The would-be usurper still has a few things to deal with before he can finally spring the trap that will allow him to take over Pride Rock. There are various elements in play that could easily undermine his plan, and he’s going to have to deal with them in a very clever way if he’s going to have any hope at all of defeating Mufasa and becoming the next ruler in Disney Villains: Scar #4. Writer Chuck Brown wraps up a four-part Lion King prequel with artist Trevor Fraley and colorist Chiara Di Francia. It’s a script of surprising complexity given how brief it is.

Scar is sleeping. He is also dreaming. And what he is dreaming about is what he dreams of: rulership. He wants to run everything. The whole of it all. However, there's a lot more to rulership than simply wielding power. And he's going to find that out, but there is some doubt in his mind. He knows he is dreaming. He's also quite aware of the fact that there is magic involved. Rafiki has been working his magic. Is he really showing him a vision of what he would be like as ruler or merely trying to dissuade him from his actions?

It's a tight, little plot that Brown has worked. It fits around all of the edges of the backstory of one of the most popular animated films of all time. It's not easy to do that in a way that feels true to the original. The fact that it is tied in as well as it is to the movie is a testament to how clever a job Brown has done. It's not just a story about a villain. It actually provides some insight and background into who he is as a person, which is not at all at odds with the characterization of the villain in the movie.

Some of the angles don’t quite work. Some of the color renders a depth that feels a bit at odds with the light and shadow being rendered by the artist. These moments are relatively fleeting, though. On the whole, the visual package of what's being presented is actually really faithful to the original animated movie, and it delivers a powerfully ominous sense of villainy. On the whole, it's a very well-executed visual package.

As it is largely ancillary to the movie, Brown and company don't need to have any kind of finality about the series. It ends on its way into the end of the movie. And it feels largely incomplete as a result. Given how nauseatingly close Disney animated features always tend to run to the traditional 3-Act Hollywood plot structure, it’s actually really cool to see a fragment of characterization presented as a complete story. Granted...it’s only a supplement to the movie that has inspired it, but taken on its own, this particular Disney Villains series feels like a strangely elegant mutation of something that is far more commercially digestible. 

Grade: A