Was (Donna Troy's husband) Terry Long a Mary Sue?

[Kid Kyoto]

http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/terry-long-update-still-incredibly.html

A middle aged divorced school teacher who gets an Amazon Princess and hits on her hot teammate?

Was he a Marv Wolfman or George Perez analogue?

[Johnny Triangles]

http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/terry-long-update-still-incredibly.html

A middle aged divorced school teacher who gets an Amazon Princess and hits on her hot teammate?

Was he a Marv Wolfman or George Perez analogue?

He had to be, no one would create such a douchariffic character without some type of special attachment to him. People always speculate why X-Men went on to stratospheric heights and New Teen Titans petered out? Terry Long is a perfect example. A dorky sap like that wouldn't last a second as a supporting character in X-Men. As a kid, I tried New Teen Titans, saw that guy and immediately realized I could never respect a team that had a member who married that guy. Never got another issue again until the mid-90s.

[Johnny Triangles]

http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/terry-long-update-still-incredibly.html

A middle aged divorced school teacher who gets an Amazon Princess and hits on her hot teammate?

Was he a Marv Wolfman or George Perez analogue?

He had to be, no one would create such a douchariffic character without some type of special attachment to him. People always speculate why X-Men went on to stratospheric heights and New Teen Titans petered out? Terry Long is a perfect example. A dorky sap like that wouldn't last a second as a supporting character in X-Men. As a kid, I tried New Teen Titans, saw that guy and immediately realized I could never respect a team that had a member who married that guy. Never got another issue again until the mid-90s.

[Kid Kyoto]

More on him
http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/romance-special-wonder-girls-creepy.html
Apparently others had the same thought.

Now I know what he was supposed to be, he was supposed to be the normal guy man on the street window to the TT's world but, yeah a divorced professor marrying one of his hot teen students... no, not good.

[BetterThanYou]

More on him
http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/romance-special-wonder-girls-creepy.html
Apparently others had the same thought.

Now I know what he was supposed to be, he was supposed to be the normal guy man on the street window to the TT's world but, yeah a divorced professor marrying one of his hot teen students... no, not good.
How else are chicks supposed to get a degree though?

[Bill Angus]

It's been a long time since I read Titans, but I don't remember Terry ever being Donna's teacher. When they were shown dating/engaged, he was a professor, but she was a successful fashion photographer.

I don't remember how they met (if it was ever addressed), but I think his schoolastic expertise had something to do with ancient Greece (hardly something Donna would bother studying in the pre-crisis timeline).

I don't remember ever having a problem with him as a character (beyond his apparent inability to deal with ex-wife).

*** PAUSE to read the blog quoted.... ***

Just a couple more things to add (with quoting Chris's Invicible Super-Blog)

1) Terry is a divorced ex-college professor who was unable to gain tenure due to severe writer's block.

When Terry and Donna married he was still a professor. The writer's block issue came up after the wedding, I believe (in fact, I'm fairly certain it was quite a bit later. I think this came up after both Perez & Garcia Lopez had left the baxter book).

2) Having a failed marriage makes you a loser? Isn't the divorce rate up to 50% these days?

Granted, it sounds as though they really pushed the character into gutter sometime after I'd stopped following the book...

Anyone know who wrote the 'working in a bookstore planning to become a writer' thing? That sounds like something done after Wolfman had left, likely by some writer who wanted Donna to date some other super-hero rather than a 'normal' guy.

[Greg Hatcher]

Was he a Marv Wolfman or George Perez analogue?

Offhand I'd say no. If you look at the first run of Titans up to the wedding and the first ten issues or so of the Baxter book, what you see is Terry presented as being aggressively, well, normal. His every appearance was designed to proclaim "I'm a regular guy in a super world, just interested in getting along with everybody." I think he was Marv Wolfman's idea of rebelling against the X-Men angst-up-to-eleven relationships. He definitely liked Wonder Girl the best, and he designed Terry to be as perfect and conflict-free as she was, so it would be plausible for her to be with him. Unfortunately, when you see it in print, pasting Wonder Girl's Titans-era personality onto a young collegiate guy just makes him look like every jackass 80's psych major trying to 'relate' to girls on the Berkeley campus. During the original run, Terry and Donna are both sugary-sweet to the point of causing diabetes.

