After last week’s prelude KNIGHT TERRORS FIRST BLOOD #1, KNIGHT TERRORS #1 hits shelves this week as the official kickoff to the event’s main miniseries. Publishers love to create special beginning and finale issues of their events to artificially inflate the amount of #1s they can claim and promote and that was evident here. That was the case here, as there was no reason that KNIGHT TERRORS #1 couldn’t have been an oversized debut issue combining these two stories as they felt like one story cut in half. Joshua Williamson continues writing the story he established in FIRST BLOOD and is now joined by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Stefano Nesi, and Caspar Wijngaard on art.

After an initial monolouge from Deadman that provides an interesting character backstory, the issue picks up nearly immediately where FIRST BLOOD ended. Deadman has taken over the sleeping body of Batman (who is locked in his own nightmare fighting Insomnia’s control in the KNIGHT TERRORS BATMAN tie-in) and spends the vasty majority of the issue locked in battle with Insomnia and his nightmarish zombies. We also get some additional backstory on how Insomnia came to powers when Deadmen enters his mind in hopes of learning his weaknesses. Insomnia regains control of himself and expels Deadmen from his mind, who then escapes the scene to seek help. The story ends with a shocking reveal — the return of a DC character who readers haven’t seen in quite some time!

My favorite parts of this issue were Deadman’s opening monologue and the time he spent exploring Deadman’s mind. They offered some much need character-focused storytelling that FIRST BLOOD and a few of last week’s tie-ins severely lacked. I’m really liking Williamson’s use of Deadman as the event’s narrator and wondering if this event would have been a more interesting Deadman limited series. Unlike many DC characters who often serve as the narrator for a major cross-over events, Deadman hasn’t been oversaturated recently. While it may seem like an easy escape to use an already dead character as a means of avoiding the explanation of why an alive hero didn’t all under Insomnia’s control, Deadman has served as a unique perspective on what’s happening to the entire Earth.

In addition to learning more about Insomnia’s origins and better understanding his mindset while Deadman possesses him, the scene also shed more light on the Nightmare Stone and it’s potential location. It was also quite interesting to see how Williamson weaved in past DC events to provide backstory for Insomnia, giving him a stronger connection to the DC universe.

I much preferred Williamson’s dramatic writings in both of these scenes to the somewhat comedic direction he took during the main confrontation between Deadman and Insomnia, which also permeated much of FIRST BLOOD. It resembles light-hearted hero vs. villain banter you’d find in superhero comics from the ‘90s and ‘00s which feels off considering the traditional horror environment the event is trying to build. KNIGHT TERRORS THE JOKER showed that dark humor can be used effectively and is a much better complement to the horror theme.

Not to keep highlighting the same two scenes, but Deadman’s opening monologue & his time inside Insomnia’s mind were also visually superior to the main story’s artwork. The distinctive styles used for each scene perfectly matched their respective tones — most notably a sketch-like approach to line-work and muted colors were brilliantly used during Deadman’s intro set in an abandoned circus.

Overall, envisioning KNIGHT TERRORS #1 as the missing second half to FIRST BLOOD makes me a tad more interested in the event’s major tension between Deadman and Insomnia. The cliffhanger ending also got me excited for the next issue and where the full story may be headed. Unfortunately, the issue did nothing to make me more interested in the event’s tie-ins and while that’s not necessarily it’s job, it makes one wonder if they included so many potentially inconsequential stories just for sales.

Rating: 7/10