DC Reveals Batman Newest Suit – With A Twist

DC has debuted a new Batman costume – with a twist. The latest DC comic book crossover event “Knight Terrors” has brought a unique threat to the DC Universe: a villainous entity called “Insomnia” who has the power to enter and influence dreams, bring nightmares into the real world, and put all the DC heroes and villains into a coma-like sleep.

The problem has only been compounded for Batman: not only does he fall under the sway of Insomnia’s sleep attack, but he also has his physical body hijacked by Deadman, who is leading the charge against Insomnia. In Knight Terrors: Batman #2 Bruce Wayne has to go to the dark depths of his own psyche to exorcise some ghosts – both figuratively and literally! 

SPOILERS FOLLOW! 

Batman’s extensive psychological training has The Dark Knight ready to defend his dreams – but unweaving the complicated strands of both Insomnia’s spell and Deadman’s influence is a challenge – even for the Batman. The challenge gets that much greater when Insomnia invades Batman’s head and starts trying to thwart the vigilante’s efforts directly. 

Bruce confronts Insomnia with the fact that he’s aware of the dreamscape – and knows exactly how to fight him. In classic Batman fashion, Bruce seeks to be even scarier than the villains he faces and manifests a new suit meant for a version of Batman that can haunt Insomnia’s dreams.

Batman’s Knight Terrors suit is a solid uniform style of thick interwoven mesh, of grayish-bluish color with black mesh fabric lines all over it. It looks like one mesh alloy exoskeleton skin, with much curvier Bat-shaped ears on the cowl, and a thicker bat-shaped insignia on the chest. 

The Knight Terrors suit is, obviously, not made of actual physical material; however, it does serve an important function: reinforcing Bruce’s mind and identity so that “Batman” can fight against the invader in his psyche. The suit is Bruce’s self-proclaimed way of scaring a lord of nightmares – while showing no fear of his deepest personal wounds and fears – manifested as a giant bat creature with a gun in its head. 

Not only does this psychological armor let Batman fight the Knight Terrors Insomnia unleashes upon him, it helps him achieve Matrix-style mastery of the dreamscape, stopping bullets in mid-air in a clear ode to Keanu Reeves’ Neo. 

Like everything else with this Knight Terrors story arc, it’s hard to judge if there is any kind of permanence with the ideas being introduced. Will this new suit Batman manifest make its way into the real world? It would be an interesting design shift. But given the psychological shifts that Bruce experiences to make it out of his nightmare, it’s not out of the question. 

Knight Terrors is happening now in various DC comic books.