Basilisk #1

Basilisk #1

BOOM! Studios 2021

Written by Cullen Bunn

Illustrated by Jonas Scharf

Coloured by Alex Guimarães

Lettered by Ed Dukeshire

Who Can Stop The Chimera?

Five individuals bound by a cult-like hive mind, they terrorised small towns with their horrifying supernatural sense-based powers, leaving death and destruction in their wake.

Regan, one of the Chimera, escaped and has been in hiding, with her murderous eyes bound, overcome with guilt.

Until now... when a victim from her past forces her to hunt down the other four of her kind.

The opening here is extremely eye catching and brilliantly rendered. We get our first glimpse at what the potential of this story can be and the inherent horror that fuels it. It does precisely what you want an opening to do and that’s capture the readers imagination and desire to see and learn more. We aren’t expecting is the getting into the main story which takes two years after the opening itself. It too is rather dynamic and it really draws us straight into the book in new ways and soon enough we understand why Hannah is doing what she’s doing. I appreciate the fact that we dive right into this and by the end of the issue we’re in full swing with what we know is coming.

I am rather enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exquisitely well. The character development is pretty amazing thanks to the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter flesh them out as people. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages introducing us to the story, the characters and this world we are drawn into this sensationally.

I am very much enjoying how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story emerge and grow. With the layers we see Hannah and Regan’s stories start to unfold while the larger version still remains a mystery. We learn just enough to wet the whistle while holding majority back ensuring out return. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved incredibly well.

I like the interiors here. I was really impressed with how we see the opening visually and was hoping that we’d see that throughout. The main story is tad toned down but still rather impressive to see. The linework is beautifully rendered and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the detail work is phenomenal to see. I do wish we’d see backgrounds being utilised throughout as they enhance the moments perfectly. Still how we see the composition within the panels bring us some great depth perception, sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the book. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a remarkably talented eye for storytelling. The colour work is phenomenal. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is amazingly well rendered.

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There is a lot of potential here and we’re seeing the barest of scratches of that right off the bat. That we see only Hanna’s point of view thus far means there’s so much story that still needs to be revealed from the Regan and her former cohorts point of view. The excitement of what don’t know yet is palpable and now that we’ve started the series I want to see more and more already. This is going to be one hell of a story and I can tell that just from this issue alone and the fact that there is no waiting around because it has already gotten underway and once the floodgates unleash you better watch out.