"He who removes the amulet shall once more release the dark power of Set. And Set sayeth: 'I am the shadow across the sun. I am the bringer of plagues. My wrath will consume all lands and shall be ceaseless.'"
—Semerkhet, on Set, The Last Revelation
In her search for various artifacts, Lara Croft has explored many ancient sites, and through her adventures, she has faced many evil gods and horrific people who threatened the world. Here are the worst.
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Original Timeline
- Tomb Raider (1996): Jacqueline Natla was one of the three ruling leaders of Atlantis who, seeing them as weak, used the power of the Scion to warp countless innocents into feral mutants before being sealed away. Freed from a bomb test, Natla tasks Lara Croft with recovering the Scion, while having one of her goons trail her and kill her. Acquiring all the pieces of the Scion, Natla uses an old Atlantean outpost as a breeding factory for mutants, intending on unleashing them on mankind. Viewing evolution as "in a rut", Natla's ambitions reflect her megalomaniacal desire to cull who she deems as weak.
- Tomb Raider III: Sophia Leigh is a obsessively vain woman who had obtained the Eye of Isis in Victorian times. To remain immortal and youthful over the years, Sophia would hire homeless people to work for her, later subjecting them to cruel experiments. The aftermath of the experiments would leave them immortal but decaying in which Sophia would then dump them into the sewers of London and keep the best results for herself. Seemingly killed off, Sophia returns in The Lost Artifact, where she steals the Hand of Rathmore and uses its highly volatile properties to experiment on people in an underwater facility.
- The Last Revelation: Set is an Egyptian God of Evil and God of Chaos, who swore vengeance upon the world when he was imprisoned by his nephew Horus. Upon getting released, Set uses his powers to release various monsters across the land and possesses the body of Lara Croft's former mentor, Werner Von Croy. Leading his monsters to attack the city of Cairo, resulting in it turning into a lifeless warzone and its military getting slaughtered, Set tries to stop Lara Croft from thwarting his plans to "violate the Earth" and intends to spread his plagues across the world.
- The Angel of Darkness:
- Pieter Van Eckhardt is the founder of "The Cabal" and a centuries-old alchemist, who desires to recreate the Nephilim to bring the world to ruins. Becoming enemies with the ancient order of monks Lux Veritatis, Eckhardt swore to kill them all after they imprisoned him for many years. Getting free, Eckhardt goes on a killing spree, killing numerous people to get their body parts so he could use them for his experiments in resurrecting Nephilim. Burning an unlucky reporter alive and slaughtering Bouchard's gang, leaving one survivor in a Body Horror situation, Eckhardt gets rid of most of his accomplices one by one, first by throwing one into a monstrous "pod" to be turned into a mindless monster, another by feeding him to said monster. Hell-bent on unleashing Nephilim upon the world, Eckhardt believes that it is his destiny to "breed Hell on Earth".
- Kristina Boaz is the Head of Corrective and Remedial Surgery at the Strahov Psychiatric Institute in Prague and one of the members of the Cabal. Using her position, Boaz performed numerous brutal experiments on several people, reducing them to barely-sapient broken "animals" who attack anything they see. After creating a Proto-Nephilim, when she was ordered to destroy it, Boaz decided to keep it to herself and feed innocent people to it.
Legend Timeline
- Jacqueline Natla, even crueler than her original counterpart, is the true Big Bad of this continuity. Originally part of the ruling council of Atlantis, Natla attempted a coup against her fellow rulers to become the sole authority, though was stopped and sealed away for her crime, she did manage to cause the destruction of Atlantis civilization. Freed by a nuclear test at the end of World War II, Natla manipulates Lara into helping her collect pieces of a powerful Atlantean device. Betraying and trying to kill Lara after she's completed her task, Natla intends to create an army of monsters with which to conquer the world. Returning in Underworld, Natla is revealed to be the mastermind behind the actions of Amanda Evert, and manipulates both her and Lara and sends a doppelgänger of Lara to her mansion, killing Lara's friend and setting the mansion ablaze in the process. When Lara tries to take revenge on Natla, the latter strings her along by promising to help her free her mother and orders the doppelgänger to kill Amanda, no longer seeing her as useful. Revealing Lara's mother to be dead and mockingly revealing she personally killed her father, Natla unveils her goal to be to release the Midgard Serpent to destroy Earth. Even while dying, Natla spitefully orders the doppelgänger to kill Lara and then herself, bitter to the end.
- Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris: Set is once again depicted as the Egyptian God of Evil. Jealous of his brother Osiris, Set killed him, and when Osiris's wife, Isis, brought him back long enough to conceive a son, Horus, Set killed him again and cut his body apart, scattering the pieces across the land. Taking control of Egypt, Set imprisoned Isis and Horus, but soon ventured into Duat in search of greater power, only to get lost there. Torturing a benevolent god, Khepri, and reducing him into his mindless slave, Set soon managed to find a trail back into the world, and when Lara Croft and Carter Bell released Isis and Horus and begin fighting him, Set enslaved and corrupted the souls of many innocent people in Duat to serve as his soldiers against them. Trying to unleash an endless rain and endless cold upon the world, Set desired to devour all of creation, until he alone will be the center of all things.
