Knight Terrors: First Blood #1 – Joshua Williamson, Writer; Howard Porter, Artist; Brad Anderson, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: Joshua Williamson seems to be the go-to guy at DC at the moment, writing two regular series and showrunning the last two main DC line-wide events. That second one kicks off this week with this oversized issue, which will find the heroes and villains of the DCU plunged into their worst nightmares. This will take over much of the main line for July and August, with the ongoing series replaced by a collection of two-part minis—some by the main writers, some not. It all starts here, and if the plot sounds like it would be masterminded by Dr. Destiny, he’s in this—but he’s not having a good time. When we see him, he’s in some sort of peaceful dream world that is horribly ripped apart, seemingly leaving him dead in the Hall of Justice.
That’s where Deadman comes in. Boston Brand has always been one of the DCU’s most intriguing figures, serving as a conduit between life and death, and he’s interrupted in his musings on the passing of an old man by the emergence of strange purple energy in the world—Nightmare energy, which shouldn’t exist outside of the dream realm. His quest leads him to the JL headquarters, where the Trinity is trying to puzzle out the corpse that was just dropped at his doorstep—only to get a message from Gotham that John Dee appears to still be in Arkham Tower, in the throes of some horrible seizure that’s killing him. This issue does a great job of building the sense of dread scene by scene.
Despite the darkness of the subject matter, Williamson does manage to work some humor into this issue. Batman’s reaction to Deadman possessing him is hilarious, and Zatanna’s backwards-speech also delivers a classic moment. However, this is probably one of the most pitch-black event issues I’ve read out of DC in a long time. The events leading up to the debut of the main villain Insomnia are incredibly tense, and Howard Porter’s art is surprisingly well suited to the horror theme. How good this overall event is will depend on how the tie-ins play out, with around 25 creative teams across the event, but Williamson and Porter have gotten the horrors off to a strong start.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
