Although mainly known for their work at Marvel over the last couple decades, Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos did a short Batman story, “Citizen Wayne,” that appeared in Batman Chronicles #21 way back in 2000.
It’s been 18 years since that story saw print, and this week DC Comics announced plans to reprint it in the first issue of Bendis and Gaydos’ Pearl series. The new Jinxworld series launches next week.
“Recently, DC announced that I’ll be writing some Batman [for the new Walmart 100-page giants]. It’s a big twelve-part Batman story with Nick Derington, and people were very excited about it. In fact, I was kind of overwhelmed by how lovely everyone was being about it. And in the conversations online, some of the older fans started laughing about how many people were saying, ‘Finally, Brian’s going to write Batman,’” Bendis said in a statement. “The longtime fans were saying, ‘Brian has written Batman.’”
“Citizen Wayne” remixes the story of Batman with Citizen Kane. Clark Kent investigates the death of Bruce Wayne, who muttered the word “Rosebud” before dying in his mansion.
“Genius, I know! You might want to sit down while you process how genius that was,” Bendis joked. “Not only was it not a genius idea, but it wasn’t even an original one! Mark Waid had done it six years before and no one had told us. But it is a lovely little curio. We love it, and we realized that it’s been 20 years and no one has seen it. Nor would they.”
So Bendis said he called up publisher Dan DiDio and asked if they could include the story in Pearl #1. You can see this piece of history in next week, when Pearl arrives in comic shops.
