Knight Terrors: What Are DC Comics Heroes’ Deepest Fears?

“A mysterious and deadly new villain named Insomnia has struck! The entire world has been forced into eternal slumber, including all the heroes and villains, as Insomnia searches their dreams for the Nightmare Stone. Can the heroes survive being trapped within their darkest fears?”

DC Comics recently launched a new line-wide crossover event called Knight Terrors, driven by a new villain called Insomnia. With a combined 47 issues across nearly every ongoing DC title, as well as a Free Comic Book Day tie-in, an opening special, and a closing special, this event has cast a nightmarish shadow over every hero and villain’s life.

While most comic stories are filled with action that takes place in the waking world, these Knight Terrors stories slow the plot and allow readers to really dive into the mind of their favorite heroes and villains as Insomnia forces the world into sleep. This also opens up the canvas for surreal explorations of pain and fear that many of these characters would never admit out loud — or might not even recognize in themselves.

Because these personalized scare tactics are meant to unsettle the characters as Insomnia searches for the Nightmare Stone, they’re also up for interpretation as to what the true root of the fear is. Let’s dig deep into the psyches of these 10 iconic DC Comics characters and see what fears arose in their worst nightmares.

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Poison Ivy: Domestic Bliss

Knight Terrors: Poison Ivy sees the antihero thrown into a Stepford Wives-esque depiction of suburban hell. Everything here is perfect, which is exactly the problem. She’s married to Harley Quinn, Batman and Catwoman are their neighbors, and everyone spends their days having picnics behind their white picket fences. It’s Pammy’s Dream House, and she hates it.

Ivy’s fear stems from allowing herself a “happy ending.” It represents stagnation as opposed to the untamed growth of her connection with nature. In fact, a lone dandelion is a source of strife when Nightmare Harley tries to kill the offending weed. Her relationship with Harley, similarly, should be wild and not domesticated.

While the first part of her arc with the lamia spores and trying to overgrow the world showed the dangers of Poison Ivy losing herself entirely to the ever-evolving Green, this Knight Terrors special goes in the opposite direction, showing her fear of losing the ability to grow and change.

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The Joker: Losing Batman, Being Boring

In one of the most darkly comedic openings to any DC Comics story, Knight Terrors: The Joker #1 shows Batman slipping and falling to his death on a rainy Gotham rooftop. The worst part? The Joker couldn’t do anything to stop him. But losing his deranged dynamic with the Dark Knight is just one part of The Joker’s worst nightmare.

See, The Joker’s biggest fear is being boring. And what is more boring than a stable routine? No longer laughing, the Clown Prince of Crime has to trade in his purple suit for a blue-collar job at none other than Wayne Enterprises. Stuck behind an office desk working 9-5 to make ends meet, The Joker becomes just another cog in the corporate machine. Now that’s a crime!

Many stories have explored how deeply Batman and The Joker need one another to thrive. This one takes a wildly different perspective, by taking the laughs, color, and unpredictability out of the villain’s life. Punchlines are replaced with water cooler talk. Evil schemes are replaced by spreadsheets. It’s a nightmare for The Joker, but for most people? That’s just life.

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The Titans: Themselves

The Titans (no longer Teen) occupy an interesting space in the DC Universe. They’re no longer the young upstart proteges of the Justice League. But they’re also not old enough to replace the Justice League just yet. For now, they’re simply the Titans, but who they really are is much more complex.

The Knight Terrors: Titans special shows the heroes trapped in their own tower (of terror!), locked away behind closed doors in a never-ending staircase. And what keeps them trapped? Themselves. Each Titan is held back by their perceptions of how monstrous they truly are — from a Cyborg restrained by infinite mechanical wires to an extremely alien Starfire, their insecurities about their identities turn them into exaggerated versions of what they fear they can’t overcome.

Each monster Titan repeats the words, “All that I am…” As heroes struggling to find their unique identity in a changing world, it makes sense they would fear they can’t overcome their identifying traits. But together, they help each other to remember their true selves — which can’t be boiled down to a single label.

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Batman: Crime Alley

How do you scare Batman, the man who took his childhood fear of bats and made it a symbol for justice? That’s the challenge Insomnia faces in this story. Still, the traditional rules of time and space don’t apply in the nightmare world, and so the villain strikes at a more vulnerable Bruce Wayne — when he was a child in Crime Alley.

Throughout this story, Batman is confronted with loved ones he has failed to save as well as zombified people who haven’t died yet, but could if Bruce grows careless. In a mind-bending moment, Batman even becomes Joe Chill, the thug who shot Thomas and Martha Wayne that fateful night. Insomnia tries everything to break the Bat, berating him for letting people die and suggesting he likes the power that comes with losing his parents.

Ultimately, the Dark Knight is hard to truly scare. But the story keeps returning to Crime Alley as the source of Batman’s fear and failure. This chapter reveals a bit more about Insomnia’s desperation and willingness to do anything to find this Nightmare Stone.

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Harley Quinn: Being in the Justice League

Harley’s worst nightmares aren’t in her head when she sleeps — because she’s already lived them! Being the meta mischief-maker she is, Harley Quinn actually breaks out of her Knight Terrors confines rather quickly. In her mind, she can’t think of anything worse than what The Joker did to her in the real world, so she slips past Insomnia’s tricks and ends up in a multiversal nexus zone, complete with a copy of Multiversity (another actual DC Comics publication) to explore.

