So I have a Matt Fraction story - he appeared at the 2013 Brisbane Writer's festival and I went along to his panel and got some Immortal Iron Fist and The Punisher signed by him.
I remember waiting for the panel to start and the panelists were talking and somehow Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Family comes up. I forget exactly if he remembered Phil and not Wold Newton or vice versa but I piped up with the missing piece.
It's not an interesting story and I had completely forgotten about it until I read the text pages at the back of Adventureman. Fraction mentions that Farmer's Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life was a major influence on this story.
Could I have helped inspire Adventureman? He mentions he got the idea in 2008 so no I didn't.
I haven't read a great deal of Fraction's work just the Punisher War Journal and Immortal Iron Fist but in Immortal Iron Fist we get the highly pulp inspired Iron Fist before Danny Rand - Orson Randall. Randall is an Iron Fist who uses dual chi pistols.
The short lived Iron Fist TV series had some awesome footage of Orson Randall and had Danny learn the gun trick in the last episode. (Iron Fist was the Netflix Marvel series that got better in the second season)
So when I read a preview which described Adventureman I was on board. The plot of a lost Pulp hero and a new sucessor to their title sounded interesting.
Fraction's stuff was okay and I like the Dodson's Red One, which has a Russian spy becoming an American superhero.
Great team, great concept - what more can you want?
Well a great execution obviously. So how did the execution go?
In effect Adventureman#1 is two comics, literally and figuratively. Literally as it's a double sized issue and figuratively because there are two stories happening here.
The first story and the first half is a classic "pulp" adventure for Adventureman and his team of assistants facing down an attack by Baron Bizarre and his Nazi Hell pirates. Adventureman tells his team that it's bad, so bad they all have to drink his super serum (shades of Simon Spectre). They fight the Baron and his evil team of associates. (which is a great idea)
There are grand fights and aerial adventures that would make Sky Captain happy (in fact I was waiting for him to turn up)
Adventureman is defeated and Baron Bizarre has a gun pointed at his head. Then we see the text of the last few paragraphs of the pulp novel which ends with:
"It was at long last, time for Adventureman to journey into the greatest unknown. He closed his eyes."
And we're told The End
Which leads us to the second story where Claire is reading the story to her son Tommy. I'll talk some more about that shortly but I have agree with Tommy here, What the Butts? What type of ending is that?
Now this is a story where we are told that Claire is part of Adventureman's legacy but EVIL wins in this story. Claire is supposed to be in the same world as Adventureman. But with Adventureman and his team deafeated and likely killed who stops the villians from destroying everything? or taking over the city.
It's a great cliffhanger but we're told that this is the end. There were no more adventures. Claire suggests that sometimes things just stop but that wasn't a stop that was meant to be a finale - if they went "come back next month to see if Adventureman excapes" and the publisher went bust I'd say that's ok but that isn't an ending.
I can't think of too many pulp and pulp-inspired series that end with the death (real or implied) in such a fashion. The Lone Wolf by Mike Barry (Barry N. Malzberg), Adrian Chase The Vigilante series both ended with their deaths (Chase is one of the few comic characters who have not come back from the dead)
Let's move onto Claire's story. Claire finishes reading the book, her son Tommy goes off that it's a bad ending.
We discover that Claire wears hearing aids and she settles in for a quiet night reading. She then mentions that she also turns them off at the noisy weekly extended Connell family dinner with her father, her son and six sisters. The sisters all appear to be multiple races which confused me (the back matter explains that Claire is one of seven adopted sisters - but that wasn't clear from the story)
The six sisters are all high achievers leading eventful single lives (at least there is no indication that they have partners or children) Claire just lives a quiet life running her mother's bookstore. There is a hint that she lead a more active life but that appeared to before she had Tommy and is implied before she lost her hearing.
At the store, she finds a mysterious customer when a mysterious woman leaves an Adventureman concordance. The woman runs out the back and hops into the coolest car I've seen in some time, followed by a man made out of bugs. The woman has Adventureman's logo on the palm of her glove.
Claire shows Tommy who says that their house and Hi-Brow make a triangle - uh that's only two points, then he draws an Adventureman logo on the book on three points.
