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. And remember, you can always find us. To support us and see what we're doing over on our coffee page, visit dearwatchers.com and click join. For as little as a dollar a month, you can support what we do and we 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.