kind of intrigued where this is going and I
think it helps if us like you grew up in
the watched that Arnold Schwarzenegger movie End
of Days a few weeks ago and it's got like
that the Matrix, The Crow,
all of those kind of things. So if you
grew up with that
yeah, exactly. angstiness and
black leather and all that kind of thing. So yeah,
I think it has that nostalgia factor for me.
But wouldn't it be high on my list? But I
wouldn't also say no if we wanted to keep
reading. How about you? Do you want to continue to
explore this story?
No, only because I just don't care
about
I have actually for being such a Tomb Raider
fan, I have not read the entire Top Cow
Runner for ongoing I would be more inclined
to read that. I am hesitant
because of the art. Even when Turner
leaves, he just gets replaced with people who draw
Lara in the same way Adam Hughes does a bunch of
really famous covers for it that are pretty ridiculous,
that are just at this point,
close to the realm of Playboy.
And I don't love
that when it's a comic disguised as that.
More power to comics that are setting out to do that. But I
don't like an action comic that's disguising itself
in that. So I would read more of
the top cow run. I haven't again, it's hard to find it's
out of print. Even when it's been collected, those quickly fall out
of print. So I have a few issues I'll eventually read
more, but at this point, since they have
rebooted the mythology, it also doesn't feel like it's
adding to the canon of the character that.
So they I was know I mentioned
angel at the top, but what about a Tomb
Raider witchblade Dark Angel
connection? The Jessica Alba TV show?
Someone I'm sure proposed that. I have no doubt that
someone proposed that at some point. And I have to say I love
that TV show. Dark angel
was a really fun show with, again, a
great mythology, which is what I loved about it.
they could bring in alias. There was that show,
mantis, I think it was called. There was all those
shows that would be like a cool
amalgam universe multiverse there. We're just
going to throw in all those 90.
Well, I'll tell you, the crossover that I think should have happened
is Lara Xena.
Oh my gosh.
That's where you get the
kick ass, strong female character feminists. And the
mythology going to Cover is the one
that we're missing.
Does Zena get brought into current time or
does Lara get pushed back into the past?
What's better do either because in the Tomb Raider video
games, lara often finds herself in these
weird, savage, Land esque pocket
universes. And similarly, Xena has some of the
just greatest episodes where she or
her being get pulled into like a modern
day Lucy Lawless. and so I think you could actually do it in
either direction. And it works quite well.
And Gabrielle would hit on Laura. Of
course.
She'd be like a love triangle.
A love triangle. You'd have totally a Bruce
Campbell character that is trying to also hit on Laura. And she
just like, punches him in the face. Like, oh,
man, I could totally see it.
I know we just need the license to end up in the same
place. But, that hasn't happened yet. But
fingers crossed because I don't know where the Tomb Raider license
lives since Dark Horse stopped publishing.
I'm sure right now the IP holder is waiting for
the reboots, which we're going to be talking about in just a
moment.
Okay, well, I'm powering up the
witchblade question mark.
How do you do that? Go ahead, explain it to our
listeners.
Well, it's too
complicated. It's way too complicated for them. I don't have enough time
to do it to explain it. But it's going to
launch us into pondering
possibilities togido what are we talking about for our
pondering possibilities?
Well, again, Tomb
Raider has movies and reboots of movies. It
has games and reboots of games. It has comics and reboots
of comics. So it is just a world
of reboots. And yet we currently live in
a world with no Tomb
Raider content. So I, wanted us to
just talk a little bit about what we want to see from
the franchise, what we think the potential is. And maybe on a
future episode, we'll get into some of the Dark Horse versions of
the character, the modern games versions
of Lara and all of that stuff. Because
as far as all these reboots are concerned, there was to
be a second Alicia Vickinder movie
from Folkar meg Two director Ben Wheatley.
