This Is the Worst Batman Story (And You Can’t Change My Mind)

Batman is one of the greatest and most popular superheroes of all time, and as such, he has starred in more comics than just about any other hero. From Batman exclusive classics like Batman: Year One to his role in team books and events like Final Crisis, Batman has been at the center of thousands of comic books. Some of them are among the best comics ever put to paper, others are irredeemably awful, and most are simply somewhere between good and great. However, rarest among these stories are the ones that never truly finished. In the case of Batman: The Widening Gyre, not finishing was the best thing that could have happened for it.

This six part limited series was originally supposed to be volume one of a two part series, meant to be twelve issues in total. However, after the completion of issue six, series creators Kevin Smith and Walt Flanagan stepped away to work on their reality tv show Comic Book Men. There was talk about the two coming back to finish the story with Batman: Bellicosity in 2016, but it has yet to be released and there are no updates on it.

What Happened in Batman: The Widening Gyre?

This story begins with Batman reminiscing about when Dick Grayson was still Robin, and the two teaming up both in the past and present to take down d-tier criminals. After, Nightwing shows Batman a corpse that was clearly caused by Poison Ivy, so Batman heads to Arkham Asylum to investigate, where Ivy has taken over the entire building. She’s built it into a fortress to protect herself from Etrigan the Demon, who is trying to kill her because she can grow a plant that keeps the demon suppressed for Jason Blood. In the ensuing fight, Batman is saved by a new vigilante who calls himself Baphomet, who disappears as soon as he subdues Etrigan.

Once back at Wayne Manor, Bruce runs into his ex-girlfriend, Silver St. Cloud, whose fiance has recently died. Although they have a shaky past, the two immediately rekindle their relationship. It’s different from Bruce’s other romantic entanglements, because Silver knows that he is Batman, and unlike before, she is willing to accept that. 

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The remaining issues of the comic fall into a routine of Bruce spending his days with Silver, usually on her private island, and his nights fighting crime in Gotham. Over time, he grows close not only with Silver, but also fosters a connection with Baphomet, who he almost immediately begins to trust. By issue #6, Batman has proposed to Silver, and in its final pages he brings Baphomet into the Batcave so he can reveal his identity and introduce him to Silver. But as Batman lays his utility belt on a table, he hears the same sound it makes behind him. He turns around to see that Baphomet is actually the villain Onomatopeia. The comic ends with an image of the villain slicing Silver’s throat open.

What Makes The Widening Gyre So Bad?

When looking at just a summary of the plot, the story doesn’t seem so bad, but it is how the comic presents it that really brings it down. For one, Batman doesn’t act like Batman at all. He is far too trusting of Baphomet despite knowing nothing about him. The man appears from nowhere, and although he repeatedly takes off his mask in front of Batman, he never shares his name. In fact, Batman makes exactly one attempt to learn more about this man, and it is not until issue #5 where Batman follows him home. Baphomet notices, and calls out to Batman to tell him that he has a wife and two kids, and he is a hero to avenge the loss of his little brother, who died to a supervillain.

Batman simply accepts this story without fact-checking anything. Despite the fact that he is standing directly outside of the house that supposedly has two children and a wife inside, Batman doesn’t check Baphomet’s story and still doesn’t ask for his name. He is called the World’s Greatest Detective for a reason, but in this story he acts more like the world’s greatest chump falling for the first sob story he hears without any evidence. And side note, Batman brings Baphomet to the Batcave and reveals his identity literally immediately after Baphomet says they could save more lives by killing criminals. Batman refutes him, but only mildly, and for some reason still completely trusts the man who is very close to breaking one of his most sacred rules.

And then there’s his relationship with Silver, which mostly has Bruce acting like a love-sick teenager as opposed to a man who has been in plenty of deep relationships before. There are five issues of pure romance-novel level bliss and easy trust between the two, then in the final issue Batman suspects that she might be a robot sent by Dr. Ivo because Silver seems too perfect. So what does he do? He nearly runs her and Alfred off the road in the Batmobile, drags Silver out of the car kicking and screaming, and rips some of her hair out to test, which reveals she is human. Batman is paranoid and can be bad at handling these kinds of emotions, sure, but he went from honeymoon-phase to traumatizing assault like someone flipped a switch. This is just entirely out of character! There are plenty of ways Batman could have done this test without attacking the woman he loves! Seriously, they’re kissing every other panel, just take a stray hair then.

And then there’s the plot of the story, which again, does not sound back in summary, but very much drags when it’s stretched across six issues. Somehow it feels like nothing happens in every issue, only for some major plot development to come out of nowhere and just happen. Yes, Batman and his allies fight villains, but they are unmemorable non-issues that are more of a backdrop for Bruce’s speedrun of trusting Baphomet. There are so many scenes of Silver and Bruce being together that tangentially do serve the plot, but there is no deep mystery or overarching villain to keep readers engaged. The readers of course know that Baphomet will turn evil because that is the only thing that can happen, the plot introduces no other characters or villains that last more than a few pages. It’s incredibly obvious and makes most issues feel like a waste of time because it just keeps dragging its feet. And not to mention that Baphomet being Onomatopeia makes no sense. He has no relevance to the story and only shows up in a brief flashback a few pages before the reveal, so the plot twist of it being him feels very out of left field.

But by far the worst thing about this story is the crude humor. I love crude humor and raunchy jokes as much as the next guy, but there is a time and place. That’s usually in a Deadpool or similar character’s comic, not a serious character like Batman’s. It’s really offputting to see Batman call a villain fatty. And then there’s the point where Batman tells Baphomet that during his epic speech to the crime lords of Gotham during Batman: Year One, an iconic and all-time one of Batman’s most epic moments, Batman admits that the explosion he set off made him have a bladder spasm during the speech. This comic took one of Batman’s coolest moments and retconned it so Batman peed himself during it. And then there is the worst offender, the infamous scene where Aquaman finds Bruce on Silver’s quiet island and questions if anyone is in trouble because several dolphins heard someone screaming “Deedee” over and over. Batman and Silver were having sex so loud the dolphins told Aquaman to shut them up. And of course, Deedee is Silver’s nickname for Bruce, based on the fact that they hit “double digits” their first night together. It’s just too much for a Batman comic.

Ultimately, this series feels very strange. Its plot drags its feet to a point where you’d think it has cinderblock shoes, only to throw out a predictable twist with a villain that nobody could have ever expected because there was no build up. It somehow makes the Onomatopeia twist both incredibly easy to see coming and entirely out of left field, as again, the only potential chance anyone has to realize this only comes about seven pages before the reveal. And then there’s the overly gratuitous sex jokes and incredible violence, including not one but two cannibals in just a six issue series, one of which was Etrigan. Poison Ivy literally captured Batman by getting him high. This story was wild, and frankly, just doesn’t feel like a Batman story. It will probably never get finished, and that’s honestly for the best.