Review by Frank Plowright

Jeanette and Sarah are committed animal rights activists who believe in direct action. They break into facilities, destroy data servers and rescue any animals they can. However, during their current mission they access a secret basement lab to discover crazy hybrid animals. Genetic engineering is beyond their usual experience.

Matt Miner has a viable story to tell about real world issues, although they’re secondary to the action elements, and there’s much that’s good about Lab Raider within the action parameters. The leading cast members are credible, the mystery, discovery and consequences scenario plays out well, Miner keeps up a good pace and Jeanette and Sarah’s contrasting characters are natural, although Jeanette can be unconvincingly strident. On the down side while a linear production is hardly compulsory, the complications and flashbacks from the past are primarily conceived to break up a narrative on which they have little impact. The few necessary moments concern how Jeanette and Sarah behave, and didn’t need such extensive exposure.

Creees Lee – and, yes, that is the correct spelling – is an artist on the cusp of being very good. He varies his viewpoints to tell the story well, designs distinctive people and doesn’t take shortcuts when it comes to providing backgrounds. There’s improvement from the first chapter to the last, with Lee providing more interesting layouts and the movement loosening up.

Considering Lab Raider focuses on two people, why is the title singular? The story works up to a point, but having introduced the anomalous element, Miner doesn’t really exploit it, and until the final pages it serves to suck any tension out of the remainder as Jeanette and Sarah are practically beyond harm. The final sequence seems to restore the suspense, but it’s a false dawn and instead leads to an astonishingly rapid and uninspired ending.

Like this.