The Not So Scary Tales Of The Titans — Reviewing ‘Knight Terrors: Titans’ #1

Ever feel trapped within some terrible nightmare guest starring well-known people, that includes a famous home? The Titans do.

That’s right, the Knight Terrors event has made its way to Blüdhaven. Which is the new home of the iconic team and their headquarters Titans Tower.

As fun as the event has been in some cases, Titans stands as one of the titles most impacted by this two-month pause. After months of setup within Nightwing, the new book for them launched in May before coming to a complete stop following June’s second issue. The whole plotline is on hold until September for a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad dream day for the DC Universe.

Of course, this is not the fault of Andrew Constant, Scott Godlewski, Ryan Cody, and Wes Abbott who created this two-issue miniseries.

This isn’t the best showing of the event though. Especially for a team of characters that are being pushed as the new A-list heroes in place of the Justice League. Essentially this is a team gathering/building issue just done in their shared nightmares space. As we follow some mystery random woman that isn’t part of the team. I thought the woman was Donna Troy sans costume for a moment till Donna turned up.

None of the nightmares are really personalized in a way that tells us much about the characters or pulls from their history. It’s just sort of a thing that riffs on the premise with these characters to hold the place till the series returns.

Artistically, it’s fine, but doesn’t really take too much advantage of the nightmare/horror aspects of this event. It’s very superhero-esque still, with the horror elements being a little creepy but sort of like a local carnival spook house.  Many of the colors are done in a way where shadows are heavy, and things are a bit exaggerated in scope to fit the book’s tone. It’s a vibrant mix that works for both superheroes and horror, even if overall the book doesn’t entirely hit that desired tone.

All the letters are done in the usual way that Abbott brings to a book, full of personality and energy that helps move things along. There is a little room to throw in some visual treats like changes to bubbles or font to add to that energy. If there had been a bit more going on horror-wise in the issue, there might have been more room for all the art to go bigger.

Overall, Knight Terrors is an interesting concept that has been spread probably just a bit too thin. It’s not alone in this respect, as this has happened to many comic events from DC and its friendly competitor over the years. A well-thought-out core idea that gets stretched too far like it’s the Elongated Man/Mister Fantastic when it’s not.

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