Knight Terrors #1 Review: Threadbare Frights Haunt a Hurried Event

In the world of superhero comics, events can be tricky. They have a lot of moving parts, incorporating many characters and stories from various perspectives, but all in the furtherance of the same general conceit. It’s a balancing act and, when the balance is achieved, it can be a glorious thing. The DC universe’s newest event is “Knight Terrors” and, unfortunately, it feels like this event might already be fumbling that critical balance. While the line-wide event technically kicked off with Knight Terrors: First Blood, this week we get another title that feels like it’s integral to the start of the story, the unadorned Knight Terrors #1, but what should be an expansion feels a bit more like muddying the waters or, at best, the start of a side quest rather than the central miniseries it’s supposed to be.

Written by Joshua Williamson with art by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Stefano Nesi, and Caspar Wijngaard, and colors by Frank Martin and Wijngaard, Knight Terrors fills readers in on some of the events of Knight Terrors: Batman #1 which showed that Boston Brand a.k.a. Deadman had possessed Batman’s body while Insomnia had the hero and others trapped in dreams-slash-nightmares looking for the very macguffin-sounding Nightmare Stone. That same territory is retrod here in Knight Terrors #1 just with a little flair that we open with introspection from Deadman about his life and how he ended up, well dead. It’s a nice bit of characterization and it feels like it is meant to give the character a bit of gravity and humanity, but it also feels misplaced. It’s difficult to care about Deadman here when he’s busy playing Batman against a villain who comes across as a thrift store Joker whose origin story has something to do with a fake sounding plot device and the event we just got out of and still haven’t caught our breath from (“Lazarus Planet”).

That might be the biggest issue with Knight Terrors #1, which is almost unfair to the title. Because DC Comics is just coming off of “Lazarus Planet,” it feels like any potential for “Knight Terrors” and the idea of Insomnia, who as Deadman notes is just some dude who got weird powers from that event, being a genuine threat to care about was rushed and therefore wasted. While this issue is clearly meant to offer some context for what Insomnia wants, his evil plan, his endgame, there really isn’t any “there” there. The story is essentially Deadman ruminating on his own life, what it’s like getting to pilot Batman’s body, and a series of unearned realizations that send him into what might be the weirdest possible zombie-esque team up one can imagine in the issue’s final pages. At least it sets up some fun.

While the story for Knight Terrors #1 feels formulaic, the art is solid. In particular, the colors in the issue are fantastic and the usage of purples, plums and varyingly icky shades of green provide a spooky vibe that, when the pages shift into a more blue and red color palette offer a genuinely lovely visual flow. There are a few panels where the art itself is simply top notch, particularly one that features an old timey circus poster of Deadman. It’s just a shame that the art and colors feel wasted on a book that struggles to break much in the way of new ground from what readers have already received in other chapters of this event – save for a few scraps about the villain.

Ultimately, Knight Terrors #1 isn’t bad. It’s just a symptom of how crowded and contrived the entire event feels so far. Between some odd repetition, a fairly weak story, and some cliches, even the nice artwork and truly expert use of color only make this a mediocre comic book at best. It’s unclear if anything Insomnia is seeking will be more than a fancy macguffin—there are some big hints here that the real story is the joy he’s determined to keep buried within—but for better or for worse, this issue at least sets us off on the next stage of the journey.

Published by DC Comics

On July 11, 2023

Written by Joshua Williamson

Art by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Stefano Nesi, and Caspar Wijngaard

Colors by Frank Martin and Wijngaard

Letters by Troy Peteri

Cover by Ivan Reis, Danny Miki, and Brad Anderson