Knight Terrors: Angel Breaker #1 // Review
She’s stalking through an alley in Turkey. She’s found a guy named Raptor. He’s not exactly in the mood to work with her. (She assures him that she’s not actually there to kill him, though...she HAS worked as an assassin, so it wouldn’t be entirely out of character for her.) She’s alerted Interpol of his location. She can help him hide, but only if he agrees to help her out. Thus begins another adventure into the realm of nightmare in Knight Terrors: Angel Breaker #1. Writer Tim Seeley begins a dark fantasy tale with artist Acky Bright and colorist Brian Reber.
They’re leaving Turkey right away. They need to go to the States. There’s a group of chaos cultists in rural Ohio who have an artifact that she would like to gain access to. Angel already has a sword--an artifact of remarkable power. The thing is--she’s not exactly an expert with that sword. She would be that much more powerful if she WAS better with it. The artifact that she’s looking for will allow her to gain those skills. Of course...breaking into a facility run by a group of chaos cultists is going to pose its own problems.
Seeley does a very good job of introducing a character who has only been around since last year. She could easily blend in with a whole bunch of other characters like her. A merciless mercenary, who also served as an assassin, happens to have access to a powerful artifact, and she’s looking for another. It’s probably not the case, but it really seems like that could describe at least a dozen different characters in and around Gotham City alone. However, Seeley does some pretty sophisticated little bits of characterization with her that make her seem both formidable and vulnerable at the same time. Her decision to work with a partner alone is more than enough to make her seem much more interesting than she probably has a right to be.
Angel Breaker has the kind of costume that could easily wear the title itself. They could go a great distance by simply having her rush through the facility, swinging around a massive sword and dressed outrageously. To their credit, they amplify the sense of vulnerability with Angel even while wearing the kind of outfit a supervillain would and carrying an incredibly large sword. They do a really nice job of contrasting her against a big, beefy thief and bringing the action to the page with some dynamic angles and an impressive amount of impact.
Once again, this particular summer crossover shows that the peripheral inhabitants of the DC Universe have quite a bit of potential in and of themselves. It seems kind of strange to think that characters that have been around forever still have as much momentum as they do given how often characters like this pop up. It’s nice to see Angel in her own series, even if it’s only going to be for a couple of months.
