Basilisk #4: One Fell Down And Ticked Them Off (Spoilery Comic Book Review)

Basilisk #4 proves that the Chimera aren’t invincible. This may not be a good thing in the short term.

Cullen Bunn (Harrow County) is the writer for Basilisk #4, as he has been for the past 3 issues. Jonas Scharf (Avengers of the Wasteland) also remains the artist, with Alex Guimarães and Ed Dukeshire staying on as the colorist and letterer respectively. Jonas Scharf is also responsible for the main cover art. Declan Shalvey (Moon Knight) and Rafael Albuquerque (BRZRKR) are responsible for the 2 variant covers. Oh, and finally, BOOM! Studios is the publisher of this comic book series as always.

Basilisk #4 went on sale on September 1, 2021. You can purchase print copies at your local comic book store. Or if you’re fine with the digital version, you can download it from content providers like ComiXology, iBooks, Google Play, and Kindle.

Warning: spoilers for Basilisk #4 below. If you want to read this tale of X-Men gone horribly wrong for yourself, stop here, and come back once the shouting, shooting, and booming are over and done with.

Basilisk #4: Plot Summary

As always, Basilisk #4 begins with a flashback to the small town of Kingsly. Or rather, the former small town of Kingsly after the Chimera have finished with it. Of course, 3 of them show no remorse whatsoever. Only 2 of them, Manny and Regan, do show remorse. Guilt, too.

The story then fast-forwards to the present day, where Hannah is busy setting up traps for the Chimera and their Faithful. Said traps include Claymore anti-personnel mines, IEDs buried in the road, bear traps, swinging spike traps the Ewoks would be proud of, and more. These traps prove to be devastatingly effective against the Faithful, especially when combined with Hannah sniping them from above.

Unfortunately, the traps don’t really have any effect on the Chimera of Basilisk. Mostly because they’re sending their Faithful in to spring the traps first. Eventually, Hannah runs out of traps. Fortunately, they’re not the only thing Hannah has up her sleeves. Hannah comes up with ways to block her senses, including peppermint extract for taste, vapor rub for smell, sound-dampening headphones for hearing, and a full-body outfit (including a gas mask) for touch. This does work against the Chimera, and their little psychic tricks don’t work on her. Hannah even manages to wound one of them with another IED.

Unfortunately, Jimmy-boy is strong, fast, and has a sword. Cutting open the outfit leaves Hannah vulnerable. Fortunately for her, Regan is definitely on her side, and fights the Chimera off her. Even the remaining Faithful are of no help, due to all of them succumbing to Regan’s sight-based ability. In the middle of this chaotic battle though, Manny interrupts Regan and tells her something. It’s apparently a prophecy. Unfortunately, we don’t know what that prophecy is, partially due to Hannah shooting Manny moments after he says it.

Nice job, Hannah. Just kill 1 of the 2 decent Chimera. It makes the other Chimera back off for now, but they’ll be back. Worse, it looks like they now want to go on a killing spree in a big city for vengeance. It appears to be Seattle judging from the Space Needle in the city skyline. How much of a body count are they going to rack up? Well, that’s what we’re going to find out in Basilisk #5.

Basilisk #4: The Good

The story is definitely the big highlight of Basilisk #4. Cullen Bunn definitely gets the horror down perfectly right, with plenty of gore to go with it. Although admittedly, there’s not much horror in this particular issue. It’s mostly action, and boy, does Bunn do it right here. Lots of gunplay, and smart guerilla tactics from Hannah here. Hannah also has some creative ways to fight against the Chimera’s sense-based powers here. She’d make Che Guevara proud.

The art of Basilisk #4 is another big selling point. Jonas Scharf’s artwork is gorgeously detailed, right down to the blood and gore. Heck, he even got the “Front Toward Enemy” text on the Claymore mine right. I give that a plus just for that alone.

Basilisk #4: The Bad

I know it’s part of the story of Basilisk, but I can’t help but wish that Manny had stuck around for a bit longer. He seemed like an okay dude, mostly in part because he was 1 of 2 out of 5 members of the Chimera who had a conscience. He also had a nice Odin theme going on with him, so that made him a visually interesting character to boot. It’s a shame he died in this issue, but at the same time, he did seem like he was wishing for death as a way to atone for what he did in Kingsly. Maybe that’s it here. Hopefully, the other Chimera start dying too to make up for it.

Conclusion

Basilisk #4 finally sees one of the sense-affecting Chimera go down in an action-packed issue. The one who did go down though is probably not the one you wanted to see go down. Maybe the next issue of this horror comic book series from BOOM! Studios will finally see one of those murderous psychopathic X-Men go down. Preferably in a karmic way.

Source: BOOM! Studios