But "Mary Sue" is missing the mark, I think. Terry's whole thing was to be Not Super. That was his reason for being. He was in no way an avatar for Marv OR George-- for one thing, both guys are a lot hipper, a lot more emotional, and generally a lot more interesting than Terry Long ever was.

[the film freak]

http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/terry-long-update-still-incredibly.html

A middle aged divorced school teacher who gets an Amazon Princess and hits on her hot teammate?

I forgot him. You'd think Donna Troy would have no trouble meeting better guys in college. Maybe she went to Wesley.

[Kid Kyoto]

Just to be cynical, she was orphaned before she really knew her parents, was raised on an island of immortal, superhuman beautiful women and reminded all the time that she was not one of them.

Her powers were a gift from Amazon tech that she got later.

Then she was sent back to the man's world and had no friends except for a couple of other sidekick heroes who were presumably off limits.

So the idea of her falling for an older professor who shows interest in her is not out of bounds.

Less cynically, he was an interesting character for his time, his divorce was something off-hand and normal, the fact he knew Donna (and some other folk's) secret IDs was a pretty major step out of the silver age and into a more mature comic universe.

Anyway, I still vote Mary Sue, because all the other Titans seemed to think he was SUCH a great guy instantly, the halmark of an Mary Sue.

[Reptisaurus!]

CAN supporting characters be Mary Sue?

Strangely, the plural of Mary Sue seems to be Mary Sue. Typing anything else just felt WAY weird.

[Sean Walsh]

Question: how many people inb the Titans and DCU gave a crap when he and his kids drove off a cliff?* You'd think such a likeable guy's freakishly horrifying death would send them all in a tizzy?

Yet Byrne sent them to their deaths without much hub-bub...




* Sadly, their death merely reminds me of this: "O'DOYLE RULES!" ;) :p

[Johnny Triangles]

Question: how many people inb the Titans and DCU gave a crap when he and his kids drove off a cliff?* You'd think such a likeable guy's freakishly horrifying death would send them all in a tizzy?

Yet Byrne sent them to their deaths without much hub-bub...




* Sadly, their death merely reminds me of this: "O'DOYLE RULES!" ;) :p


When did he die? I'm sure alot of people cared in a celebratory way. I'd have bought the issue just for that.

[Sean Walsh]

When did he die? I'm sure alot of people cared in a celebratory way. I'd have bought the issue just for that.

During Byrne's run on WONDER WOMAN, I believe, in the midst of his redefining of Donna Troy...

[Matt Algren]

During Byrne's run on WONDER WOMAN, I believe, in the midst of his redefining of Donna Troy...
I was really surprised they did that off panel. She just got a phone call from someone telling her that her ex and toddler son were killed in a car accident. IIRC, Terry's other kid was in the car too.

It was weird. I kept expecting them to show her going to a funeral or using the accident for a story, but it just kind of happened and then was over. Donna got pouty for a couple issues of Green Lantern, but that was about it.

[Lorendiac]

It's been a long time since I read Titans, but I don't remember Terry ever being Donna's teacher. When they were shown dating/engaged, he was a professor, but she was a successful fashion photographer.

I don't remember how they met (if it was ever addressed), but I think his schoolastic expertise had something to do with ancient Greece (hardly something Donna would bother studying in the pre-crisis timeline).

I don't remember ever having a problem with him as a character (beyond his apparent inability to deal with ex-wife).

I agree that he was never Donna's teacher. And he was nowhere near middle-aged when they started dating. I'm going to try to paraphrase a couple of key scenes from memory.

I believe that when the other Titans threw a surprise birthday party for Cyborg, some of the conversation went like this:

DONNA: So you're 19 today. Join the crowd.

TERRY: Harrrumph! Nineteen! Children!

DONNA: Terry, you're just jealous because you're practically middle-aged.

TERRY: Hey! 29 isn't 'practically middle-aged!' Is it?

Also, a year or so later, there was a scene where he's just wrapping up a lecture on campus, and as the bell rings and other students leave, one cute blond girl approaches him and asks if he ever gives private tutoring. He says blankly, "Private tutoring?" and she says sweetly, "You know. Just you and me . . . and the Greeks, of course."

