Knight Terrors: Detective Comics #1 – Dan Watters, Writer; Riccardo Federici, Artist; Brad Anderson, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: Much like many of DC’s top writers, Ram V is taking the two-month event off from his main title and letting someone else write the Knight Terrors mini. Fortunately, V usually has some incredible writers doing the backups in his series, including Dan Watters—who takes over for a chilling Jim Gordon-centric tale. Anyone who’s reading Watters’ current Boom title The Seasons Have Teeth knows that he’s exceptional at writing older, broken lead characters in a world spiraling out of control, which makes him a perfect fit for this storyline. As the Orghams take over Gotham, Jim is left alone to reflect on the loss of his son, as well as to try to protect his new young friend Sorrow. However, when he encounters a mysterious group of cultists who summon a terrifying demon, he winds up caught in the crossfire—suffering another loss, as well as being changed in some unexpected ways.
As he investigates, it becomes clear that these visiting spirits are working as twisted genies, granting people’s wishes in the worst way possible. That’s especially clear when we see an old associate of Gordon who is choking on thousands of diamonds being spontaneously generated from her stomach. As for Jim himself, he’s always felt like he was breaking down—and now it’s literal, as cracks are appearing in his skin and pieces of him are breaking off. It’s a disturbing visual, and that’s nothing compared to what the art team does with Gotham as a whole. This entire city feels nightmarish even before the literal demons arrive, and Jim feels like a normal, fragile man completely lost within its borders. This is probably the scariest of all the Knight Terrors minis, just because it allows us to be lost in the horror that a normal man is experiencing in all of this—in a city that’s already terrifying in the best of times.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
