As the penultimate issue in the main storyline, Knight Terrors #4 has to hit hard and get readers excited to see how it all ends. This issue delivers. Read Full Review

The ending turns this into a bit more of a standard event comic crisis, but the big threat it sets up is definitely going to deliver an epic finale. Read Full Review

All of the artist deliver some beautiful art throughout the issue. I love the nightmarish visions throughout the panels and the backstory had a beautiful otherworldly tone to it. Read Full Review

Insomnias final play makes for an engaging issue to send readers into the upcoming finale of DC Comics massive crossover event. Williamson, Camuncoli, and the team give the major villain some definition to his character as the closing chapter is about to begin. Keep an eye out for this issue on New Comic Book Day! Read Full Review

Insomnia reveals his motivations and origins in this issue as things twist and turn for our heroes. Deadman is at a loss, and Sandman is captive, so who will save the day? The conclusion is nearing as Knight Terrors set up real-life nightmares for the DCU coming true. Read Full Review

Knight Terrors #4 sees the end to the main event series, but not the end of the event itself. Knight Terrors: Night's End is coming. Read Full Review

Knight Terrors #4 is a slow penultimate issue. Whilst it has its moments of brilliance and the art is gorgeous, the pacing does slow the momentum down. Read Full Review

Insomnias endgame isnt bad so much as it feels somewhat redundant after Dark Knights Metal and Dark Knights Death Metal. Next week officially wraps up the event. What will be most interesting is if Knight Terrors has any lasting impact after this month. Read Full Review

Knight Terrors #4 is rough. Plot points are practically silly. Explanations are nonexistent. The art is messy. The event is trivial. The motivational outcome of this event doesnt exist. Explanations of abilities, powers, and how they were developed are missing. And within the pages itself, Williamson plays this entire event off as if its just slapped together (whether thats his intent or not). Read Full Review

Knight Terrors #4 somehow makes the Knight Terrors event worse by unveiling the full story behind Insomnia's origins, and it's wonkier and more lopsided than you can imagine. If DC had just limited this event to a Deadman/Batman team-up mini-series, you could get away with creative fudging, but a line-wide event is the wrong place to make these shortcuts. Read Full Review

Knight Terrors #4 is the final issue to a series you'll need the special epilogue one-shot to get any sort of conclusion. It reveals that the only purpose this entire series served was to deliver an overused villain origin and prompt you to read the rest of the tie-ins. Pick this up if you really feel the need to complete your Knight Terrors collection, otherwise there's not much to recommend. Read Full Review

As a reader, I'm just left feeling like this was all a weak cash grab in a universe overstuffed with ill considered events in need of serious editorial rethinking. Read Full Review

this event is honestly getting interesting, but compared to Joshua Williamson's other events like Infinite Frontier and Dark Crisis, this is a bit lacking.

Insomnia’s backstory is exactly what I had assumed it was, and there are definitely some illogical plot points here. There also wasn’t much room for the character interactions that I enjoyed in the past issue, which was unfortunate. Still, this event hasn’t been abysmal by any means, and the art is very good throughout. I’ve enjoyed this series, even if I was annoyed by it.

Big ol' nothing sandwich.

MESS

Could Williamson have written a worse origin????

Ok so let me get out of the way the few good points of this book: The art is nice. And I laughed when Damian is like "WTF is going on", and Deadman responded with "Great question Damian, you truly are the son of the worlds greatest detective". Those are my highlights. The art and those two panels. That is it.

Now onto what was horrible: Everything else. The plot could be seen from a mile away what his end goal is, all the characters, Damian, Dobbs and Deadman are essentially fools doing the obviously wrong thing. Also Insomnias origins are so dumb. Like a 4 year old wrote them level dumb. I think I will quote what I think was from Critical Thinking"

"So he was a serial killer before he got his powers from a nightmare that happened when he was awake so he refuses to sleep so he did get caught and put into a coma, he got powers you would only get if you were outside in the rain while he was inside in a medical induced coma and they didnt explain any of that." His powers just happened to line up with a nickname the media gave him.

Does this sound like gibberish? If so that is basically what the majority of the issue is. Gibberish. more

Ok, maybe the exuberance I espoused in my review for the previous issue was premature. Joshua Williamson teased me into thinking things were about to get good and then put me through the 25-page whiplash of an issue that was KNIGHT TERRORS #4. So many different things happen in this final issue of the main “Knight Terrors” event (next week’s KNIGHT TERRORS: NIGHT’S END is the event’s epilogue) that it should have come with a warning that it could cause the reader to become disoriented.

Let’s check off all the moments that happen here that clogged up the issue (**spoilers ahead**):

Damian Wayne has one last mini-nightmare while walking up a flight of stairs

Deadman gets tempted by former flings

We find out why Insomnia hates the Justice League

Insomnia sacrifices himself in a dream to claim the Nightmare Stone

All the DC heroes wake up

Batman and Damian realize the nightmares have invaded reality

That’s SIX semi-major scenes that were crammed into the book. Do the math and that means none of these last for more than a couple pages making it insanely hard to get invested in any of them. By the time you realize what’s happening, you move on to another bit without looking back. The biggest disappointment in all of this was Insomnia’s rushed backstory and reasons for turning evil all of which bordered on inane. How did Insomnia go from angry fanboy to a villain worthy of his own event? Did Williamson forget he only hand four issues to tell his story? We may never know the answer to either question.

Thankfully, the art by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Stefano Nesi, and Caspar Wijngaard continues to be the saving grace of this event’s main series for all the same reasons as I’ve discussed in my previous reviews. Deadman’s asides & flashback scenes standout perfectly and provide a nice contrast to everything else that’s happening on the pages.

After this issue, I’m definitely itching to move on from this event and get back to each character’s individual series. The exciting new debuts on the horizon can’t come soon enough.

Rating: 4/10 more