Noteworthy Issues: Knight Terrors: Action Comics #1 (July, 2023)

OK, so, I will admit I am a bit behind on more current DC lore in a lot areas, but then I get to a comic like this one, and, well…I am just so very, very lost.

Issue:  Knight Terrors: Action Comics #1, July 2023

Writers:  Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Leah Williams

Artists:  Mico Suayan, Fico Ossio, and Vasco Georgiev

The Plot:  Power Girl has a series of nightmares that may not go anywhere, but the rest of the Superman family is afraid of the Cyborg Superman.

Commentary:  OK, so, I have a vague idea what’s going on with Power Girl right now.  She’s doing something with former Titan Lilith/Omen, and she apparently adopted Streaky the Supercat recently.  From what I have gathered, the Power Girl stuff that has come out recently has been something of a revamp/re-imagining and it has been a bit controversial among the fans.  For her nightmare, she keeps bouncing around, dreams of a murderous ex, parents abandoning her, being forced to perform Shakespeare for a live audience without any rehearsal (and the audience is full of undead Supermen), and even at one point being a malfunctioning robotic version of herself.

It’s not bad stuff, but it doesn’t linger in any one place for very long, so it doesn’t amount to much to me.

But at least I knew who all the characters were in that story!  The cover promises Power Girl vs the Cyborg Superman.  That doesn’t really happen.  Instead, the Cyborg is the element to what looks like a common nightmare for Chinese Super-Man Kong Kenan, Superboy Conner Kent, Nat Irons, Krypto, Kelex, and…two kids whose identities I never learn.  Who are these kids?  I don’t know.  But one of them seems to be central to the story, so it’s probably important that I know who they are.  There’s some cool body horror stuff going on here, the sort of stuff that would make for a good nightmare, but it doesn’t mean much if I have no idea who’s being threatened.  I can piece a lot of the other stuff together without too much trouble, but there’s only so much I can do with characters that I don’t know.

Huh, that seems to be the last of the “part one” comics for these specials.  I guess I can move on to the next parts now.

Grade:  C