WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Teen Titans #37, by Adam Glass, Bernard Chang, Scott Hana, Marcelo Maiolo, and Rob Leigh, on sale now.
Damian Wayne's Robin has always been an edgier take on the Boy Wonder. He constantly walks the line between the (relatively) bloodless way of his father Batman and the blood-drenched nature of his upbringing and training with his mother, Talia al Ghul and the League of Shadows. While the Teen Titan has kept himself mostly in check since adopting the title of Robin, he's had more than a few moments of temptation.
The most recent Teen Titans arc has already been a rough one for Damian and the rest of the team. In the lead up to the most recent issue the team has discovered that they were betrayed by Roundhouse, the genie Djinn was trapped in her ring seemingly forever, and Crush went on a killing spree under the control of her father - Lobo. This last event ended with the Titans being captured and turned over to a mysterious buyer, who turned out to be none other than "The Other," the mysterious villain that Robin has been tracking since he took over the Teen Titans.
In Teen Titans #37, the reveal of the Other's identity turns into a massive crisis of identity and confidence for the Boy Wonder. With the Titans chained at his feet, the Other sends Kid Flash, Red Arrow, and Crush away with Lobo so that he may speak alone with Robin. Once the two are alone, the Other destroys his mask to reveal that he's the Heretic, a clone of Damian who killed the Robin in the past.
After Batman turned down Talia's offer to rule the world as a family in Batman, Incorporated, she decided to create a new son, specifically a new Damian, who would not stray from the path set forward by the League of Shadows or hesitate to kill when necessary. Talia does this by growing Heretic inside a whale in a facility made for meta-human gestation, which Heretic -- upon growing to the size of an adult within his whale -- breaks out of on his own, killing the entire facility's staff of meta-humans in the process.
The Heretic is literal a killing machine, and he goes on to defeat multiple members of Batman Incorporated single-handedly including Batman himself. Not only does he put a serious hurting on Batman, he kills Robin by stabbing him through the heart. Eventually, Heretic was killed in a confrontation with Batman atop Wayne Tower, but only after he is both decapitated and blown up.
Even though he was revived through a dip in the Lazarus Pit, his face is now severely bruised and scarred, including a neck scar where it appears his head has been stitched back on.
This time, however, Heretic's plan is not simply killing everyone that stands in his way. He reveals to Robin that he tracked down the villain originally known as the Other and killed him. Afterward, he took his place ( and began to grow his criminal empire even further. Now, after creating a series of patterns for Robin to track, he gives Damian the chance to work with him to achieve some mysterious goal. As the Heretic tells the hero he once killed, he is dying thinks that the two can make a meaningful impact on the world by working together before he perishes.
The Heretic even views himself as a hero, which Damian takes issue with. Bu as Heretic states in an appeal to Damian's darker impulses, "You cannot beat crime, Damian. You'd be a fool to believe otherwise. But you can control it."
Now, Damian is being faced with a shadow version of himself in more ways than one. While the Heretic embodies all of his worst impulses, he's still the villain who killed him a few years ago. Despite that, Damian seems to be considering the Heretic's offer. His clone even asks him to take up the mantle of the Other, and Damian doesn't refuse.
Even though Roundhouse returns to save the rest of the Teen Titans by the end of the issue, Damian's choice is left hanging in the air. Even if Damian doesn't take the Heretic's offer, it could still start the Robin down a dark road that could lead him and the other Titans astray.