Barry Allen’s Worst Nightmare Comes To Life: ‘Knight Terrors: The Flash’ #1 Reviewed

Barry Allen has been a family man practically longer than any other hero. Knight Terrors: The Flash #1 explores that in some interesting ways.

Alex Paknadel, Daniel Bayliss, Igor Monti, and Simon Bowland bring Barry Allen’s nightmares to life.

Wally West is hurt. He’s dying. Barry Allen only has moments to try to save his nephew’s life from whatever Grodd has done to him. That means he’s got to break every rule he has, and travel back in time to stop the attack. But what Barry doesn’t notice is that something is very, very wrong…

I’ve talked before at length about how effective Paknadel is as a horror writer. Just like his Darkhold: Spider-Man story from about 18 months ago, he roots the horror in the relationships our characters have. Barry Allen is so strongly rooted in his family that by making Barry’s nightmare “losing his family,” he amps up the horror of the situation. Even better, Paknadel does it based on Barry’s current family- Wally, Iris, Jay- as to not rehash Flashpoint. Bowland even makes it more personal by making the captions look like Barry’s handwriting.This issue is surreal and unsettling, and that’s grounded in Barry Allen’s love for his family making it scary.

Bayliss and Monti’s art has exactly the right energy for the Flash. Bayliss makes sure that there’s always a sense of motion as Barry zooms from place to place (look at Iris’s hair in the panel above). He adds the horror elements to the superheroes seamlessly, and depicts Barry’s growing unease with them incredibly well. Monti plays it straight with his color art, using bright colors you typically see in superhero books, only using darker tones to denote that things are wrong and off. It shows how every member of the creative team is a storyteller.

Knight Terrors: The Flash #1 is available now from DC Comics.