There’s No Sleep Till Gotham in Knight Terrors: Batman #1

In short, Knight Terrors: Batman #1 is the continuation of the end of Knight Terrors: First Blood as Batman finds himself in the grip of the new villain Insomnia and delving deeper into the nightmare world his life as Batman has created.

In the beginning of the issue, Williamson revisits the concept of how Batman has trained himself over the years to isolate his fears from Peter Tomasi’s Mythology story arc in Detective Comics, thus setting the stage that Batman is aware that this new adversary is trying to use his past against him. As the issue continues, more details surrounding Insomina’s ultimate goal are also revealed and why he has plunged the heroes and villains alike into the nightmare state that they all find themselves trapped in to varying degrees.

In crafting this issue, Williamson pulls from Batman’s long mythos, as Insomnia tries to get him to make a Faustian-type deal to help him discover in which heroes nightmares that Dr. Destiny supposedly hid the Nightmare Stone. As the story progresses, the weirdness and craziness are cranked up to 11 as Bruce decides that the only way to break free of Deadman’s possession and takedown Insomnia is to continue further down the rabbit hole, which leaves the cliffhanger of what could possibly be Bruce’s worst fear.

March’s art in the main story is spectacular and haunting, with his depiction of Insomnia decked out in a Robin costume and the various Bat-monsters that dwell deep in Bruce’s psyche are brought to life. Like Porter’s art in the main limited series, March does an exceptional job of capturing while making Batman’s story arc unique in its own way.

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The backup story picks up Damian’s story thread which was the focus of the Free Comic Book Day offering from DC Comics.

Realizing that someone or something attacked him through his dreams, Daimian searches out someone that his grandfather Ras Al Ghul must have known of so he can unlock his dreams, understands them and defeat whoever is perpetrating the attacks. This short vignette is more of a teaser of things to come in the event’s second half as the cliffhanger announces that this portion of the story will be continued in Knight Terrors #3, but it does beg the question of the role Damian will ultimately play in the overall event.