Enjoying a superhero comic penned by Kevin Smith these days requires one to manage his or her expectations. Though Smith once made a habit of transforming second tier titles like Daredevil and Green Arrow into must-read epics, his goals no longer appear to be as grandiose. Ever since his work on Spider-Man / Black Cat, Smith has seemed content to use comics merely as a vehicle for his witty (and innuendo filled) humor while telling clever stories that are ultimately of little consequence outside themselves.

For this reason, some of the complaints levied against Smith for his recent Batman work come across as unduly harsh. More than one critic has lambasted the writer for deviating from the tone and characterization typically found in comics featuring the Dark Knight. Though I certainly wouldn’t want to see Smith’s pop culture savvy Bruce Wayne cracking jokes every month in his core title, I’m okay with a mini-series that lets someone like Kevin Smith have his chance to play in the sandbox. After all, it’s not like DC has hired Joel Shumacher to write the script here.

Even on its own terms, however, The Widening Gyre doesn’t hold up as well under scrutiny as Smith’s last Bat-book did. We’re at the midpoint of the series and it’s still hard to tell exactly what the story is about. The most likely candidates are Bruce’s rekindled relationship with Silver St. Cloud and the introduction of a new Gotham vigilante, but so far neither one reads like a central conflict that demands to be resolved. The use of a flashback seems poised to provide meaningful context, yet it remains unclear how it or its counterparts in previous chapters relate to scenes in the present day. Smith will no doubt eventually explain the purpose of each of these elements, but it is suspicious that he has not begun to do so by this point.

The book’s humor is then relied upon to pick up the plot’s slack, but this time around it doesn’t get the job done. Even the banter between Batman and Robin, which should sound snappy, is tainted with cutesiness. It is as if Smith realized the need for comic relief at certain junctures but hired someone less talented than himself to write it.

Lastly, Walter Flanagan’s art shifts from being serviceable in earlier issues to being distracting in this one. His sense of scale and perspective distorts the distance of objects in the background and robs his characters of logically proportioned bodies. I’ll give him credit for drawing a particularly twisted Cornelius Stirk, but in one panel the supposedly beautiful Silver’s leg looks equally disfigured.

Those who dislike the writing style Kevin Smith has employed as of late shouldn’t act surprised if The Widening Gyre doesn’t give them warm fuzzies. Faithful Smith devotees, on the other hand, should probably start to worry that this series will ultimately disappoint.

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