Claire sends Tommy to bed and turns off the lights and heads to bed and swarm of insects cover her house and appear to turn on a spotlight or something.
The endings are a weakness. There's nothing in Claire's world that suggests that Adventureman really existed before especially with the apocalytic ending to Adventureman's story. The fact that the Connells are a mixed race family tells me that the Nazis didn't win and create a racial purity law. So what was Baron Bizzare after?
Yet despite these issues I loved this story and I'm keen to see where issue 2 and beyond lead to.
Much like my Tomb Raider timeline, this is intended to put all of the Uncharted franchise into one timeline. This is made much easier in that there is much less material than Tomb Raider has generated and no reboots.
There is a rather comprehensive timeline I found at the Uncharted Wiki but it didn’t have everything and I didn’t necessarily agree with all the dates but it’s a very good and detailed.
I’ll likely do a new version of this once the Uncharted movie starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg comes out along with any ancillary material.
Like Tomb Raider I am excluding fan works, but I am making one exception – the Uncharted Live Action Fan Film starring Nathan Fillion as Nathan Drake and Steven Lang as Sully. My timeline, my call.
THE TIMELINE
1988
Chapter 1 Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – Nathan, along with his other brother Sam, escape from the orphange.
2000
Chapter 3 Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – Nathan is working with Sam and Sam is presumed dead.
2004
Uncharted (Comic)
2005
Uncharted: Golden Abyss (game).
“Through Panama by Elena Fisher” (Youtube Video)
2006
Uncharted: Drake’s Trail (game)
Uncharted: The Eye of Indra (Motion comic)
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (Motion Comic)
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (Game)
2008
Uncharted: Fortune Favors the Bold (Commercial)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (Game)
Uncharted: Breaking and Entering (Youtube Video)
(Technically the proper name is Uncharted Live Action Fan Film but the shooting title was Breaking and Entering, I decided to run with that.)
2009
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (Game)
Uncharted: The Fourth Labyrinth (novel)
Uncharted: Fight for Fortune (Game)
2012
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (Game) Uncharted: Fortune Hunter (Game)
2016
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (Game)
Uncharted Media
Playstation Games
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (2007)
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009)
Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (2011)
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (2013)
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (2017) PlayStation Game
Nathan Drake also appears in Playstation All Stars Battle Royale (2012) but this games does not appear to fit Uncharted contiunity.
Playstation Vita Games
Uncharted: Golden Abyss (2012)
Uncharted: Fight for Fortune (2012)
Online Game
Uncharted: Drake’s Trail (2007)
Mobile Game
Uncharted: Fortune Hunter (2016)
Motion Comics
Uncharted: The Eye of Indra (2009)
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (2007)
Commercials
Uncharted: Fortune Favors the Bold (Toyota Commercial)
Comic Book
Uncharted (2011)
Novel
Uncharted: The Fourth Labyrinth (2011)
Youtube Videos
“Through Panama by Elena Fisher” (2007)
This Chinese/Australian co-productions is also known as The Nest, Tomb of the Mummy and 7 Guardians of the Tomb. My copy is Guardians of the Tomb so I'm going to run with that.
I saw the trailer for this a couple of years back and thought that looks like a fun romp.
I kept an eye out for it but never found it. Then I tune into FBI:Most Wanted and see Kellan Lutz and remembered he was in this. So I bit the bullet and bought a copy.
The beginning is a little middled with flashbacks and references that don't quite make sense but most thing things were explained/resolved by the end of the film.
The movie opens with a shadow puppet story of a Chinese delegation meeting with Australian Aborgines.
Then we jump to the present day when two researchers discover a tunnel in China. They had been sent on the mission by Mason (Grammer),, a wealthy industrialist.
Mason then seeks out Jai (Li) who is the sister of one of the researchers. We dscover that there is history with Mason and the researchers are now missing. The pair set out to the last known location where they meet the rest of the team including Jack Ridley (Lutz) and Gary (Shane Jacobson). Ridley is a first responder with a tragic history that he won't talk about.
The team heads towards the GPS signal from the missing team but have to take cover from a sandstorm in a deserted house. All the occupants are dead except for a teenage girl and a heap of spiders. The team heads into the basement which is an access point to the tunnels.
