You immense yourself in the dead, Master Bruce. And you come back each time a little less alive. The only thing your grave is missing is a date. 
The Batman's Grave #1 is an issue of the series The Batman's Grave (Volume 1) with a cover date of December, 2019. It was published on October 9, 2019.
Synopsis for "Chapter 1"
Alfred Pennyworth is the custodian of the grounds of Wayne Manor. Every evening, he stops to tend three graves, commissioned at the same time, years ago - graves marked for Thomas & Martha Wayne, and their son Bruce. Two of the graves are filled. Alfred Pennyworth knows that one day the third will be too.
That night, a couple with a child emerge from a cinema and take a short cut through a back alley. They are accosted by a pair of criminals... but the criminals are accosted by Batman, who recognises one member of the couple as a GCPD officer. He advises the couple to call an ambulance before swinging away.
Gotham is busy with crime tonight, so busy that 911 calls are going unanswered, so Batman answers one on their behalf. In a block of poor flats, a tenant rang about a missing person, a fellow tenant who went missing three days ago, and whose locked apartment now smells of rotting meat. Asking about friends of the missing man - a colleague from his last job, a social worker, and a man named Ed - Batman gets to work on the lock.
The body of the occupant, Vincent Stannik, is present, dressed in a suit and laid on a bed, in a flat that has been cleaned of all evidence. However, the walls are covered in press clippings about Batman. Batman takes a scan of the environment, calls Commissioner Gordon under a false name about the crime scene, and departs.
While walking from the Batcave to his lab space out of costume, Batman finds Alfred, off-duty, tired, and listening to music while drinking whisky. He stops to talk, but Alfred is maudlin, and Batman, defensive, moves on to solve the death of Vincent Stannik.
Recreating a hologram of the flat using his scans, Batman uses his detective skills and the facts to get into the mind of Vincent. He knows that Vincent had a nervous breakdown five years ago, but the Batman clippings all date to four years ago, and so may be a fixation that helped him right himself. He had one spoon and one plate, but two cups, for one friend. A professional killer would erase the crimescene, but Vincent had no angle in his life through which a professional killer could need to notice him. So the killer was someone with the skills of a professional killer but the mind of an amateur killer. Amateur killers take souvenirs, but Vincent had no souvenirs to take. Just his life and the peace of his house.
Realising that this may be a clue, Batman hastily puts on his costume and drives across town to Vincent Stannik's flat. He rips up the floorboards, to find the killer - the man named Ed, "stealing" the peace of the house...
Appearing in "Chapter 1"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
Antagonists:
- "Ed" (Unnamed)
- Gotham Thugs
Other Characters:
- Officer John Nguyen
- Kevin Nguyen and daughter
- Vincent William Stannik (Deceased)
- Commissioner Gordon (Phone call only)
- Martha Wayne (Mentioned only)
- Thomas Wayne (Mentioned only)
- Peter Warlock (Mentioned only)
Locations:
Vehicles:
Notes
- This issue is reprinted in The Batman's Grave: The Complete Collection.
Trivia
- To keep his partnership with Commissioner Gordon a secret, Batman calls himself "Officer Franciscus" when he calls Gordon.
See Also