Fans of director and writer Kevin Smith aren’t unfamiliar with delays, but one of those long-gestating projects might be receiving some resolution in the near future. Granted, not in a way that many anticipated.
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Smith and Walt Flanagan were asked about their delayed DC project Batman: The Widening Gyre at their New York Comic-Con panel for Comic Book Men, and when the next installment would finally be released.
“Now the DC Universe has changed since the New 52 happened and now our books started in the old continuity so we asked what we could do and they told us to do whatever we wanted. We kind of freaked out… anything… we are going to have Batman and Robin f%cking… not each other, but other people…. while they watch each other. But seriously, Jim Lee asked us when the f$ck are we going to finish your Batman book. Now we are thinking about bringing the mini-series into the mix.”
With the introduction of this new rebirth universe, it seems the duo can really cut loose with the book, and have decided to go in a direction altogether different
“What story do we want to tell? We have three issues but they told us to do whatever we want. Walter said, ‘your favorite story is SwampThing goes to Hell, let’s do something like that.’ .. .so I said, f#ck yes. So we are going to go something in that direction. Maybe 12 issues. We will do something like that and have a hardcover book to show for it. At this age, I’m 46, and so things that fueled me in the past don’t now, so I think that will be fun.”
Widening Gyre was last seen in July of 2010 when issue #6 of a planned 12 issues was released. The credit for the delay seems to mostly be due to Smith and Flanagan’s packed schedules, but Smith brought up the book again in 2014 when he told fans that the second volume would be six issues, and retitled Batman: Bellicosity. It was aiming for a 2015 release, and of course, that didn’t happen.
Even if it now involves hell and Swamp Thing, at least the project will finally come to completion.