But it was canceled. And it was not that long
ago because I remember Alicia Vickinder talking about it as of
like two years ago, saying she really wanted it to
happen. Rights, revert. We're assuming there
are remastered one through three,
the kind of golden top of
the games that are coming out next year, which is
really exciting. They've done little remastered
versions. They've done different iterations that try
to repackage the original games. This is the first
proper remaster ground up. Like the Resident
Evils have had like a lot of classic games at this point have had for next
gen consoles. Those are going to be out in February and
I cannot wait. You can't do better than the
original. And then, of course, really cool.
Phoebe Waller Bridge was announced as developing
a series live action for
Amazon Prime Video. Who knows if we'll ever
see it, but that is a great character for
it.
And it makes sense because she just did the new
Indiana Jones movie, which we didn't see, but she co wrote
that and she also co wrote the last James Bond
movie. So m I don't know if she co wrote the Indiana Jones
movie, but yeah, she's in those worlds right now
of Indiana Jones, James Bond. And I could
totally see her also playing
maybe the woman in the chair.
Character in Tomb Raider got the right
voice in terms of not her actual voice, but the way
she writes. She's got the right level of humor where
the humor is really sardonic
and dry, but doesn't take away from the
meaning of whatever she's created. And I think that's exactly what
Lara needs.
And the Britishness, because it's interesting
because you had Angelina Jolie, who's American, of course, and
Alicia Vickander who's Swedish, but you haven't had
an actual Brit play
Laura Croft, which is like they've always had a Brit
play James Bond. And it's even when they're doing the recasting now,
it's like, well, it has to be someone who's British. So I would love to
see a British person actually take on this character. And
I think having a British person like Phoebe Waller
Bridge write it would.
Be Claire Boy in there.
That's going to be I can totally see that.
Yeah. And it's funny, I was looking into the past film, so
I think he must be the rights holder. I don't know if he
still is, but all the previous Tomb Raider films were
produced by Lawrence Gordon. He's still around. He's in his
eighty s. And he is like one of those names
that's been behind all these comic book adaptations, even though
you don't know his name. So he produced the Hellboy
movies. Watchmen the Zack Snyder. Watchmen
Mystery Men and the Rocketeer. He's
also produced all of the Predator movies which were not
based on comics, but have a comic or
have become comics. So it's just interesting that you've
got this mastermind too of
comic to film
adaptations.
Yeah. Wait, did you say the Rocketeer is.
Not based on the Rocketeers? Yeah. That's based on a comic, too.
Yeah, no, I was saying the Predator isn't but it's
also in the comic in comics world.
Too. There's been a lot of people who've gotten involved
in tomb Raider projects. And I am
curious why. I guess at this point we
might be waiting for the next reboot. I don't
know why the Alicia Vickinder movie failed, having not seen
it. But I guess let's just jump to what we
want to see. We want to see Phoebe
Waller Bridges version starring Claire Foy. But
what do you want from it being more of a
newbie to Lara as a character and
her backstory?
I would hope that they would kind of do what I think
other people have been smartly doing, which is go back to
the original origins of it and really
maybe take the original game as a jumping
off point and explore some of
the mysticalness aspect, which is
something Indiana Jones has also always done. I mean, they
do have the arc that melts people's faces
and priests that rip your hearts out and stuff like that.
They're not necessarily in the realm of our, reality. Like,
save that for James Bond when James Bond has
always gone into laser world. It's like, that's not
James Bond. But have Tomb Raider
have Laura Croft kind of go into that
mystical realm? I think that would be something really
interesting. Yeah.
And I think that's what the Angelina Jolie's movie do really
well, in part because it's that era of 90s
movies or maybe they're even, like 2000.
It could be they are.
But that era of movies where, like, you didn't
need gritty realism and, everyone
was comfortable with
surrealism or the supernatural or fantasy mixed in
with a movie that's supposed to be grounded in our reality. So
I think those movies do it well. And I would
definitely want to see that come back because I think
what the modern franchise
for their extraordinary games. But I think that
they are just a little too gritty and realistic for
me, especially the first two, where
they are a younger Lara and you're sort of playing
her origin story. You have a bow and arrow for
most
of they're again, they're really great games, but
they don't give you the feeling of the
world that the original games do,
which requires the mythology, requires some of
the snarkiness. The fact that she is this
fully developed character when you meet her,
and I would want that from a series. I don't
want Lara's origin. I'm fine with flashbacks.
