Batman: The Widening Gyre
After training three sidekicks and putting countless criminals in jail (well, putting the same 10 criminals into jail countless times, anyway), it only stands to reason that old Bruce Wayne was due for a midlife crisis. So when he is not busy breaking in a mysterious new crime fighter�a laid-back fellow with a rather eerie goatlike appearance named Baphomet�Mr. Wayne takes up with the vivacious, intelligent Silver St. Cloud and actually starts to lighten up. Hollywood writer-director and comics scribe Smith, who has an impressive knowledge of Batman mythology, delivers not only crisp, sharp dialogue but also strong action, three-dimensional characters, and a distinctly R-rated dose of gore and sexuality in a deceptively lighthearted adventure that opens things up for the next installment. Not to be outdone, Flanagan swims upstream in a genre filled with one indistinguishably sleek, streamlined figure after another to provide rough-hewn images and classical figure work that are a throwback to the days of highly distinctive visual styles. As nifty a package as mainstream superhero comics has to offer. --Jesse Karp--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.