The team loses members to spider bites, one of whom takes a swan dive into a lava pool covered in spiders.
We discover that the spiders are funnel web spiders that had been imported to China by the delegation at the start of the movie at the behest of the Emperor. These spiders had been bred to be more aggressive and poisonous - because that's what you do for poisonous spiders - to have them produce a enzyme that prolongs the life of the Emperor.
The spider's eventually escaped and killed the Emperor in his tomb which is in the tunnels that the expedition is in now.
This is a solid B movie, with no real surprises. Mason is the bad guy (because the wealthy industrialist is always the villian) . Ridley reveals his tragic backstory to bolster the troops when all seems lost.
In enjoyed the hell out of this movie it really put me in mind of Congo (another movie/novel I'll have to revisit soon) with a lashing of Arachnaphobia and a pinch of Indiana Jones/The Mummy.
For me Shane Jacobson's Gary stole the movie with his Aussie attiude and comebacks "these are 2017 spiders they follow each other on instagram" were a highlight, I don't know if his lines were scripted or if he improvised them but he stole every scene.
If there was one downside it was the last few seconds - it seemed like they tried introduce a twist/sequel hook in that wasn't needed and really just raised more questions and detracted from the movie.
The intention of this timeline is to work much of the Tomb Raider Franchise into one cohesive timeline. I am limiting this to event in Lara Croft’s life so no expansions on the history of the artefacts she finds. I am working on the assumption that the new “Survivor” game continuity is a prequel to the earlier games and that the “Legend” games are also part of this continuity. Any speculation on my part to explain any discrepancies will be clearly indicated.
There have been three games called Tomb Raider the 1996 original, the 2000 Gameboy game and the 2013 reboot. I will be referring to the games as Tomb Raider followed by their year. The 2018 movie will be referred to as Tomb Raider 2018.
Other adventures will be referred to by their subtitles as we know they are Tomb Raider products. I will also be referring to the source for each entry and the media type (So the novel Tomb Raider: The Lost Cult will be referred to as The Lost Cult (novel))
I won’t be including fan productions as much as I have enjoyed many of them. I also won’t incorporating references to Lara Croft (in Rob Hayes Adventures Rob tells a female friend she is not Lara Croft) or characters dressing as Lara Croft (Ally McBeal, Looney Tunes, Dexter, How I met Your Mother.) The holographic projection of Lara in an episode of Totally Spies is also excluded.
I’m excluding advertisements that treat Tomb Raider as just a game for example one of the later Lucozade commercials has Lara drinking a Lucozade while the game is paused.
What’s new?
Since I did the original back in 2017, Dark Horse released the two four issue miniseries Survivor’s Quest and Inferno, there was a new game Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and a tie-in novel Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Path of the Apocalypse. There was a new movie starring Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft.
This time I've decided just to list the games and not the expansion levels - the timeline is very long and Shadow of the Tomb Raider had seven DLC levels and they are effectively part of the games.
I did a deep dive into the Top Cow Tomb Raider comics including the appearances in other Top Cow titles. I was never happy with the original placement of the comics and I did a bit more moving things around. The biggest move was for Tomb Raider Journeys, the 12 issue series instead of taking place near the time of publication in 2001 was moved to 1994, a year that had very few adventures – which actually worked much better as issue 5 had Lara’s ten year high school reunion which would have been in 1994.
I didn’t realise that there were 3 different Tomb Raider/Witchblade titles only having one in the original timeline, I also had Dark Crossings and Monster War as one shots when there were two and four issues respectively in those miniseries.
To my eternal shame, I realised that I had forgotten U2’s Elevation video clip from the movie soundtrack in the original timeline, that has been fixed. As far as I can tell none of the songs from that soundtrack had a Lara Croft video clip.
Timeline
14 Feb 1968
Lara Croft born to Lord Richard Croft and Amelia Croft (Core Design Bio) (Legend - Game)
1977
Lady Amelia Croft and Lara are in a plane crash. Amelia disappears and Lara walks out (Legend –game)
1979 - 1984
Wimbledon High School for Girls ages 11-16 (Core Bio)
1980
“Pre-Teen Raider” (Re/Visioned animation) (Gail Simone advises that Lara is about 12) Lara is a student at Croft Academy.
