Smith is dealing with a few central concepts in this story, some more compelling than others. Batman: Widening Gyre is proving Smith still has the chops as a comics scripter, not to mention a strong eye for what makes an entertaining Batman story. In the end, his shortcomings as an artist will likely overshadow anything Smith is able to accomplish with this series.After reading Smith's astoundingly bad Batman: Cacophony, I suspected his comics writing had gone the same direction his filmmaking went shortly after Dogma: down the tubes. Flanagan continues to have some fundamental problems with anatomy, perspective and storytelling, and still can't draw Batman the same way twice, except when he draws Batman's cowl as a two-dimensional glob of ink. But despite the improvement in writing, the art remains a major problem. There's also another flashback to Batman and Robin's early days, and although I'm still not sure what purpose these scenes serve, I assume they have something to do with the story's title. Stirk is a criminally underused rogue, and it's fun to see Smith get the most out of him. An opening scene in which Batman saves a young girl from a child molester named Fun Land features a strong exploration of the Caped Crusader's thought process, and a late issue scene brings back the creepy cannibal Cornelius Stirk to great effect. The plot continues to see Batman battle new and old foes as a mysterious masked vigilante lurks in the shadows and lends a helping hand. Cloud makes her triumphant return from the pages of Steve Englehart and Marshal Rogers' classic run, and Smith does a fantastic job casting her as "the one that got away." More importantly, he's able to give her reappearance some context, and the result makes the story feel like an organic part of the Batman mythos, rather than an isolated experiment in which Smith and his buddy try to tell a Batman tale. The result feels like a classic Batman story in a number of ways without feeling like a rehash of old stories. Again, that was a big problem in Cacophony. All in all, Smith seems to be having a lot of fun playing in Batman's toy box, but is still careful not to break any of the toys by smashing them together. Smith brings his strengths as a writer to Batman's voice and characterization without making the Dark Knight sound like one of the characters from his films, which was definitely a problem in Cacophony. Still, the book is infinitely more enjoyable to read thanks to Smith, who changes his approach to Batman considerably. Yes, the art is still exceedingly amateurish, and the only thing worse than Flanagan's Batman is his Superman. Luckily for those of us who decided to come along for Smith and Flanagan's second Batman story despite their poor first outing, Widening Gyre is thus far a marked improvement over Cacophony.
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