Knight Terrors: Zatanna #1
Recap
Zatanna, one of the last people awake on Earth, must defend her unconscious allies Wonder Woman and Detective Chimp from Insomnia’s Sleepless Knights—led by their horrifying Sleepless Queen!
Outnumbered Zatanna can’t do it alone. She uses her magic to summon any champion that is still awake, which puts her in an unlikely team-up with one of the world’s strangest superheroes: the Unstoppable Doom Patrol’s Robotman!
Review
Knight Terrors: Zatanna #1 is this week’s only limited series that directly spins out of the Knight Terrors: First Blood oneshot and gets panel time over in the series’ main book. Picking up after Wonder Woman leaves Batman and Superman to see if there is a supernatural explanation and solution to the unfolding events, Zatanna finds herself under attack and trying to protect Diana and Detective Chimp, who have fallen asleep while in the Hall of Justice, basement searching the Justice League Dark archives.
It is here that the Sleepless Queen and Knights are introduced but not given any background story aside from they are helping Insomnia search for the Nightmare Stone. At this point in the story, they seem like generic henchmen, and one can hope that they will be fleshed out with an origin story before the series get much further along.
Culver makes some clever story points showing that the non-human heroes such as Red Tornado, L-Ron, and Robotman keep everything safe as everyone else has been affected by Insomnia and that there is a magic saferoom in the Hall of Justice.
Zatanna, summoning help, finds Cliff “Robotman” Steele fighting alongside her as they try to protect Diana and Detective Chimp from the Sleepless Knights and Queen. The pairing that ensues is a vaudeville act, with Zatanna playing the straight woman and Cliff being the deadpan stooge. Culver not so subtly hints that Zatanna has no love for the Doom Patrol, which could be an interesting thread for him to revisit in The Unstoppable Doom Patrol down the road.
Culver also does some deep pulls for Cliff and Zatanna regarding Insomnia, making their nightmares real, attacking Cliff with Dorthey. and his ex-wife Kate and Zatanna with her dad and other sorcerers who died, and that she blames herself for.
The team of David Baldeón & Rain Beredo works well as the two combine using the most muted palette of art and color in a series that has been otherwise very trippy and colorful as events in the dream realm have been portrayed so far.
Final Thoughts
This issue ties in well with the overarching story while establishing itself as stand-alone side adventure. Culver introduces some interesting concepts and characters that will hopefully be further explored in the next issue and as the story reaches its climatic point over in the main series.
Knight Terrors: Zatanna #1 – Annataz Dns Namtobor Ere Xeh & Ecneloiv
- Writing - 9/109/10
- Storyline - 9/109/10
- Art - 10/1010/10
- Color - 10/1010/10
- Cover Art - 9/109/10