Speculationon: It may be that Lara was expelled after this exploit and moved to Wimbledon High School for Girls.
1984
Lara graduates Chesterfield Private Academy (Journeys 5)
Speculation: The book says class of 1992, this must be an error as Lara was 24 at that time. Chesterfield is a co-ed school so it cannot be Wimbledon School for Girls. It seems likely that Lara went to multiple schools and the Core Bio simplified her academic history.
Training with Von Croy in Ankor Wat (The Last Revelation –Game)
“Black Isle” (Chronicles Game)
1985
Lord Richard Croft dies (differing accounts are given in Rise of the Tomb Raider– Game, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – Movie and Legend –Game)
(The 2018 Tomb Raider movie has Lord Richard presumed dead and does not die until the events of that movie)
Speculation Lara is adopted by her uncle Lord Henshingly Croft and his wife. Neither are fans of Lara adventuring and try to mould her into a proper lady. The adoption explains why in 1996 her father is listed as Henshingly Croft in the first game.
1984-1987
Gordonstoun Boarding School ages 16-18
1987-1989
Swiss Finishing School ages 18-21
1989
Plane crash 21 year old Lara is only survivor (Core Bio)
1990
Excavation Massacre (Legend – Game)
The Beginning (Dark Horse Comic)
Tomb Raider 2013 (game)
Speculation: The Tomb Raider 2018 (movie) – could be viewed as a simplified version of this game but I’ve gone with a different interpretation and placed it after Shadow of the Tomb Raider. YMMV. (Basically the movie is too different from the game to be an adaptation of the game but has enough elements from the game to make it hard for it to be its own story and to make it work either way requires a fair amount of damage to the movie))
The Ten Thousand Immortals (novel)
Season of the Witch (Dark Horse Comic 1-6)
1991
Secrets and Lies (Dark Horse Comic 7-12)
Queen of Snakes (Dark Horse Comic 13-18)
1992
Rise of the Tomb Raider (Game)
Spore (Dark Horse Comic 1-6)
Speculation: Spore features a 1996 flashback this must be a 1976 flashback.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Path of Apocalyse (Novel)
This is a novelisation of the early part of the Shadow of the Tomb Raider Game.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Game)
Tomb Raider (2018) (Movie)
Speculation: After the apocalyptic events of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara temporarily retires from tomb raiding and becomes a cycle courier before being drawn into a mystery about her father’s death which ends with her buying her trademark weapons. The movie uses some elements of the 2013 game but is a different adventure. (Basically the movie is too different from the game to be an adaptation of the game but has enough elements from the game to make it hard for it to be its own story and to make it work either way requires a fair amount of damage to the movie)
1994
Tomb Raider Journeys 1-7 (comic)
Finds Bigfoot (Tomb Raider 1996 – Game)
Tomb Raider Journeys 8-12
Finds Ark of the Covenant (Tomb Raider 1996 - Game)
1995
Mean Machines (comic)
Philosopher’s Stone (Chronicles – Game)
1996
Tomb Raider 1996 & Anniversary (Games)
1997
Vendetta (Tomb Raider/Witchblade 1 - comic)
Witchblade/Tomb Raider ½ (Comic)
This comic is a sequel to Vendetta.
Tomb Raider II (Game)
Tomb Raider/Witchblade (Top Cow Comic)
Lucozade (commercials) (the last commercial is not counted)
The Resurrection of Taras (Fathom 12-14, Fathom Crossover Tour Book – Comic)
(The Crossover Tour book seems to be set during the events of issue 13 – and is five page story where Aspen recaps the first issue. The artwork does not appear in the three issues. There is also a three page bit where we see a drawing of each of ladies in the story Aspen Matthews, Lara Croft and Sara Pezzinni and a paragraph from the other two characters about that character.)
