Knight Terrors: Titans #1 // Review
She’s climbing up out of the floorboards. The zombies are climbing out after her. It’s okay, though...she’s got guidance: a voice in her head that’s giving her directions. (Not like that isn’t creepy or whatever.) But the voice is helping her through what appears to be a haunted house. And it’s helping her to find friends in Knight Terrors: Titans #1. Writer Andrew Constant opens a two-part story with artist Scott Godlewski and colorist Ryan Cody. A simple walk through a haunted house gains a bit of originality as a young woman in a white t-shirt and jeans helps them out of their fears.
The voice tells her that all she has to do is imagine a way out of the house and she’ll get there. She closes her eyes and imagines a way UP. She’s able to climb stairs and find herself into a room with a pyramidal pile of cables. There’s a hero buried underneath all of those cables somewhere. Getting to him is only the beginning of the journey. Once she’s made her way to him, she’s going to have to get him to see who she is. Naturally she’s going to want to get literal. She imagines a hand mirror. It’s kind of a crazy solution, but it could work.
Constant opens the story with a cheesy horror trope. From there he’s moving through a haunted house that could not be more cliché. However, using it as a way to introduce each of the members of the team in turn is actually kind of clever. Theoretically, there could’ve been more time spent exploring the inner psychology of the characters. However, constant is wise to move things or long much more quickly. Simply placing the heroes in a haunted house of inner horror, wouldn’t be enough to make it feel original. The fact that they are being helped out by a stranger is kind of cool. And it provides a narrative device that keeps the mystery novel even if the idea and the overall setting isn’t.
Godlewski delivers the horror of the setting to the page brilliantly. There’s a lot of heavy ink. The young woman who serves as the central focal point of the story is actually that much more heroic and everyone else. And she’s capable of doing that while walking like anyone else in a T-shirt and jeans. the art team does a really good job in this respect. All of the familiar heroes look as heroic as they normally do. But they wouldn’t be able to get out of their inner hells without the aid of somebody who simply has the courage to show them a mirror. It’s a very powerful visual, and it carried to the page in a way that feels suitably impressive.
Constant and company have managed to work with what could have been a very cliché concept and turn it into something that feels genuinely interesting. And maybe all they really needed was to introduce one character and one mirror and suddenly it becomes something new. Hold a mirror up to the old cliché and suddenly there’s steps to it. All you have to do is look at things in reflection. It’s kind of an interesting image. Very iconic.
