G.I. JOE: A REAL AMERICAN HERO/TOMB RAIDER #1 Review: Lara Croft Just Made Cobra Island Her Next Bad Decision

WEPA! THIS is how you do a crossover comic. No twenty-page dissertation explaining why two franchises belong together, no multiversal mumbo jumbo, no awkward handshake where everybody spends half the issue introducing themselves. G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero/Tomb Raider #1 puts Lara Croft on a collision course with Cobra Island, gives her an actual reason to be there, throws Shipwreck into the passenger seat, and gets this ride moving before anybody can ask whether the insurance covers archaeological warfare.

Kyle Higgins gets the biggest thing right immediately: Lara Croft does not feel like a guest star visiting somebody else’s comic. She belongs here. Her connection to Shipwreck gives the story an easy familiarity from the jump, and their back-and-forth has the kind of comfortable irritation you only get between two people who already know exactly how much nonsense the other one is capable of. Shipwreck brings his usual salty-dog swagger while Lara walks into the situation with that classic Croft mixture of confidence, curiosity and “yeah, I know this is probably going to get me shot at, but I’m going anyway.” My kind of people.

The mission revolves around a long-lost artifact connected to the Arbco Star and Lara’s old friend Emma Fairchild, a woman who disappeared while chasing something potentially capable of manipulating time. Now Destro is sniffing around the same mystery, Cobra Island may be sitting directly on top of the answer, and suddenly everybody has a reason to start loading magazines and checking climbing gear. Higgins folds the Tomb Raider mythology into the military espionage world of G.I. Joe without forcing it. Ancient artifact? Lara’s lane. Cobra trying to weaponize something nobody should touch? Absolutely Joe territory. Boom. Crossover justified.

What keeps the issue fun is how quickly it turns into an actual mission comic. Lara joins Shipwreck, Alpine, Hit & Run, Snake Eyes and the rest of the operation as the Joes work their way onto Cobra Island. There is tactical chatter, reconnaissance and enough military flavor to make longtime ARAH readers comfortable, but Higgins doesn’t let anybody stand around giving speeches while the engine idles. People talk while moving. Plans change. Personalities clash. Somebody inevitably has to improvise because, c’mon fam, this is Cobra Island. If the plan worked perfectly, we’d have ourselves a six-page comic and everybody would be home for dinner.

Lara also earns her seat at the table. I dug that a lot. She isn’t suddenly better at soldiering than the soldiers, and the Joes aren’t magically better at navigating ruins than one of fiction’s most famous archaeologists. Everybody brings something. When the terrain becomes the problem, Lara’s climbing ability, instincts and experience kick in. When Cobra forces show up, the Joes start handling business. The resulting action feels cooperative rather than competitive, which avoids that corny crossover habit where characters have to spend ten pages proving who could beat who in a fight. And yo, Elena Casagrande is cooking.

Her artwork gives this issue the velocity it needs. The quieter scenes with Lara and Shipwreck are expressive without becoming overly theatrical, and once everybody reaches the island, the body language tightens up immediately. Characters crouch, climb, swing, sneak and fight like people responding to physical terrain rather than action figures being repositioned between panels. The jungle sequences especially have good visual geography. You know where the characters are, where the threat is coming from and how somebody got from Point A to “Cobra dude just had the worst afternoon of his life.”

Casagrande’s Lara feels especially right. Athletic, dangerous, confident, but still human. Her movement incorporates ropes, climbing tools and environmental awareness instead of turning every encounter into generic gunplay. There’s a terrific sequence where she uses her gear during combat that instantly sells why bringing an archaeologist into a military operation isn’t nearly as crazy as it sounds. She fights like Lara Croft, not like somebody borrowed Snake Eyes’ moveset for the weekend.

Then you have Alex Guimarães laying down the atmosphere with those colors. Cobra Island lives in chilly blues, deep greens and nighttime shadows, giving the place this wonderfully hostile vibe before the fighting even begins. When Destro and Baroness enter the book, stronger reds and harder contrasts start creeping in, making their scenes feel almost poisonous compared with the jungle operation. The palette helps separate locations and moods without screaming for attention. Slick work.

Ya gotta give Pat Brosseau his flowers too. This book has a LOT going on verbally: mission briefings, location captions, tactical dialogue, character banter and exposition surrounding the artifact. Brosseau keeps everything readable and moving with the art instead of plastering balloons across Casagrande’s compositions. Lettering is one of those jobs people suddenly notice when it goes sideways. Here? Traffic moving smooth on the BQE at three in the morning, baby.

The Cobra side of the story is equally entertaining because Destro and Baroness are treated like legitimate threats instead of mustache-twirling interruptions between action scenes. Destro has bigger plans brewing, Baroness is immediately questioning what those plans mean, and their interest in whatever sits beneath Cobra Island adds some nasty momentum behind the mission. Once they discover Lara Croft herself is involved, the stakes feel like they shift another gear. Destro recognizing the Tomb Raider as a serious factor is a small touch, but it helps sell both characters.

The only real knock is that this is very clearly Chapter One. Higgins has to establish Lara’s history, Emma Fairchild, the artifact, Destro’s involvement, Cobra Island, the mission roster and how everybody connects, so a good chunk of the issue is setup. I never found it boring, but readers expecting Lara and Snake Eyes to immediately jump through a flaming helicopter while Cobra Commander fires a laser cannon at them might need to cool the jets. The payoff is coming. This first issue is loading the chamber. When the action finally kicks, it kicks clean, and the closing stretch leaves you wanting the next chapter rather than feeling like you just read an advertisement for it.

G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero/Tomb Raider #1 is a smart, energetic opening that understands exactly why this crossover should exist. Higgins finds the connective tissue, Casagrande delivers the action with style, Guimarães gives Cobra Island the atmosphere it deserves, and Brosseau makes a dialogue-heavy mission read effortlessly. Most importantly, Lara Croft never feels pasted onto a G.I. Joe comic just because somebody thought the cover would sell. She fits. And once Lara starts raiding Cobra Island alongside Shipwreck, Snake Eyes and company, you start wondering how the hell nobody thought of this sooner.

Knowing is half the battle. Apparently bringing Lara Croft is how you handle the other half!

CRUSADERS SCORE:
4.5/ 5

YO JOE! WEPA!

Writer: Kyle Higgins
Artist: Elena Casagrande
Colorist: Alex Guimarães
Letterer: Pat Brosseau
Publisher: Skybound / Image Comics