Terry gets the real message at that point, and starts to say politely, "I'm sorry, Sally, I really am, but I make it a strict policy never to--"

Then he gets interrupted. Donna speaks from offstage, and when he turns around and looks, she's holding up one hand so that the diamond ring flashes brightly. (He gave her that ring in a previous issue, asking her to marry him, and she stalled for time, saying she needed to think it over before she could give a definite answer. Wearing the ring was her way of making it clear that yep, she now had a definite answer for him.)

Terry says brightly, "You're wearing the ring!" (Is that man brilliantly perceptive or what?)

Sally says in horror, "The ring?"

Then Terry and Donna go into a clinch while Sally furtively slinks off, realizing she really isn't wanted or needed. (Mercifully, I think that was probably the first, last, and only time we ever saw her.)

So Terry was only 29 at the time he was dating Donna, instead of a middle-aged man old enough to be her father. And he apparently had a strict policy of never dating his own students -- therefore, Donna was not one of his students. That seems to scuttle some of the criticisms that have been leveled against him in this thread.

P.S. Just now, I finally followed Kid Kyoto's first link (http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/terry-long-update-still-incredibly.html) to a blog entry about him. Chris's self-described reactions to the scanned panels are so ridiculously unfair to Terry that I suspect it's all meant to be tongue-in-cheek.

[Patience]

P.S. Just now, I finally followed Kid Kyoto's first link (http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/terry-long-update-still-incredibly.html) to a blog entry about him. Chris's self-described reactions to the scanned panels are so ridiculously unfair to Terry that I suspect it's all meant to be tongue-in-cheek.

Now you've done it, you've attracted the attention of one Mr. Chris Sims, who has no account on these forums. He just sent me this message:
Go there, and quote the person who says "Chris's self-described reactions to the scanned panels are so ridiculously unfair to Terry that I suspect it's all meant to be tongue-in-cheek." and tell them I said "No. No they are not. I &@($ing hate Terry Long." (Obscenity removed by me.)

And since Chris is a nice person who links my blog a lot, I feel obliged to deliver the message, which, once again, is:
"No. No they are not. I &@($ing hate Terry Long."

[Johnny Triangles]

I agree that he was never Donna's teacher. And he was nowhere near middle-aged when they started dating. I'm going to try to paraphrase a couple of key scenes from memory.

I believe that when the other Titans threw a surprise birthday party for Cyborg, some of the conversation went like this:

DONNA: So you're 19 today. Join the crowd.

TERRY: Harrrumph! Nineteen! Children!

DONNA: Terry, you're just jealous because you're practically middle-aged.

TERRY: Hey! 29 isn't 'practically middle-aged!' Is it?

Also, a year or so later, there was a scene where he's just wrapping up a lecture on campus, and as the bell rings and other students leave, one cute blond girl approaches him and asks if he ever gives private tutoring. He says blankly, "Private tutoring?" and she says sweetly, "You know. Just you and me . . . and the Greeks, of course."

Terry gets the real message at that point, and starts to say politely, "I'm sorry, Sally, I really am, but I make it a strict policy never to--"

Then he gets interrupted. Donna speaks from offstage, and when he turns around and looks, she's holding up one hand so that the diamond ring flashes brightly. (He gave her that ring in a previous issue, asking her to marry him, and she stalled for time, saying she needed to think it over before she could give a definite answer. Wearing the ring was her way of making it clear that yep, she now had a definite answer for him.)

Terry says brightly, "You're wearing the ring!" (Is that man brilliantly perceptive or what?)

Sally says in horror, "The ring?"

Then Terry and Donna go into a clinch while Sally furtively slinks off, realizing she really isn't wanted or needed. (Mercifully, I think that was probably the first, last, and only time we ever saw her.)

So Terry was only 29 at the time he was dating Donna, instead of a middle-aged man old enough to be her father. And he apparently had a strict policy of never dating his own students -- therefore, Donna was not one of his students. That seems to scuttle some of the criticisms that have been leveled against him in this thread.

P.S. Just now, I finally followed Kid Kyoto's first link (http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/terry-long-update-still-incredibly.html) to a blog entry about him. Chris's self-described reactions to the scanned panels are so ridiculously unfair to Terry that I suspect it's all meant to be tongue-in-cheek.


