Knight Terrors: Harley Quinn #1 – Tini Howard, Leah Williams, Writers; Hayden Sherman, Ben Templesmith, Artists; Triona Farrell, Colorist
Ray – 8/10
Ray: What exactly is Harley Quinn scared of? That’s an interesting question for Insomnia—and the reader—to ponder as Harley joins the event. Tini Howard is staying on board for this issue and references major events from her run, but this issue wastes no time dropping us into the event. Harley is immediately confronted with Insomnia’s nightmare for her—finding her working at Arkham Asylum, tending to an army of Jokers. They get loose to torment her—and Harley quickly handles them. Insomnia follows up with visits from Ivy and the Justice League, among others, and Harley is unbothered. She’s confronted her worst nightmare before, and this is nothing to her. And so Harley rather casually beats the system.
Her reward? To be welcomed into Insomnia’s control room, where she gets access to the multiverse through a complex simulation. This allows her to visit other worlds in the multiverse, taking her to a pirate world and a vampire world. The only problem is, the simulation is for real and Harley quickly nearly dies in one of them. If this sounds like a trap that Harley should know better than to enter… well, you don’t really know Harley. This is a clever idea—how do you plunge someone into their worst nightmare when they’ve already faced it? You lull them into a false sense of security. The visuals are nice and creepy thanks to Hayden Sherman, but this issue never really picks up a feeling of intensity or horror.
The backup, by Leah Williams and Ben Templesmith, has a haunting vibe to it but also feels like a random backup like this series has already been doing every issue. It finds Harley contacted by an older version of herself, seeking help to unravel a mystery taking place in a haunted arcade. The narrative sort of jumps all over the place, but the biggest strength it has is that it has the fabulously creepy art of one of comics’ all-time horror greats.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