In fact, it could be really cool to see, especially a
younger actor do Lara at
finishing school, at boarding school. Totally flashbacks,
yes. But I want her
to be Tomb Raider when we meet
her.
It's interesting, it seems, when we were watching the video, kind
of going through the history of Tomb Raider, too, and just talking about
the comics, half of her is always,
like, set in stone, like the look and some of the feel
there. But she's also been, it seems very influenced by
the time that she's been in where
those comics were very dark ninety s, all that stuff
that was
happening. Angelina Jolie has that kind of lightness of those, like
the pre MCU Marvel movies that are at the same
time as well. And then we watched in that video when she
has the bow and arrow a lot because
The Hunger Games had become really big. So they were like,
okay, let's play that up. And then Alicia Vickander was deadly
serious. Yeah, then deadly serious, which we got. So
she's very much like, people are putting on whatever
is the popular elements
of the time of media on top of
this character. So I don't know what that will be when
we kind of reach now. I feel like we're almost at a
very interesting crossroads in terms
of those themes, maybe because there's just so much stuff
right now in different streaming and there are different
ways to approach these kind of things.
Well, and she's
definitely, I would say probably
even m ten years ago was when the games
were rebooted. The Alicia Vickinder movie, I guess, was I don't know,
was it six years ago? that's still a
long time. I mean, we're approaching her
30th anniversary, so she is
at this point, like, you have
that sweet spot of culture
where you'll have lots of nostalgia, people, a, sort
of built in audience. But she's
famous enough that you can probably pretty easily
rebuild her brand amongst people who were not even
around or playing the games in the 90s. So I
feel like we're finally at a sweet spot where we don't
need to explain who she is and we can
just build on different versions and
aspects of her that everyone recognizes and HM, have a
little fun with it.
Yeah. And we talked about this when we did our Super
Mario movie episode, talking about that, but forever,
people were like, you can't really make a Super Mario movie that's like the
video game. And they didn't when they made the Bob Hoskins
movie, but then when they made the animated movie, they were just like, no, he's going
to eat a mushroom and turn big. Like, we're just going to make it just
like the video game. And people loved it.
And maybe that helped kind of usher in this, because
we've never seen Legends of Zelda, we've
never seen Metroid, like all these
other iconic franchises with big
female characters, too, that have never even been on
screen. Maybe because people are like,
it has to be realistic. So maybe this has kind of
helped break down that wall and that will extend to Tomb
Raider too.
Yeah, it is funny because people I'm sure there are plenty
of think pieces out there, most of which I would
find annoying. So I'm sure there's smarter
people who think about why video game
adaptations tend to fail and why there aren't
any really remarkably strong ones, perhaps
even until Super Mario this year. Unless I'm forgetting
something, because simultaneously, we know video
games are bigger than Hollywood. The video game industry
is often not talked about, that they actually make more
money than Hollywood does. So
it's really remarkable to think
that we haven't seen a Resident
Evil translate. Granted, the
Miya Djovovich series, which I love, made
tons of money, but it did
not translate the video game into a
different medium. Nor do I think the Netflix series
did. That was canceled after one season and we didn't even
watch. So there hasn't really
been anything that has somehow
fused the two worlds, translated a mega
game into a mega media
IP franchise, and Tomb Raider
could be it. I
agree. I'm rooting for you. Well, maybe, she might
not be on strike because she's in the UK, so I hope she's working
on it.
That's true, she's not. So maybe she's working on
it right now, but while she's working on
that, we will say that is a
wrap. but wait. I'm just looking out the window,
and the leaves, they're turning colors.
I see a man in a white William Shatner
mask standing in our yard, staring at
you.
Should have gone ghostface, I think.
Only it was Halloween.
