Warning: Spoilers for Batman and Robin: Year One #3!When you factor in all the changes that have been made over the years, Robin’s origin is almost as complicated as Batman’s, and a new development that almost changes who killed Nightwing’s parents proves exactly that. It’s a clever moment that doesn’t actually change Dick Grayson's origin that much, but demonstrates just how big Batman and Robin’s war on crime really is.

Batman and Robin: Year One #3 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, Mat Lopes, and Clayton Cowles adds a new wrinkle to Robin’s origin story by suggesting that Two-Face let Dick’s parents’ murders happen. Harvey is being interrogated by the Falcone crime family, saying: "Who do you think let the Zuccos roll through last month… so they could kill that circus couple?"

Lucky for Harvey, Dick Grayson’s listening in, and the young Robin gets so angry at the idea that Two-Face might have had something to do with his parents’ death that he interrupts the interrogation and gives Two-Face time to escape.

Two-Face Claims That He Gave the Go-Ahead for the Deaths of Robin's Parents

But It's Not as Simple as That

What Harvey’s referring to, of course, is the death of the Flying Graysons, Dick Grayson’s acrobat parents, who were killed by mobster Tony Zucco after their circus refused to pay protection money. Creators love to tinker with the Grayson deaths, whether it’s revealing that Dick himself was supposed to die that night or tying the circus into the Court of Owls. It’s an escalating series of minor retcons and retellings second only to Batman’s own origin, and at first glance, Batman and Robin: Year One #3 looks like it’s doing the same yet again.

However, this moment isn’t as big a potential reveal as it might seem at first. Robin confronts Two-Face, who gleefully its that he was just bluffing. He needed to seem big in front of the Falcones, so he said the first thing that came to mind. The problem is that he now knows that Robin cares about the Flying Graysons. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch for Two-Face to work out who Robin is from there. This series is, in fact, set in DC's past, so it can’t impact Dick Grayson too much in the present, but it’s still a fascinating potential wrinkle.

Two-Face Is Lying, but There's Still a Lesson to Be Learned for Robin

It's Not About Revenge, and It Never Was

Even though Two-Face was bluffing, it’s still a good reminder that there are forces at work larger than any one individual criminal. Two-Face might not have actively let Tony Zucco kill Robin’s parents, but Zucco was operating within a structure of crime families that sees individuals as disposable. It’s like how Batman’s war isn’t against Joe Chill, but instead against crime itself. It doesn’t matter if one takes down the individual responsible for the original crime; one has to take out the system that facilitated that crime. It’s a lesson that Robin has to learn before he becomes Nightwing.

Batman and Robin: Year One #3 is available now from DC Comics.