DC Comics reviews 8/29/23 – Batman/Catwoman The Gotham War: Battle Lines #1, Knight Terrors Knight’s End

Knight Terrors: Knight’s End #1

The nightmare story has finally reached its conclusion and if nothing else the Dawn of DC era is only stronger for it finally ending. Finally seems like an exaggeration since the event only last two months, but Knight Terrors felt like it went on much longer.

Writer Joshua Williamson has had a rough time with this event. He’s failed to make Insomnia much of a threat. He’s touting the “heroes are a danger to everyone and their families” based on his negligence. Insomnia’s weak motivation makes him come off half-baked as his nightmare versions of the heroes feels way too familiar to other recent DC events.

Although there’s no Justice League and their successors, the Titans are conspicuously absent, it falls on Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Robin, Zatanna, Zombie Sandman, Detective Chimp and Robotman to stop Insomnia. For all of DC’s efforts to foster diversity in their hero ranks it’s telling that there were none of the random new characters introduced during the Lazarus Planet event thrown into Knight Terrors.

I’ve been a huge Howard Porter fan. Even some of his most recent work on The Flash was solid. That’s not the case with this issue as the art features inconsistent takes on characters from one page to the next. Faces look pretty bad and the panels seem cluttered with too much going on.

The ending is somewhat confusing feeling like a solution that could have been done far earlier instead of stretching out the conflict so long. In the end, presumably Insomnia gets his wish as the larger DC Universe population has become afraid of the heroes.

This feels more than a little ridiculous when you consider the various mega-events regular folks in the DCU have endured from Crisis, Final Crisis, Dark Crisis, Zero Hour, Blackest Night and Dark Knights Metal to now suddenly turn on the heroes???

The final few pages tease yet another event, Beast World, with a premise that also feels like it’s an event just to be an event instead of a good story linking multiple DC heroes together.

Rating: 4 out of 10