- Lara Croft and the Frozen Omen, written by Corinna Bechko: The demon simply known as the Unnameable was once a member of the ancient shadow walkers that lived on the Earth. Upon possessing a human, the Unnameable develops an intelligence and an ambition that motivates it to try and scour the Earth of all life to remake it as a hellish world of rock and fire populated solely by demons in his likeness. Stopped by the Ice Age and putting pieces of himself into ivory statuettes, the Unnameable resurfaces, and, possessing a politician named Mr. Green, immediately begins corralling the pieces back to him, leading to the unwilling possession and death of many people. When nearly complete, the Unnameable scorches the surrounding area to a flaming crisp and burns alive the first man who tries to stop him in his crusade to take over the planet.
Survivor Timeline
- Tomb Raider (2013) has the Big Bad Duumvirate:
- Himiko, the Sun Queen of Yamatai, extended her rule for centuries by possessing numerous women. When her latest sacrifice kills herself, Himiko brings a curse upon Yamatai, resulting in all her subjects dying and her soldiers transformed into her immortal slaves. She would also create storms to entrap hundreds of people into her cursed island; among these people includes the below-mentioned Mathias who she convinces to bring Samantha "Sam" Nishimura for her to possess. Though seemingly gone, the comic book series reveals that she has survived and inhabits Sam's body, driving her insane. With Sam being commissioned to an asylum, Himiko succeeds in obtaining full control of Sam's body, where she kills everyone there before escaping and brainwashing many men into servitude; she has one throw a grenade at a house full of innocent people because she thought Lara Croft was there. Himiko then heads back to Yamatai to reclaim her throne and the powers needed to spread her dark influence throughout the world.
- Father Mathias, upon being stranded on Yamatai island, tricks many of his fellow survivors into sailing off said island to prove that escaping by boat was impossible, uncaring about their deaths. Forming the Solarii Brotherhood based around the aforementioned Himiko, he only uses the Sun Queen to distract his followers while he tries to escape alone, showing no true loyalty to her or his cult; he has his initiates go through days or even weeks without food or water, with many driven to cannibalism. While tracking down the survivors of Dr. Whitman's expedition, Mathias and his army attack Lara and Conrad Roth's helicopter hovering site, and ultimately throws an ax to kill Roth. Callous to the deaths of his followers and allies alike, Mathias kills one of his own for objecting to his order to blow up a bridge some his men were on, and leaves Dr. Whitman to his death after convincing him to betray the other survivors. He then attempts to sacrifice Samantha Nishimura to Himiko, knowing that this would free her and doom the entire world.
Other Continuities (by release date)
- Tomb Raider: The Series (Top Cow Productions):
- Issues #21-23 & #29-30: Lord Vymes is a being of antimatter who is rumored to be an Asura, an evil lower god. Starting of as a stream of raw shapeless hunger, Vymes clawed his way to Earth and took the form of a human that he first devoured. Rising to nobility in human society, Vymes devoured and murdered countless people in the past and decorated his castle with their bones. After Lara Croft refused to have any deals with him, Vymes tried to kill her and captured her lover Tsang. Buying her Croft Manor, Vymes tried to trick her into finding him the Waters of Death and Life, threatening to eat Tsang, whom he imprisoned in his own flesh, while fully intending on killing and devouring them both anyway as soon as Lara gave him what he wanted.
- Issues #43-44—"Tower of Souls" arc: Ian O'Conner is a vile member of the O'Conner family. After his father died, he begins fighting for control of their castle, eventually killing his priest brother on a holy altar. Discovering the existence of the Dolmen Emerald, the ancient artifact which gives the owner immortality in exchange for torture and pain, Ian starts torturing countless men, women and children to death. In the present, he uses his henchman to lure people into his castle as fuel for the Dolmen Emerald, and attempts to torture Lara Croft to death after capturing her.
- The Cradle of Life: Jonathan Reiss is a brilliant scientist and Nobel Prize laureate who makes a living designing and selling biological and chemical weapons to wealthy criminals from around the world. When he learns of the existence of Pandora's Box and the plague it carries, he sells the disease to his clients under the pretense that it's merely a highly potent bioweapon, but in reality it will spread across the world, killing anyone without access to the antidote he plans to create and provide only to the wealthiest and most powerful. In his quest to find Pandora's Box Reiss is merciless, even threatening to have a man's children infected with a deadly disease if he doesn't cooperate, and even as he dies he makes one last attempt to grab the Box.
- Re/Visioned's "Keys to the Kingdom" three-parter: Osiris is one of the gods from Pleroma, who desired to be worshipped again. Taking over the body of recently deceased Zahir Zalat, Osiris started to put in motion his scheme of triggering a major religious war. Manipulating Lara Croft and the group of the religious organization "The Cabal" into entering Pleroma, Osiris lured all the leaders of modern religions there and closed the portal, resulting in their souls being forever separated from their bodies. Tricking one religious group into finding the bodies to make it look like they killed them, Osiris thus triggers a religious war, which killed many people and brought chaos and destruction all over the city.
