Perpetual Mourning

Perpetual Mourning was the lead off story for the first issue of the Batman: Black and White limited series. Batman: Black and White was an anthology comic featuring the work of many freakishly talented artists drawing short stories featuring The Dark Knight (or supporting characters). And, you guessed it, they were black and white.

This story was written and drawn by Ted McKeever. McKeever has dabbled in drawing big two superhero comics but always out on the edges somewhere; he worked on the Doom Patrol after it had transitioned to Vertigo and long since stopped being a superhero book and also did some Elseworlds and out of continuity titles. Beyond those, he's most well known for drawing small press comics like Metropol, Eddy Current and Transit. McKeever's comics usually concern strange characters undergoing intense psychological and religious turmoil in a nightmarish landscape. He uses a thick, jagged line and deep, high contrast blacks and whites to build off putting and bizarre visuals. McKeever is concerned with mood and tone and in creating exterior worlds for his characters that reflect their inner turmoil.

The story of Perpetual Mourning involves Batman thinking to himself while performing an autopsy on a freshly murdered young woman. It alternates between the ‘present’ story of Batman, a flashback showing the woman being murdered and a fantasy sequence of a well dressed couple ballroom dancing (more on that later). The autopsy room is garishly bright, with the lights bleaching out most of the facial features of the murder victim. Batman, however, is depicted in many panels as dark and shadowed, inexplicably, in the middle of a harshly lit room. The Gotham streets are also blown out, but with shadowed alleys (completely black) and the perpetrator of the violent crime cloaked in shadow. 

Sort of against type for a Batman story we begin after the woman has already been killed. No last minute rescues to be had here. In fact, McKeever uses this as an opportunity to ruminate on a Batman who fails. The general appeal of Batman as a character is that he always has a plan B (and plans C, D and so on) that he carries out with unblinking stoicism. The brooding bad ass who always wins. But if we apply the tiniest bit of real world logic to this it seems obvious that, as the protector of Gotham City (which is always portrayed as a crime ridden hellhole), there must be a lot of street crime that Batman fails to prevent. He himself acknowledges this in a caption:

PEOPLE THINK I’M A KNIGHT. A SAVIOR. BUT, IN TRUTH, I’M ONLY A VESSEL TO HOLD THE MEMORIES OF THOSE WHO’VE PASSED ON. THOSE WHO’VE NO SHELL LEFT TO STORE THEM.

THEY MUST THINK I REVEL IN MY VICTORIES; IT MUST SEEM LIKE I NEVER LOSE A FIGHT.

I LOSE PLENTY.

Not only does Batman lose plenty, but he mourns all the dead who he failed to save. He carries them with him. McKeever is writing and drawing about the way people not only carry memories of the deceased with them but something larger than that; the way people deal with failure. If you too quickly move on from failure you run the risk of repeating it over and over again. Alternatively, though, carrying all your past failures around can be a crushing burden that dooms one to give up before even trying. The path laid out in this comic is to, yes, carry failure around inside you but make peace with it; learn your way around it and understand it. Batman carries all the people he failed to save with him not to punish himself, but instead to honor their memory and use their deaths to help prevent further failures.

THE ONES I COULDN’T GET TO. THE ONES I COULDN’T SAVE IN TIME.

THOSE ARE THE ONES I CARRY AROUND INSIDE OF ME.

THOSE ARE THE ONES I’LL MOURN FOREVER.

And later, addressing the dead woman to finish the story:

YOU ONLY HAVE YOUR THOUGHTS AND DREAMS AHEAD OF YOU.

YOU’RE SOMEONE. YOU MEAN SOMETHING.

I’LL REMEMBER. YOU’RE WITHIN ME NOW.

FOREVER.

That brings us back to the interstitial story depicting the couple dancing. Thought it’s never explained in the story itself the obvious inference is that this is Thomas and Martha Wayne. In Batman’s mind, these are the first people he failed to save and the first people he carried around inside of him, perpetually mourning their loss. To close the story, the couple separate and the last panel is all black, simply stating END.

Perpetual Mourning is an intense, moody masterpiece that clocks in at only 8 pages. It adds a unique wrinkle to Batman's character that feels really genuine and also quite sad. Though there were many great comics created for the Batman Black and White series, Perpetual Mourning remains my favorite and possibly one of my all time favorite Batman comics as well.

This comic can be found in single issue form in Batman: Black and White #1 or in the collected edition titled Batman: Black and White Volume 1 (printed in oversized soft and hardcovers or, most recently, as a regular sized softcover).