Knight Terrors: Ravager #1: A Rose By Any Other Name

Knight Terrors: Ravager #1 – written by Ed Brisson with art by Dexter Soy, colors by Veronica Gandini, and letters from Troy Peteri – picks up the nightmare-inducing premise of the summer event and sees Rose Wilson (aka Ravager) trapped in a twisted memory of childhood. Rose comes face to face with a teenage version of herself who’s being chased down by monstrous creatures approximating her father and brother. The bulk of the issue is the two Roses on the run, with Ravager trying to reconcile the differences between the nightmare and her childhood. 

The younger Rose reveals that the twisted creatures are searching for someone with a connection to the waking world so that they can make their way to the real world. Young Rose stabs Ravager, revealing she’s in league with the twisted Deathstroke (called the Murder Man) and the plan is to use Rose as the bridge between nightmare and reality. Back on earth, Peacekeeper-01 and Stormwatch locate the sleeping Rose as she bleeds out in the nightmare realm. 

Brisson’s script keeps the tone and characterization of Ravager from the Stormwatch stories in Brave and the Bold and the recent Robin run. With each of the Knight Terrors miniseries only giving its lead characters two issues, time is limited for exploration and Brisson takes the reins immediately. The pacing is non-stop and features a strong set-up of dropping the audience right into the premise. The horror of the opening, before Ravager ever makes an appearance, is a solid choice that plays with the premise. It’s a tense sequence that presents a classic monster stalking the young woman, and Brisson plays the notes perfectly, even as it works as a red-herring for the later twist of the book. 

The book gets going when Ravager enters the nightmare and gets the opportunity to interact with this younger, almost idealized version of herself. Even in the midst of a nightmare, Rose gets to experience what could have been, growing up with a more stable set of foster parents, rather than being raised in a brothel. Brisson’s scripting takes advantage of this premise to dig into Rose’s internal conflict, appraising her past (which much like large chunks of DC, is still a mess in the wake of Death Metal and Dark Crisis), and reconciling with fiction and reality. 

Soy’s art is a perfect fit for the story being told, and the book never looks better than in the quiet moments between monster attacks. When young Rose and Ravager come face to face, after escaping the Murder Man, Soy lays out the interaction in a series of close-ups that showcase the emotion. After the reaction in another panel, the page then shifts into silhouette and then a larger close-up. The progression of the page is all about relating these two, very different aspects of Rose Wilson before delivering the strong twist of young Rose’s betrayal. 

The linework also works to heighten the distorted sense of reality, as Soy transposes the elevated adventuring of Stormwatch and superheroes to the monstrous moments. The Murder Man and the other creatures are a strong silhouette that only gets better after blood is spilled and fills his eyes. That sense of anatomy and altered proportions serves the horror aspect well, and Soy’s heavy inking places the characters in shadow that helps to establish something is wrong from the opening panel. 

Gandini’s coloring reinforces that sense of unnerving dread, living in the purples and blacks that associate with the Knight Terrors motifs, giving a sense of continuity to the other nightmare one-shots and larger event. The biggest splashes of color come from the blood reds of the action, and the orange of Ravager’s costume. These flashes of color ensure there is a break from the oppressive nightmare shades, and give a pulsating element to the action. Even the lettering in the action beats, like Rose slashing with her sword or the world balloon of the Murder Man as he absorbs blood, the red infects the page and reinforces the horror tone of the issue.