Review:
Spinning out of the Knight Terrors DC crossover event came several two-part specials. Each told the story of the nightmares inflicted upon the title characters. This fine hardcover book collects the nightmare tales of several of the most popular Bat-universe villains and adds Zatanna's tale to round out the set.
Dreams are notoriously fluid in both narrative flow and imagery, and each of these stories plays with this fluidity. Visuals cascade one on top of another in a nightmarish swirl, tumbling from moment to moment. Concepts and symbols and suggestions stack up and are not always resolved. Bravo to all the artists here for embracing the non-linear storytelling of these dreamscapes.
It is especially effective in the Punchline story; I love the portrayal of her own tumble through social media and in-progress videos. Lucas Meyer really leans into the conceit and pulls it off. David Baldeon, though, in drawing the Zatanna tale, attempts something similar but with less success; he takes Zatanna and Robotman, battling the Sleepless Knights, soldiers of Insomnia, through the twists and turns of a magical maze. Sadly, he cannot quite pull it off, leaving the reader almost as confused as those lost in the maze.
The Joker and Poison Ivy tales are more linear, drawing their predominant visual interest from other elements. Both chose to convey the horror of the situation through the eyes and smiles of the characters. In Ivy's case, written by Ivy regular author G. Willow Wilson, the eyes are bugged out and wide open, paired with Stepford Wives-esque perpetual grins on everyone in her suburban nightmare. With the happy-couple Batman and Catwoman next door, the perfect lawns and smiles mask a lurking darkness.
In the Joker story the two-coloured eyes stand out; follow carefully whose eyes they are! The smile, on the other hand, is merely face paint trying to hide the quiet - and sometimes not so quiet - despair of a villain who has lost his humour and purpose. His bitterness makes this the most fun and downright hilarious of the stories in this collection. Kudos to Matthew Rosenberg for this brilliantly playful look at the side-effects of an accidental success! Joker's nightmare starts with him accidentally succeeding in killing the Batman, not through the cleverness of his schemes but a mere quirk of fate. Devoid of his life's mission, Joker winds up in a dreary middle-management job for a large bureaucratic company. How will he ever survive? A hilarious story with at-times moody and twisted visuals.
Harley Quinn, for her part, tumbles through an Elseworlds-like series of scenes. We meet Pirate Harley, then the super-powered Harlequin, and more. Veteran writer Tini Howard has some interesting ideas, but this tale ultimately bogs down in its own insanity - to be expected from Harley Quinn, yet somehow too much even for her. It ultimately lands, for reasons that are never made clear, on a love-hate relationship with Lady Quark, an odd pairing even for an Elseworld.
Zatanna, for her part, is overwhelmed by the strength of the dream forces and their magic. In desperation, she summons any available hero to her side and winds up with Robotman. The result is a very awkward team-up. She acts sixteen while he is in full cynic mode. Little wonder they faced such difficulty surviving and defeating their foes.
Punchline, in a twist similar to Joker's, must deal with the nightmare that follows her success in finally defeating and killing Batgirl. In her case, though, the result is the haunting power of Batgirl's surviving tech. While the visuals do yeoman duty carrying this story, it ultimately lacks both the historical depth of the Batman / Joker relationship and the ironic fun that permeates Joker's own tale.
I found this collection to be beautifully done and filled with variant cover images, but containing an uneven set of stories, leading to an average grade of three capes.
Description:
Horror devastates the DC Universe, and in this volume, Harley Quinn,
Poison ivy, Punchline, and Zatanna all respond to the nightmare world of
Knight Terrors in their own unique way!
In Knight Terrors, DC’s
heroes are taken past the land of the living, beyond the land of the
dead, and directly to a new villain called Insomnia...who uses his
powers to engulf every single hero and villain in their own dark and
twisted nightmares.
In this companion collection, see how
Insomnia’s Nightmare Wave affects four of DC’s most popular characters:
Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Punchline, and Zatanna! Enter the Harley Quinn
Zone as Harley is confronted by the surreal and unsettling consequences
of her choices! It’s a suburban nightmare as Poison Ivy wakes up in the
life that she never wanted! Punchline confronts her long-suppressed
fears in true horror-movie fashion! And Zatanna teams with Robotman of
the Doom Patrol to defend the world from Insomnia’s Sleepless Knights!
Collects: Knight Terrors: Harley Quinn #1-2, Knight Terrors: Poison Ivy #1-2, Knight Terrors: Punchline #1-2, Knight Terrors: Joker #1-2 and Knight Terrors: Zatanna #1-2
Authors: Tini Howard, G. Willow Wilson, Matthew Rosenberg, Dennis Culver, Danny Lore
Artists: Dayden Sherman, Stefano Raffaele, David Baldeon, Lucas Meyer, more
Published By: DC Comics
Published When: Feb. 27, 2024
Parental Rating: Teen
ISBN: 978-1779524690
Pages: 328 pages