Dead Centre 7-10 (comic)
2000
The Tomb Raider Technical Manual (Book)
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Movie + Novelisation)
U2 “Elevation” (Music Video)
Tomb Raider/The Darkness 1 (Comic)
Chasing Shangri-La 11-12 (comic)
Grim Reaper 13-15 (Comic)
Tomb Raider 0 (Comic)
2001
Pieces of Zero 16-17, 19-20 (Comic)
Year of the Cat 18 (Comic)
Curse of the Sword (Game)
The Trap: Path of the Tiger 21-23 (Comic)
Scarface’s Treasure (Comic)
Medusa’s Garden 24 (Comic)
2002
The Prophecy (Game)
The Osiris Codex (Game)
The Quest for Cinnabar (Game)
The Elixir of Life (Game)
Endgame (Tomb Raider 25, Witchblade 60, EVO 1 – Comic)
Abyss 26-28 (comic)
Strange Flesh 29- 30 (Comic)
Tomb Raider: Apocalypse (Game)
2003
Conquista 31 (comic)
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider The Cradle of Life (Movie + Novelisation)
Tomb Raider Angel of Darkness (Game)
(The Action Adventure/The Board Game/Flash Game versions and comic adaptation issues 32-34)
Epiphany (Top Cow comic One Shot)
Black Legion 35-37 (Comic)
G4 – (Commercial)
Visa - Monster Chase (Commercial)
The Lost Cult (novel)
The Man of Bronze (novel)
2004
Sphere of Influence (comic)
Takeover (comic)
Bloodstone 38-39 (Comic)
Risen 40 (Comic)
Spirit Walker 41-42 (Comic)
Arabian Nights (Comic)
Tower of Souls 43-44 (Comic)
Signs and Portents - Witchblade 78 (Comic)
Inner Demons 45 (Comic)
Gathering Storm 46-48 (Comic)
2005
Vendetta 49 (Comic)
Alpha/Omega 50 (Comic)
In this comic Lara finds the Fountain of Youth and is seen adventuring into the far future.
Monster War (comic 1-4)
The Greatest Treasure of All (comic)
2006
Legend (game)
The Reckoning (game)
Puzzle Paradox (Game)
2007
The Keys to the Kingdom (3 Parts) (Re/visioned Animation)
Revenge of the Aztec Mummy (Re/Visioned Animation)
Angel Spit (2 Parts)( Re/Visioned Animation)
Lara Croft Legacy (Re/Visioned Animation)
Raising Thermopolis (Re/Visioned Animation)
A Complicated Woman (Re/Visioned Animation)
2008
Tomb Raider Underworld (Game - also has a board game)
2010
Lara Croft and Guardian of Light (game)
2013
Lara Croft Reflections Card Game (Game)
2014
Lara Croft and Temple of Osiris (Game)
2015
Lara Croft Relic Run (game)
Lara Croft Go (Game)
Lara Croft and the Frozen Omen (comic)
2016
Lara Croft and the Blade of Gwynnever (novel)
TOMB RAIDER MEDIA ITEMS
Games
The Core Series –Original Timeline
Tomb Raider 1996
Tomb Raider II 1997
Tomb Raider III 1998
Tomb Raider: The Times Exclusive 1999
Tomb Raider the Last Revelation 1999
The Tomb Raider Chronicles 2000
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness 2003
(The Action Adventure/The Board Game/Flash Game versions and comic adaptation)
Mobile Phone Games
Tomb Raider: The Osiris Codex 2003
Tomb Raider: The Quest for Cinnabar 2003
Tomb Raider: The Elixir of Life 2003
Tomb Raider: Puzzle Paradox 2006
Lara Croft Reflections 2014
Lara Croft Relic Run 2015
Lara Croft Go 2015
Board Games
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness 2003
Tomb Raider: Underworld 2009
DVD Game
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Action Adventure 2006
(adaptation of Angel of Darkness)
Flash Game
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness 2004
Books
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Tech manual by Michael Jan Friedman 2001
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider Movie Novelisation by Dave Stern 2001
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life Novelisation by Dave Stern 2003
Tomb Raider The Amulet of Power by Mike Resnick 2003
Tomb Raider The Lost Cult by E.E. Knight 2004
Tomb Raider The Man of Bronze by James Alan Gardner 2005
The Ten Thousand Immortals by Dan Abnett & Nik Vincent 2014
The Blade of Gwynnver by Dan Abnett & Nik Vincent 2016
Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Path of the Apocalypse by S.D Perry 2018
(Fun fact S.D. Perry is the daughter of Steve Perry who wrote Indiana Jones and The Army of the Dead)
Short Stories
“Tibet Air” in Lara’s Book: Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider Phenomenon by Douglas Coupland 1998 (reprinted in Tomb Raider Archives Vol 3.
