KNIGHT TERRORS HARLEY QUINN #1 starts off presenting an interesting question — what happens when the main character takes control of their own nightmare? Other tie-ins have seen their leads aware that they’re in a nightmare, but we’ve yet to see anyone flip the script on Insomnia and dictate what’s happening on their own terms. This was especially interesting for Harley, who has had to face her own demons countless times over the years as writer after writer has forced her to face the mental abuse she’s faced at the hands of men in her lives. If only Tini Howard stopped there. Instead, we get Harley “embracing” her craziness in cringe-worthy scenes after she’s given an instruction manual to the DC multiverse and gets to play director.

After the first few pages where Harley is actually in a nightmare, none of this story is even remotely connected to the Knight Terrors story. We get Harley as a pirate and a vampire hunter as she tries to emulate being a “hero” without becoming a member of a larger group of heroes. Howard tries to tie things back to a nightmare story when the unknown voice that has been guiding Harley throughout her journey informs her that perhaps she actually could be worthy of working with the Justice League. If that was the point of this issue, it took far too long to get there and is also far too obvious for a character that has threaded the antihero needle for quite some time.

Matching the haphazardness of the plot, Hayden Sherman’s art is equally jumbled. I wasn’t quite sure what the visual approach was to part’s of the issue but it felt like the animation in Harley’s multiverse adventures was from a bootleg episode of old-school Scooby-Doo. Other art throughout the issue was fine, if boring. Nothing really stood out aside from a few pages of colors by Triona Farrell during Harley’s initial nightmare.

The backup story by Leah Williams, with art and colors by Ben Templesmith, is equally frustrating in it’s lack of entertainment. We see a future Harley traveling back in time to enlist a present-day Harley in an unknown mission. Not sure where Williams is going with this story, but Templesmith’s art is very off-putting to me. Present-day Harley’s facial design is downright bad.

The “Being Harley Quinn” episode (Season 1 Episode 4) of the Harley Quinn animated series on Max did a much better job presenting what could be going on inside Harley’s mind. That story was entertaining, it empowered Harley to overcome her demons without having to go to an extreme of her mental state, and it used dark humor without feeling out of touch. KNIGHT TERRORS HARLEY QUINN #1 did none of those things and stands as one of my least favorite event tie-ins to date.

Rating: 3/10