Megababe Lara Croft is returning to the printed page after an eight-year hiatus in ‘Tomb Raider: The Beginning’, written by Rhianna Pratchett and illustrated by Nicolas Daniel Selma and Andrea Mutti.

Video game publisher Square Enix is dangling the prequel's first part as a pre-order bonus through selected retailers, with a retail debut for the new series promised post-launch.

Comic author Rhianna Pratchett, daughter of fantasy author Terry Pratchett, has established herself as a scribe in her own right, credited for storyline work on Heavenly Sword and Mirrors Edge among others.

In Tomb Raider: The Beginning, she explores life before the video game's shipwreck: celebrity TV archaeologist James Whitman joins forces with the ominously named Captain Conrad Roth, and trouble brews for crew and passengers long before their shipwreck on a hostile island a million miles from home.

Four non-sequential pages from Tomb Raider: The Beginning are available to view at facebook.com/tombraider (login required).