Vanessa took the fight back to where it all started. But things are not settled for the Chimera. Who is the chosen one, and what must they sacrifice? Find out in Basilisk #9 from BOOM! Studios.
BASILISK #9
Writer: Cullen Bunn
Artist: Jonas Scharf
Colorist: Alex Guimarães
Letterer: Ed Dukeshire
Editor: Ramiro Portnoy
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: July 6, 2022
Previously in Basilisk: Hannah and Regan are both injured. Regan hears Vanessa in her head, taunting her that she will not be done until the two of them battle. She claims to have taken Cara’s powers and now she wants to face off against Hannah in the town of Kingsly. Hannah wants to go after Vanessa. Regan knows there is the risk that Vanessa will kill her and take her powers. Vanessa arrives in Kingsly as does Barret and his followers. He claims the Chimera needs a sacrifice, and he intends for Vanessa to be that sacrifice.
MEMORIES OF THE PAST
Basilisk #9 opens with a flashback. We see Vanessa when she is young, in a school-type setting with several other young people, learning about the Chimera. Their purpose is to set it free. They are the servants of the Chimera; they are its senses. And one day, one of them will become the Chimera. This really is a cult, and a very serious one at that.
In the present day, Vanessa awakens. A woman comes into the room, glad to see that she is awake. She has apparently been asleep for days. She has a tray of simple food for her. Vanessa wonders where she is, and the woman only says that she has heard Vanessa talking in her sleep, and she knows exactly where she is. She is home.
We switch to another flashback, this time of Hannah. She fights a man while others look on. One of them orders the man to finish her off. The fighter apologizes to Hannah while the leader orders him to choke her until she stops moving. Instead, she reaches back and gouges him in the eye. The leader berates her for injuring a fellow student, one who paid to be here just like she did, and he orders his other students to beat her up.
In the present day, Hannah is in the hospital, badly injured but still alive. Regan brought her in, and she waits outside, where she hears Vanessa in her head. Vanessa tells her that she is home. In fact, Vanessa is feeling good enough to be out and walking around, and she is at a compound. She sees Cara, who only appears to be helpful. She walks to a pair of obelisks and is met by two young women who look like younger versions of her. They ask her what it was like to walk the path. Vanessa reaches out as though to touch one and is warned against it – she may be of the same flesh, but she has not been blessed, and the touch of the Chimera could kill her.
In the hospital, Regan watches Hannah, who is asleep. She sees Hannah’s picture of her family, her husband and daughter who were killed, which started her on this path. Regan looks at the picture and remembers. When she got her powers, she didn’t understand them and, like the others, lashed out. She knows they did terrible things, but she did not remember any of the specifics. But while spending time with Hannah, her memories cleared, and she remembers that she is the one who killed Hannah’s family. Hannah hears her confess this, and leaps up to attack her, but she is still too weak and too injured.
PAIN AND REFLECTION
Basilisk #9 dives into the background of the cult, and the art helps to give it an otherworldly feel. It is creepy to see a school room full of young people all wearing similar green shirts and reciting things about the Chimera with smiling faces. When we look back on that scene a second time, it feels even more odd. When we look again at the rows of people, they are duplicates. There are several versions of Vanessa, of Cara, and even Regan.
Regan wears a heavy veil covering her eyes. She realizes several things in this issue, and we can see how it affects her. I like the way this is done through her body language and some subtle differences in the folds of the veil. Not seeing her eyes makes it challenging to do this but is comes across successfully. She has forged this uneasy alliance with Hannah because they shared a common enemy. Now she realizes that this has changed – she is the specific enemy Hannah seeks.
BOTTOM LINE: A SHIFT IN THE STATUS QUO
The story behind Basilisk #9 is simple only on a surface level. Underneath, it is complicated. The relationship between Hannah and Regan is not the only shifting loyalty in play. And the monster behind the cult seems more and more real all the time.
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Basilisk #9
Hannah, Regan, and Vanessa still live, but what does this mean for the cult of the Chimera?
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Art8
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Coloring8
By day, she’s a mild-mannered bureaucrat and Ms. Know-It-All. By night, she’s a dance teacher and RPG player (although admittedly not on the same nights). On the weekends, she may be found judging Magic, playing Guild Wars 2 (badly), or following other creative pursuits. Holy Lack of Copious Free Time, Batman! While she’s always wished she had teleportation as her superpower, she suspects that super-speed would be much more practical because then she’d have time to finish up those steampunk costumes she’s also working on.