Knight Terrors: Wonder Woman #1 // Review
Detective Chimp is trying to wake Diana up when she melts into a puddle. Literally. Honesty: she’s been through worse. This IS a nightmare, though, and it can only get worse for the Amazonian puddle in Knight Terrors: Wonder Woman #1. Writer Josie Campbell tells a story of Diana in the realm of nightmare with artist Juan Ferreyra. Wonder Woman and the Justice League Dark find themselves caught in a maze of fear in an enjoyable action horror story. Strong fantasy elements play with familiar ideas in a fun issue that gives Wonder Woman a commanding, heroic presence. There’s also a back-up story featuring Nubia written by Stephanie Williams with artist Meghan Hetrick.
Bobo looks over to find Wonder Woman standing there...immediately aware that she is in a realm of nightmare and that she must locate the Justice League Dark, who have disappeared into it somewhere. Her body is being looked after by Zatanna inside a subterranean maze. In dream...she’s in the nightmare maze of a minotaur with Bobo and John Constantine. With the wisdom she has, Diana is far more aware than any of the other heroes that what she’s experiencing isn’t real. That wisdom is put to the test as she faces the monster within her.
Judging from the story, Campbell respects Wonder Woman’s power and inner strength quite a bit more than many of the writers who have worked with her over the years. More so than any other hero in the Knight Terrors crossover, Diana is ready to take on whatever comes her way. The conflict in the labyrinth may not feel all that interesting in and of itself, but Wonder Woman’s strength within it is brought to the page in admirable form in one of the strongest straight-ahead superhero-style horror stories in the crossover thus far. Diana isn’t often given the opportunity to be quite this classically heroic. It’s refreshingly impressive.
Ferreyra matches the heroism in Campbell’s story with powerful visuals. There’s a foreboding sense of darkness that haunts the labyrinth. Wonder Woman’s power in the nightmare is given some striking moments. Ferreyra lays out the action with clever intensity in a series of panels as Diana pummels a wall in an effort to get to John and Bobo. There’s a fiercely kinetic feel about the terrors of the maze as well. Ferreyra gives Diana an impressive menace to struggle against.
The cliffhanger ending for the issue does feel a bit forced given what a strong presence Diana had managed throughout so much of the issue. And the inner struggle that the nightmare is bringing out of Diana and Constantine might seem kind of disinteresting on a surface-level, but there IS some interesting insight into the inner psyches of both heroes. Some of the surface level stuff can be pretty haunting in its own right. The lasso turning into barbed wire is a particularly intense visual given how reassuringly safe it’s been for Diana over the years...even when it’s been something of a threat to her.
