Basilisk #3

Basilisk #3

BOOM! Studios 2021

Written by Cullen Bunn

Illustrated by Jonas Scharf

Coloured by Alex Guimarães

Lettered by Ed Dukeshire

Is there no end to the Chimera's reign of terror? Regan, a former member of the Chimera, and her past victim Hannah continue the hunt for Regan's brethren, but the shared memories that haunt them both may put an end to their quest. Meanwhile, cornered the other Chimera may have met their match... the State Police.

The first two pages are an absolutely amazing opening to this issue. The painted aspect of what we see is stunning in its appearance making it even more powerful than you might expect and more so since it's all visual without a word needing to be said. You really have to have to hand to Hannah for her sheer determination and single mindedness in what she’s setting out to accomplish. Though I doubt there’s anything in her mind that has moved beyond the point of accomplishing her goal, I don’t think she has thought of a time afterwards and what that might actually mean for her. I like that because on some level she doesn’t plan on making it out alive and on another level she doesn’t know if and when she’ll be able to accomplish this. So why plan past the actual doing?

I am very much 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 exceptionally well. The character development we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter continues to flesh these characters out extremely well. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more and more of the story we see just how unapologetic Regan’s family are in their actions.

The way that we see this being structured and how the layers continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen is magnificently portrayed. The layers contain so much goodness like the characterisation and the plot twists, and more, and whether they work with the main arc or simply swirl around it they add so much depth, dimension and complexity to the story. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is impeccably achieved.

I am a huge fan of the interiors here. The linework we see is fabulous and how the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create this level & quality in the detail work we see throughout the book is truly astonishing. We see a fair amount of backgrounds being utilised throughout and honestly I wouldn’t mind seeing more considering how they expand and enhance the moments. How they work within the composition of the panels to bring us the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is really nice to see. 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 brilliantly rendered. The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work shows such a great understanding of how colour works.

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I like this book because we have no idea how these five gained control over the five senses and it doesn’t look like that answer is on the horizon anytime soon. All we know about them is what we’ve seen and that isn’t a whole heck of a lot and that’s a huge part of the appeal for me here. With some truly intriguing writing and interesting characterisation wrapped up in these gorgeous interiors keep the reader on their toes never knowing what is going to happen next.