Knight Terrors #1 – Joshua Williamson, Writer; Giuseppe Camuncoli, Caspar Wijngaard, Stefano Nesi, Artists; Frank Martin, Colorist
Ray – 8.5/10
Ray: Along with an extensive roster of tie-ins focusing on the individual nightmares of heroes, this massive event also has a central miniseries by Williamson and a rotating team of artists, focusing on Deadman. One of the few people still awake amid Insomnia’s nightmare wave, Boston Brand looks back at the way his journey began while battling for his afterlife against the king of nightmares. Insomnia was just briefly revealed at the end of last issue and we don’t know too much about him yet, but he styles himself as the God of Nightmares. However, a dive into Insomnia’s mind reveals something very different—a man who was affected by the Lazarus Rains and transformed. Whatever his origin, his goal is the same—to find the Nightmare Stone used by Doctor Destiny and fully transform the world, and he’s ready to torture it out of Boston Brand if he needs to.
Still in Batman’s body, Deadman goes on the run, vaguely apologizing to Batman for what he puts his body through, and we get our first look at what the world looks like with 90% of the people or more asleep. A few heroes who don’t need or aren’t able to sleep are holding down the fort, like Red Tornado, but the entire world has plunged into chaos. This issue is overall interesting, but more so than the First Blood issue, it feels like setup. We now know who our villain is, who our main hero is, but with the main crux of the event taking place in the nightmares of other heroes, there isn’t all that much for Deadman to do until the end of the issue. That’s when he decides to contact an old friend of his—one who has been dead for a very long time—to form an unusual detective team and kick off the hunt for the Nightmare Stone. This makes a good “spine” mini, but this event overall will depend on how compelling the individual stories manage to be.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
