Rose Wilson is in a nightmare. She’s also back in time. She’s trying to defend someone from the dangers that she’s lived through herself. Who is she trying to protect? She’s trying to protect a young Rose Wilson. It’s a little complicated, and it has to do with a crossover. It’s Knight Terrors: Ravager #1. Writer Ed Brisson weaves an intriguing little hell for Rose that is carved out of the shadows by artist Dexter Soy. Color fades into the artwork courtesy of Veronica Gandini. It’s an appealing story that places Rose in the center of the panel and makes a really good case for her own ongoing title.

The villain known as Insomnia strikes everyone in a different way. Rose finds herself hiding from shadows that stalk her. They call to her. They know she’s there. They can smell her. There’s blood everywhere as they stalk her. She can’t move, or they’ll know where she is. What’s she going to do? Well...she might not have to do anything at all. Ravager is out there...and she might just slide in to keep her safe. The catch is that Rose is the person Ravager was. Can she save herself and keep her head screwed on? What is the nature of her identity?

Brisson opens the issue in pretty traditional territory. Monsters stalk a girl in her home. There're shadows. There's blood. Might as well be a slasher film of some sort. But then things take a really sharp turn in a different direction. And suddenly, it gets very, very deep. Brisson does this without stalling the action at all. And the suspense is maintained. As is the horror. It's all very intense throughout. But what makes this interesting is the fact that Brisson ties it all elegantly to the traditional slasher horror action genre without compromising the elegant brutality of the story.

Soy has a fairly deft grasp on the darkness. The fountains of blood that spew out in various directions in the first few pages are a good indicator of what is to come in the rest of the issue. The remainder of the issue might not be quite so gory as those first few pages, but Soy manages the constant tension and gravity of the horror straight through from beginning to end. It’s fairly powerful stuff, bound as it is to deeper concerns about the psyche of Rose.

This is probably the most straight-ahead adaptation of the horror genre in the whole crossover thus far. Knight Terrors: Ravager feels like one of the more sophisticated treatments of the nightmare realm concept. Rose comes across as a very formidable warrior against darkness. The deadly skill that she wields is that much more potent as the story explores the darkness that's not only in her own past but in her own mind. There’s a powerful contrast in that which feels overwhelmingly cool on more than one level.

Grade: A