Knight Terrors: Ravager #2 // Review
Freud initially claimed that there wasn't any meaning in dreams. Then he figured out that there would be money in publishing a dream dictionary, and he changed his mind. You don't always need a dream dictionary, though. It's not hard to pick up the basic meaning of some dreams. Rose is dreaming about this little monster girl named Rose who wants to help her father...a monster named "Murder Man." Rose also has a father named Deathstroke, who is a murdering man as well. Rose faces a nightmare version of herself in Knight Terrors: Ravager #2. Writer Ed Brisson completes a nightmare journey with artist Dexter Soy and colorist Veronica Gandini.
Rose has been told to sever Ravager's spine. Murder Man thinks that he can find a bridge between his nightmare realm and the waking DC Universe if he uses Ravager as some kind of mystical highway. Ravager knows that none of this is real. She knows it's all a dream, and she knows what Murder Man represents. She also knows what Rose represents. And she knows she can reach the monster child. There's a part of that child that's very much in and within her. She broke free of her father. She knows she can help Rose by doing so as well.
Brisson does a pretty good job of making the dream seem real. There's a real menace in real danger in this particular issue even though we had to clear what's going to happen. Even though it's clear that it's just a nightmare. But there's more to it than that. And he keeps the ambiguity fresh and sinister throughout the issue. That's really essential; otherwise, it's not much of a journey with her. There's a real job to be emotional drama, but the action really is the heart and soul of the issue. And that much is something that Brisson brings out with the aid of the artist.
Soy is a very deft hand with action. The horror that's being brought to the page is pretty simple. There really isn't any uncertainty about where the danger is coming from. Ravager is LITERALLY being chased through a suburban neighborhood by monsters. Whether or not the threat is 'real' may be ambiguous, but there is no questioning the immediate danger in the dream. Soy and Gandini make the horror of that action feel highly kinetic. Ravager comes across as being about much more heroic as a result.
There aren't very many traditional heroes who could register much intensity simply fighting monsters. Most of the more traditional-looking heroes have slain it so many over the years that it doesn't really feel like much on the page anymore. Ravager has enough of a dark edge about her that she can fight something like Murder Man and come across as being every bit as dangerous and monstrous as the monster itself. The inner journey here is also relatively straightforward, but Brisson and Soy put together a rendering of the story that has just enough momentum to keep it interesting through the final panels.