Who told me? I now know it's Michael
Myers, but I don't think people know the Michael Myers mask
is William Shatner. But there you go.
Bonus. There you go.
Tidbit of information for less.
Yeah, well, what I meant to say is, fall
is starting and we have one
final giveaway. It's giveaway time,
everybody.
As you know, we have been doing giveaways
since our hundredth episode. So all summer, we
gave away a, DCU Spec bundle,
a MCU Spec bundle,
a multiverse alternate universe
bundle, and now we have our signed book bundle,
which we sort of saved the best for last, if you like
signed books. I guess if you don't, this might not be the best for
last, but I'm pretty proud of what we assembled
together for people. So just to rattle
them off and we'll keep posting about them. And Rob will tell you in
just a moment how to win. But we have the
first issue of House of Slaughter, signed
by James Tinian. So, legendary,
queer horror writer James Tinian in
the world of Something is Killing the Children. So it's a huge
book anyway, and we've got it signed. We have
the X Deaths and a.
Kick ass female character, sorry, by the way, just to tie it.
Well, something's killing the children does. House of Slaughter is
not. But, we have X deaths of Wolverine from the X
Deaths X Lives event series. First issue, signed
by Benjamin Percy. We have Lazarus
planet. Revenge of the Gods. That is the
recent DCU event from last year that has
sparked tons of what we're seeing in DC right now, signed
by Simone Demeo. We have because we don't
want everything to be new, we have an
alias.
Alias.
That's Jessica Jones. Yes.
Alias. Signed by David Mack. The amazing artist and
co creator of Alias. David Mack. It's an issue
that's a little beat up and has seen better days, but who cares? If
you like David Mack and Jessica Jones, you'll want it on your wall,
we have the Odly pedestrian life of
Christopher Chaos, signed by not one,
not two, not three, but four
of the creators. So that is
huge. The foil cover, we have Blue Book number one, same,
also by James Tinian. We love his autograph,
and I have so many of them. Dark. Crisis
number one. Signed by Joshua Williamson. It's the
variant cover with John Kent, with Yara Floor,
with Lucius Fox, or Luke Fox, whoever that Batman
is. Signed by Joshua Williamson, architect of the
DC Universe and Dead Boy detectives.
Number one. This is still apparently coming
out as a TV series based on the Neil Gaiman property,
dead Boy Detectives. And this is signed by
this series creator,
Pornsak Pichetchot. I don't know if I'm saying
their name correctly, but they
have signed that book. So that
is for your enjoyment, for
your collection. Eight signed
books that we will send to you.
But how do you win? Well,
to enter, we're going to be crude because we want
to be more popular. Ed, you can
help. So this giveaway is going to the person
who posts about us. Tagging us on
any social media platform. So
Blue Sky,
MySpace friendster
x?
Not really, but we are on X. We are
on TikTok, we are on Blue Sky. We are
on Instagram. We are on Facebook.
Is that everything we're on? threads. The
other threads, that's the one. Okay, so if you
post it at us on any of those social media
networks, tag us, and with any single post
that gets the most likes
before October 1, we will
watch, every post. Tagging us on all those platforms. And if
yours is the most likes, these books are
coming your way.
Yes. So, less than a week to do that.
So get your fans out there to pay
attention to what we're doing with your post. And
again, your post with the most likes will end up with these
books. We might even throw another one or two in because
there are some signed books coming our way this week and
I couldn't control myself and just kept clicking
by. So maybe I'll throw one of those new,
autographs in there and it's a really good one, but we'll see
what happens. We'll see how many likes your posts
get, and then you'll find out if you're getting this bundle or
this bundle and then
some. So, dear Watchers, thank you
for listening. Thank you for entering our
giveaway. I have been the tomb raider.
Guido and I have been Rob.
The reading list is in the show notes. You can follow us on all those
social medias where you're tagging us at.
Dear watchers and leave a review wherever you listen
to podcasts. We'll be back soon with another trip through
the multiverse.
In the meantime, in the words of Watu, keep pondering
the.