Re/Visioned 2007
The Keys to the Kingdom (3 Parts)
Revenge of the Aztec Mummy (1 part)
Angel Spit (2 Parts)
Lara Croft Legacy (1 part)
Pre Teen Raider (1 part)
Raising Thermopolis (1 part)
A Complicated Woman (1 part)
Comics
Mean Machine Sega #46 (reprinted in Tomb Raider Archives Vol 1)
Untitled story that I called “Mean Machine” predate the release of the first game
Glenat
Dark Aeons 1999
Top Cow Comics
Top Cow
Crossovers
Tomb Raider/ Witchblade 1997
Witchblade Tomb Raider ½ 2000
Witchblade/Tomb Raider 1 1998
(Tales of the Witchblade 9 is a follow up to this story -while Lara appears on the cover she does not appear in the story)
Dark Crossings: Dark Clouds Rising 2000
Dark Crossings: Dark Clouds Overhead 2000
Fathom the Resurrection of Taras 12-14 2000-2002, Fathom The Crossover Tourbook 2000
Tomb Raider The Darkness 2001
Top Cow Book of Revelations 2003
Monster War 2005
1 Magdalena vs Dracula
2 Tomb Raider vs The Wolf-Men
3 Witchblade vs Frankenstein
4 The Darkness vs Mr Hyde
Tomb Raider 25 (Endgame part 1)
Witchblade 60 (Endgame part 2)
EVO 1 (Endgame part 3)
Witchblade 78 (Lara cameo)
Witchblade 84 (Witchblade lists Lara as a friend and an image of Lara appears)
1999-2005 Tomb Raider Series
The Medusa Mask 1-4
Merlin Stone 5-6
Dead Centre 7-10
Chasing Shangri-La 11-12
Grim Reaper 13-15
Pieces of Zero 16-17, 19-20
Year of the Cat 18
The Trap: The Path of The Tiger 21-23
Medusa’s Garden 24
Endgame 25 (Crossover with Witchblade #60/EVO #1)
Abyss 26-28
Strange Flesh 29-30
Conquista 31
The Angel of Darkness 32-34 (Comic Adaptation of Game)
The Black Legion 35-37
Bloodstone 38-39
Risen 40
Spirit Walker 41-42
Tower of Souls 43-44
Inner Demons 45
Gathering Storm 46-48
Vendetta 49
Alpha/Omega 50
Tomb Raider Journeys 1-12 2001-2003
Top Cow One Shots
Tomb Raider Origins 2000
Scarface’s Treasure 2003
Epiphany 2003 (AOD tie-in)
Takeover 2004
Sphere of Influence 2004
Arabian Knights 2004
The Greatest Treasure of All 2005
Dark Horse Comics
The Beginning 2013 (Digital only)
Tomb Raider
Season of the Witch 1-6
Secrets and Lies 7-12
Queen of Serpents 13-18
Lara Croft and the Frozen Omen 1-5
Tomb Raider II
Spore 1-6
Trials and Sacrifice 7-12
It's funny what I know about video games is really small. The family Playstation serves mostly as a glorified blu ray player for me. (with a lot of "what do these blasted buttons do?" if I try to pause.)
Yet there are two video game franchises that I absolutely love - not surprisingly Tomb Raider and Uncharted. I cannot play the games to save my life but I love their expanded universes - not surprisingly they both are "descendants" of Indiana Jones.
This was initially just going to celebrate the catching up with Tomb Raider but I hadn't really talked about Uncharted that much and there wasn't enough Uncharted material to justify it's own post (but I have notes for an Uncharted timeline similar to what I did for Tomb Raider. I'll have to get back to that.)
