Knight Terrors: Shazam! #1
Recap
ENTER: TETH-SHAZAM?!
Of all Earth’s heroes, Billy Batson is the only one in double danger—because he and the Captain are each haunted by their own set of nightmares! And if the World’s Mightiest Mortal can’t survive his own fears, what chance does the rest of the Shazamily have?
Review
Knight Terrors: Shazam! #1, while solicited as Billy facing his nightmare as both Billy and Shazam, is really a Mary Marvel story continued smoothly from the end of Shazam #2. After a quick, action-packed review of what Mary has been up to since receiving her own Shazam powers from the Greek Goddesses following the events of Lazarus Planet: Revenge of the Gods. An exhausted Mary easily falls into Insomnia’s nightmare realm, and Waid wastes no time putting her through the nightmarish paces.
In the Nightmare Realm, Mary finds that the Shazamily’s house is in the middle of a desert and on fire, but no water is around. Changing into Mary Marvel, she is confronted by a dark version of her brother as, Shazam, who is not really into helping her. Waid then continues to mess with Mary by putting her through some Inception-esque dreams, where Mary begins to wonder what is real and what isn’t.
It is in these dreams that the nuances of Roger Cruz and Arif Prianto’s work really help to sell that Mary is not in the real world. It is also here that Waid connects the story he is telling when the chauffeur, really Insomnia, basically tells Mary about the nightmare wave and the different beings that are helping him search for the Nightmare stone. Waid is able to do this in a way that he implies that Mary already knows about this and he is just repeating the things she knows that are fueling her dreams.
The cliffhanger to the issue gives Mary one last twist of the knife before leaving readers waiting for the next issue.
Final Thoughts
Knight Terrors: Shazam! #1 is well-crafted addition to the Knight Terror event because it not only segways smoothly from the current Shazam series but also at the same time provides just enough information to give a connection to the overall event being told throughout the DCU. Waid continues to show with this book why he is one of the best writers in the industry today, not only because of his comic book knowledge but he understands how to make a tie-in book worth pick up off the shelves.
ICYMI- Knight Terrors: Shazam! #1
- Writing - 10/1010/10
- Storyline - 9/109/10
- Art - 9/109/10
- Color - 9/109/10
- Cover Art - 10/1010/10