Knight Terrors: Nightwing #1: Monsters Under the Bed

In mathematics, two forms of geometry create the basis for categorizing shapes; Euclidean and Non-Eucledian. Euclidean geometry is taught in most math classes and derives its name from the Greek mathematician Euclid. Non-Euclidean geometry comes into play when shapes and spaces exist in ways that the defined axioms from Euclid don’t explain. Outside of mathematics, one way that Non-Euclidean geometry is described is how a house’s interior seems to be a different shape than its exterior. Horror as a genre will often play with the concept, as it allows a monster or evil force to exist as a boundless, unknowable entity. 

Knight Terrors: Nightwing #1 is written by Becky Cloonan & Michael W. Conrad, with art by Daniele Di Nicuolo, colors from Adriano Lucas, and letters by Wes Abbott. The issue breaks from the ongoing story of Nightwing’s battle with the criminal elements of Blüdhaven and drops the reader straight into a disorienting mystery set in Arkham Asylum. Nightwing has flashes of missing memories with the assumption he may have killed someone and is now locked in Arkham with the rest of Gotham’s rogues. 

Like the rest of the Knight Terror tie-ins, it’s clear the main villain of the event, Insomnia, is holding the former Robin in a nightmare loop. Here, Nightwing is thrown from a traumatic experience to experience, living through repetitive traumatic “treatments” employed by the animal-headed orderlies. Nightwing is also taunted by a literal monster under his bed as he pieces together bits of what happened that led him to Arkham and Insomnia’s role in the story. 

Cloonan and Conrad are a perfect fit for this two-issue miniseries, thanks partly to their time on related series like Batgirls. Elements of that book, which spun out of the Fear State crossover, played with features like Batman’s supporting cast, paranoia and fear, and the remixing of characters new and old. The duo employs a strong narrative voice in the form of Nightwing’s running narration that builds on the slippery, unreliable sense of confusion caused by nightmares and memory loss. It creates a twisted logic that can be followed but takes some investigative work to stay caught up with. 

The writing also captures a specific, fevered tone that reflects the Nightwing character and the more significant event. Bits of swashbuckling thread between the delirium of the setting, and these two separate elements always remain consistent. Even as Insomnia shows up and starts to loop back to the larger Knight Terror story, the book never loses that delicate balance of tone. It’s a testament to Cloonan and Conrad’s ability to slot right into a title and understand not just the continuity of a character but the voice of them as well. Without looking at the cover or credits, it wouldn’t be hard to assume the book was from mainstay Nightwing scribe Tom Taylor. 

Much of that cohesion with the main Nightwing title is thanks to the art and displayed colors. Di Nicuolo has provided artwork for the book between Bruno Redondo’s issues and the coloring from Lucas, who’s worked on the entire run thus far. Having this team up for the book adds to the nightmare’s disorientation, twisting the recognizable and familiar to create an off-kilter atmosphere. Much of this is done through repeated use of close-ups, the kinetic and elastic physicality of Nightwing, and the costumes bleeding into the monstrous animal-themed orderlies.  

Di Nicuolo’s layouts play on what lingers in the dark, with thick and thin lines to further break up panels. Towards the center of the issue, four wide panels fill a page that progressively zooms into Nightwing’s face before shifting into a side view with the metal bed frame slicing the panel in half. An off-center focus, glowing circular eyes, breaks up the darkness under the bed and becomes an excellent example of what the issue does to illustrate the nightmarish images that plague the hero. It’s a deployment of Non-Euclidean imagery that distorts what shapes should occur, with the outlined image of the glasses not matching what a body would look like sitting under the bed. 

Lucas’s colors work to reinforce and heighten that familiar yet wrong sense that comes with the tie-in story. Deep purples and acidic greens permeate the book’s color palette, proving that horror doesn’t only have to live in dark hues to be effective. Those subtle shifts in tones for the recurring colors of the main series work overtime to pervert the hopeful energy that populates the title. They’re instead used to evoke familiar but distorted, and it shows as Nightwing operates through Arkham.