I've been collecting now for a long time - nearly forty years. Series and franchses went in and out of favour. It's easier to collect things as they come out - I jumped on the extended Uncharted material as it came out. One novel and a six issue miniseries and I'll get the associated material for the Tom Holland/ Mark Walhberg movie assuming they make it before Tom Holland looks old enough to play Sully. (although I hear it or Spiderman 3 are his next films once the virus allows filming to start again)
Tomb Raider pretty much captivated me from 1997 when I first heard about her. I admit we got a PC version of the first game and I could not play it to save myself but the character was interesting.
I saw the first movie in the cinema when we lived in Emerald, a city in the Outback. I got the novelisation, and the technical manual which came out then, the book store could order things for me.
I also got the Tomb Raider Magazine in the newsagents that reprinted the Top Cow Comics from issue 5 and none of the crossovers with other Top Cow characters. By the final couple of issues Lara was sharing her magazine with Aphrodite IX. There were no comic shops in Emerald and buying things on the internet wasn't really a thing then.
I remember trying to get the Tomb Raider action figure from the Emerald Toyworld and they just flatout refused to order it or even aknowledge it was a thing. My wife rang the Toyworld in Rockhampton (three hours east of Emerald and the closest town) and bought it for me over the phone with the credit card and they posted it out to us.
By the time the sequel to the movie came out we had moved back to Ipswich and could get to the comic shops in Brisbane. I saw Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life in the cinema in Ipswich and bought the novelisation.
Then they brought out the first three novels The Amulet of Power, The Lost Cult and The Man of Bronze. SOOOOO good with references and easter eggs galore.
The Top Cow Tomb Raider comics were a little more elusive and trying to buy the back issues was difficult. I eventually got the bulk of them when Dark Horse did the Archives in 4 volumes that reprinted the issues 1-24, 26-50, the 12 issue Journeys and the various one shots. issue 25 was a crossover with EVO and Witchblade and wasn't included.
I also bought the new comics that Dark Horse printed to tie in with the 2013 reboot game and the 20th anniversary of the original game in 2016.
But I wanted those Top Cow comics - I found a list and started working my way through it. Ebay and comic shops selling on line have been a godsend.
I thought I had most of them only discover that there were two one shots that had not been reprinted in the archives. Top Cow had done two books for Dynamic Forces - Scarface's Treasure and Sphere of Influence. Both were bought fairly soon thereafter. I discovered the French comic Dark Aeons and grabbed it too (sadly there is no English edition but I found a translation on line)
Then last week , it arrived the final two books I needed to finish off the Tomb Raider comics - the two issue event Dark Crossings.
I enjoyed both these series - Uncharted is fun and Tomb Raider is just solid action adventure. It was a fun hunt to chase these books down, discovering new appearances and false leads. I may have to revisist my Tomb Raider timeline to include the books I wasn't aware of at the time I wrote it.
Last year I wrote a review of Mark Millar's Prodigy, which I really enjoyed.
I was looking at the comments for that post and Alan Blank posted his review of the series on Goodreads which can be found here
In that review he mentions Simon Spector, a character I'd never heard of - a modern pulp character I'd never heard of. Naturally, this was something that had to be rectified.
Simon Spector was part of Ellis' Apparat line for Avatar Comics. The quick version is Ellis had a thought experiment - what if the pulp influence on comics was a little stronger and superheroes hadn't been as dominant. What might comics of various pulp genres look like? Science Fiction adventure, detective stories, aviator adventures and pulp vigilantes were the four genres picked and Angel Stomp Future, Frank Ironwine, Quit City and Simon Spector were the results.
Four one shots - it sounded intriguing. If I could find Simon Spector I wasn't off on a long term quest it was one and done. If I liked it then there were three more of similar style to track down.
And I found a reasonably priced copy and promptly bought it.
In the back of the book, Ellis talks of his inspiration for the line and this book in particular. How he would read Doc Savage, The Shadow and The Spider and speculate about the pharmacutical assistance these heroes must have.
It's an interesting idea, not one I'd be keen to see used for a proper Doc Savage or Shadow adventure but intriguing.