After traveling through several lesser-known alternate universes, she admits that she is actually afraid of being in the Justice League. Beneath the surface, this is actually a fear of having to be a hero held to a higher standard. Harley is tired of picking sides — from villainess to antihero to everything in between — and admits she just wants to have a nice and sort-of-normal life with her girlfriend Poison Ivy and her new job as a professor.

Because it happens in the confines of the dream world, it’s hard to say whether this latest multiverse mess will alert Lady Quark, Harley’s latest foe. LQ is tasked with preventing HQ from crossing the streams too often, resulting in a total destabilization of the worlds around her. Easier said than done, right?

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The Flash: Running Out of Time to Save Someone

It can rarely be said that Barry Allen isn’t fast enough to get the job done. But Knight Terrors: The Flash shows him in a race against time and trapped by the Speed Force, a mystery, and the ticking clock on Wally West’s life. Given the importance of the Flash Family, it makes sense Barry’s fear would be centered around someone he loves being hurt.

After being stabbed in a fight with Gorilla Grodd, Wally’s connection to the Speed Force is preventing him from healing. So, Barry does what Barry does and tries to go back in time to prevent things happening. But in Insomnia’s dream world, the timeline tampering gets dark quickly. Soon, The Flash is descending into madness as he races the clock, afraid of failing Wally.

What’s interesting about this scenario is how Insomnia’s own malevolence takes a backseat to the way in which Barry Allen often becomes his own worst enemy. By playing off his fear and his love for others, it seems that The Flash will do the villain’s job for him.

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Wonder Woman: Losing Her Humanity

Though the book is titled Knight Terrors: Wonder Woman, the Amazonian heroine actually ends up merging her dreams with Detective Chimp and John Constantine. While most heroes are fighting isolated, this trio manages to team up in order to fend off Insomnia’s tricks and traps.

The nightmare shows this team traversing a labyrinth full of danger, encountering demons from Constantine’s past as well as mythic monsters from Diana’s. However, some of the book’s variant covers revealed more about Wonder Woman’s fears before fans even opened the comic. Given a monstrous, Medusa-like redesign, her mythological makeover indicates a fear of losing her humanity.

While Constantine has a tendency to run from trouble, Wonder Woman faces everything head-on, growing more and more exhausted as she does. As a warrior for truth with her enchanted Golden Lasso, her challenge is to see through the lies and lead her allies to safety. (Admittedly, the story doesn’t delve as deeply into Detective Chimp’s fears, given that Diana Prince’s name is on the marquee.)

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Catwoman: Guilt and Religious Trauma

Catwoman has been through a lot lately, between her on-and-off romance headed for all out war with Batman and then the accidental killing of Valmont, another criminal and romantic interest. Her Knight Terrors trial sees her trying to atone for her misdeeds and find forgiveness — here, in the form of her religious sister Maggie.

Maggie, also known as Sister Zero, provides interesting contrast to Selina Kyle’s morally dubious workings. All Catwoman wants is to save the soul of Gotham, but she isn’t sure if God sees her as righteous or a sinner. There is a lot of Catholic guilt and religious imagery wrapped up in this story, as Sister Zero and the feline femme fatale confront The Joker and eventually discover a young Batman who has just donned his cowl for the first time.

However, when Sister Zero claims her place as Gotham’s righteous (but maybe not rightful) savior, Catwoman is faced with even more moral dilemmas. Can the soul of the city be saved? And is she too far gone in sin to redeem anyone?

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Green Lantern: Anxieties about His Life

Like Batman, Green Lantern Hal Jordan’s whole deal is resisting fear. Whether it comes in the form of the Sinestro Corps or other alien entities, he uses his indomitable willpower to withstand the most harrowing scenarios. This means once again Insomnia has to dig deep to unravel Hal’s levelheaded mind.

In Knight Terrors: Green Lantern, Hal Jordan is thrust back through his own tragic origins, from the death of his father to the anxieties over being called the Green Lantern Corps by Abin Sur. However, in this realm, everything is much worse, showing the hero how bad his life could be, creating a spiral of fear. This slowly makes the hero more and more vulnerable, breaking down his willpower.

Hal Jordan has faced fear before, often in the form of Parallax. Of course, Parallax does show up eventually here, though this is a manifestation of Insomnia’s nightmare-inducing abilities. Trapped in his own mind, Green Lantern will have to harness his willpower once more if he wants to survive.

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Superman: Being Alone

There’s only one Man of Tomorrow — and that’s the problem here. Superman understands loneliness. For a time, he was the sole survivor of the destruction of Krypton. He grew up on an isolated farm and had to hide his identity in the city. And as a nigh-indestructible hero, he is likely to survive where others won’t.

Knight Terrors: Superman shows the Man of Steel aware that he’s in some form of a dream. Still, his fear comes from inside and he’s not invincible to his own thoughts. Insomnia is able to show him hallucinations he cannot punch his way past. Ultimately, Superman’s fear emerges: being the last living person in the universe.

However, Supergirl is able to break out of her own nightmare and arrive in Clark’s. Together, they are shown different fears — Superman’s empty eternity and Supergirl’s past coming back to haunt her. Their generational trauma as surviving Kryptonians definitely forms the centerpiece of their struggles here.

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Many more heroes find themselves facing their fears thanks to Insomnia — including Shazam, Black Adam, Nightwing, Punchline, and others. Don’t miss this epic DC Comics crossover, on comic store shelves now.

Which Knight Terrors stories are you most interested in? Whose nightmare seems scariest? Let us know at side.show/geekgroup or in the Sideshow Social Network, and don’t forget to Let Your Geek Sideshow!