April Fools Week – Batman: The Widening Gyre Volume 1 (Issues #1-6)

Here’s the final page of the final issue of Volume 1:

Ok, deep breath. So what’s going on here? Well, we know that Batman dumped Catwoman after he proposed to Silver St. Cloud, briefly went insane over the thought she MIGHT be a robot, and was forgiven by her because she understands it’s not his fault. We know that ever since reuniting with Silver, and especially after proposing to her, that Batman has wanted to give up the cape and cowl, but not without finding a successor as the Protector of Gotham, and he has come to the conclusion that Seabiscuit is (or will be) that man. So Batman brings Seabiscuit to the Batcave, where he unmasks himself, introduces Silver, and basically intends to start discussing the issue of succession. Then, while Bruce and Silver are both conveniently turned away from Seabiscuit, we see him start to put a mask on (but not his Seabiscuit mask). And as Bruce sets his utility belt down we see the onomatopoeia KA-KLACK, followed by a word bubble with the words “Ka-klack”. A horrified Bruce turns, and we get that final “climactic” page.

I give up. Challenge failed. I can no longer say “positive” things about this series through sarcasm and satire. I’ve had enough. Time to take the gloves off. This series makes me hate Kevin Smith, just a little. Here’s a guy who’s earned a ton of cred as an indie filmmaker, has become a geek demigod in part because of his self-professed love of comic books, and because of his popularity has been given the keys to the kingdom, i.e. writing offers including comic books and a now infamous Superman screenplay. And now with a second opportunity to write a Batman limited series, he gives us…this.

In 6 issues Smith brings back a love interest he created in his previous Batman title, Cacophony, as the greatest love of Bruce Wayne’s life. But how do we know that, other than by Smith telling us? Silver does little more than flirt with Bruce, fuck him, fluff up his ego, and forgive him when he abuses her. That’s the great love of his life that’s going to make him forsake his mission? Smith insists that it is. And the man that will allow Bruce to walk away from his life as Batman isn’t Tim Drake or Dick Grayson, but an entirely new “hero” that Smith introduces in the first issue. In 6 short issues Baphomet (or as I have been calling him, Seabiscuit) goes from having never existed to Batman completely trusting him and ready to ask him to take over protecting Gotham.

This defies logic.

In Grant Morrison’s far superior run on Batman & Robin in the aftermath of Final Crisis and Batman: Battle for the Cowl, Dick is struggling with filling Bruce’s shoes as Batman, but just as Alfred reassures him, we see that Dick is fully capable of being Batman, that it’s likely what Bruce had always wanted and intended. Yet in The Widening Gyre, Bruce doesn’t even consider Dick as his successor. How am I supposed to reconcile this contradiction, especially when Morrison’s work came first and (more importantly) makes more sense? Is Smith just being contrarian? Worse still, it’s all just a set up. Baphomet is just a ruse for the major villain of this series, Onomatopoeia, to get at Batman. Who is that, you ask?

Onomatopoeia is a villain Smith created and featured as the main villain of Cacophony, and has brought back for The Widening Gyre. His one and only schtick is that he speaks in onomatopoiea. All those artfully drawn words that denote and signify sounds in the pages of comic books, e.g. BOOM!, KA-KOOM! BLAM! OOF!, those are all onomatopoiea (the literary device). Onomatopoiea (the villain) says those words. Out loud. The idea that Batman would be so easily and thoroughly bested by such a lame villain, it too defies logic.

Batman: The Widening Gyre is sub-par fan fiction at best. Smith’s story structure is confusing in that it breaks the established & retconned DC universe. He arbitrarily brings back minor villains no one cares about, while he destroys long-established and beloved characters, and reduces EVERY SINGLE female character in the series to a sex object. His central storyline – Bruce Wayne falls in love and wants to stop being Batman – is painfully derivative (off the top of my head it was done in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm and The Dark Knight) without offering anything that is both original and good. He tears down superior writers and their superior work, and in the end he gives us a story with a sad excuse for an M. Night Shyamalan-style twist. The Widening Gyre is so bad, it’s almost as if Smith was writing it completely stoned, convinced he was writing something great when a sober mind can easily see it’s barely coherent drivel. Oh wait…

“I’m not telling you anything new…I’m far more creative now, you know. I’ve been writing this Batman: The Widening Gyre miniseries, and I’m stoned all the time when I’m writing it. And, I swear, I’ll write it, and then, it’s not so much blackout, but forget, so much so that the next morning, I go to read what I wrote, and it’s, like, I’m that cobbler and elves came and wrote it in the night, because I’m, like, ‘This is better than anything I’ve ever written before.’ I mean, like, I’ve done comics, but this is way better.”

-Kevin Smith

“Way better”? I’m glad I didn’t nominate one of your other works.

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