In fact now that I think about it, Ellis is running not quite in the same groove as Philip Jose Farmer in A Feast Unknown but a parallel track. Farmer isn't mentioned in his essay but ......
Simon Spector is a modern day riff on Doc Savage. He operates out what appears to be the spire at the top of the Chrysler Building.
The story opens when a woman comes to Spector's office telling about her kidnapped husband who works for a weapons manufacturer. She mentions that one of the kidnappers was named Cristos.
Cristos we discover is Spector's archenemy who was believed dead (first villian rule - if you don't see a body they are not dead) when the plane which he was locked in the cockpit crashed.
Spector takes a pill that effectively speeds up his brain (Not unlike NZT in Limitless movie and TV series and the drug in Lucy) There's a nice five page sequence after he takes the pill, where he asks for the lady's address and through deduction and knowledge of Cristos' MO is able to determine the villian's lair.
Spector grabs his custom made weapons (because a number of pulp vigilantes had custom made weapons) made with his parent's wedding rings.
He then makes his way to the hideout, where he battles Cristos.
There's a surprise or two in the confrontation that I won't spoil.
I really loved this book - it was perfectly self contained giving us everything we need to know about Simon Spector yet also managing to tantalise us with hints of a larger story. We don't know what happened to his parents, the nature of his earlier encounters with Cristos, what other villians has he faced, does he always need the tablets? Where did he meet his bodyguard and his doctor? Is Simon Spector his real name?
You could write a whole series of hundreds of adventures with this character and yet in this single adventure we know all that we need.
This was a really good comic I enjoyed it immensely. I'll have to see if I can find the other three Apparat books.
In season 2 of Agent Carter episode 4 "Smoke and Mirrors" we see some of Peggy Carter's life before the events of Captain America: The First Avenger. She's engaged to be married and breaking codes at Bletchley House. She gets the offer to join SOE (Special Operations Executive) an offer she originally refuses but eventually takes ending her engagement. The rest for her is history, working with SSR and later SHIELD.
Airing before Agent Carter on BBC, The Bletchley Circle shows us what Peggy Carter's life might have been like had she not taken the SOE job - a civilian life as a housewife who can't even tell her husband what she did in the war.
This is the case for Susan Gray (Anna Maxwell-Martin who played Elizabeth Darcy in Death Comes to Pemberley). It's 1952 and she's following a series of murders in the news and notices that the killer has a pattern but there is a gap, possibly a missing vicitim.
Her husband served with a Scotland Yard Commissioner and he gets her an interview. While she can't reveal her history, the commissioner is able to guess at her history. The police search where her pattern suggests the body may be but they come up empty handed. But Susan can't leave it alone and calls in several of her old colleagues from Bletchley House to help her. Lucy (Sophie Rundle), Jean McBrian (Julie Graham) and Millie Harcourt (Rachel Stirling) all pitch in and help solve the mystery. This mystery is the three episode first season.
The second season of four episodes has the circle working to clear Alice Merren, another Bletchley alum, from a murder charge at the end of that case Susan leaves to join her husband in the Foreign Service. Alice then joins the circle for their next mystery when Millie is kidnapped.
The show was then revived for an American spinoff - with Jean and Millie heading to San Francisco when they hear about a murder in that city that has several similiarities to a murder during their Bletchley days. In San Francisco, they track down some of their American counterparts from the Presidio, Iris Bearden (Crystal Balint) and Hailey Yarner (Chanelle Peloso) and try to find the killer. The eight episodes had the new circle solving four cases. Reportedly we are getting a new season this year.
I'd heard of both shows but when they originally aired, I must have missed them. But I decided to watch them when they turned up on Netflix and enjoyed both shows.
Rachel Stirling's Millie Harcourt was a standout for me reminding me somewhat of Miss Fisher. I thought that the actress looked familiar but couldn't find anything in her filmography that I had seen but was pleasantly surprised to find that she was the daughter of Dame Diana Rigg, Mrs Peel herself.
I'm glad this turned up on Netflix and was an enjoyable watch, I found that San Francisco could get a little preachy but I still look forward to further seasons, who knows maybe they can get Hayley Atwell for a cameo.
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