There is absolutely nothing unfair about hating Terry Long. If anything, Chris was going easy on him. All decent human beings owe it to society to hate Terry Long.

[Sean Dulaney]

Question: how many people inb the Titans and DCU gave a crap when he and his kids drove off a cliff?* You'd think such a likeable guy's freakishly horrifying death would send them all in a tizzy?

Yet Byrne sent them to their deaths without much hub-bub...



It's open to debate, but I think you could kind of chalk the "eh" reaction to the death of Terry, his daughter and his son with Donna in Wonder Woman to Byrne's "Wolfman issues." (Then again it could've been an editor thinking having an small child aged Donna too much and her supporting cast/baggage was taken off the table as quickly as they could.)

Other writers did try to at least recognize the death (I seem to remember the "Then and Now" storyline in Jurgens' TEEN TITANS having an awkward moment between the male original Titans when it came out that Terry and the kids had died recently.)

As far as the Mary Sue arguement goes, I come out against Terry being an MS for either George or Marv based on how the character was portrayed in TEAM TITANS. I might have my timeline of but I believe Marv was still writing or at least co-writing/plotting this series as Terry was finally about to have enough of being the supportive "normal" husband to a (at the time) former super-heroine. Creators might kill off their Mary Sue if they think they can draw an emotional story out of it, but I can't think of a creator commiting to turning their Mary Sue into an unsympathetic character, even if it's what logic dictates for their character arc. (See: Turantula, attempts to rehab image after rape of Nightwing/murder of Blockbuster.)

Terry was a decent character who arguably hung on too long. He was really far too normal to last as long as he did in the Titans world. Unlike most super-team friends and family, he stayed away from the frontlines for the most part and avoided getting gutted by Wildebeasts, turned to a pile of ash by Trigon, brainwashed by Brother Blood or lobotomized by Psimon. On the brightside, he was never granted powers to turn him into a revenge driven villain or join the team. Had he truly been a Mary Sue, HE would've become a Darkstar instead of Donna.

[dupersuper]

It was also touched on alot with Graysons' Titans stuff.

[AllisterH]

Does anyone like "normal guys" dating superhero women? For one, "normal man" + "superheroine" seems like a rarity (other than She-Hulk at the Big two, do any of the superheroines date normal men?) and when it does occur, it seems like people hate the guy unless he's Mr. Action like pre-crisis Steve Trevor or Wyatt Wingfoot.

How come the male superheroes get to date relatively normal women. Sure, Lois post-Crisis is a far cry from her pre-Crisis self, but compared to She Hulk's current husband/fiance/boyfriend, she's still relatively normal compared to world famous astronaut-slash-stargod-slash-werewolf by night hero.

I mean, I remember reading those Titans issue and kind of like the whole brouhaha on "For Better or for Worse", the guy most hated by fans only crime is that he's well, depressingly normal.....

[Johnny Triangles]

Does anyone like "normal guys" dating superhero women? For one, "normal man" + "superheroine" seems like a rarity (other than She-Hulk at the Big two, do any of the superheroines date normal men?) and when it does occur, it seems like people hate the guy unless he's Mr. Action like pre-crisis Steve Trevor or Wyatt Wingfoot.

How come the male superheroes get to date relatively normal women. Sure, Lois post-Crisis is a far cry from her pre-Crisis self, but compared to She Hulk's current husband/fiance/boyfriend, she's still relatively normal compared to world famous astronaut-slash-stargod-slash-werewolf by night hero.

I mean, I remember reading those Titans issue and kind of like the whole brouhaha on "For Better or for Worse", the guy most hated by fans only crime is that he's well, depressingly normal.....

The reason I think most people hated Terry isn't that he's normal, it's that he looks like a total stereotypical academia douche that uses his worldly professor shtick to take advantage of young impressionable girls. I'd hate that guy in real life too. Nothing to really do with his normalcy.

[AllisterH]

The reason I think most people hated Terry isn't that he's normal, it's that he looks like a total stereotypical academia douche that uses his worldly professor shtick to take advantage of young impressionable girls. I'd hate that guy in real life too. Nothing to really do with his normalcy.


But where does this come from? It's not supported by the facts, in truth, as a previous poster mentions, Terry is the anithesis of the "creepy professor".

Donna was a successful full-fledged professional photographer and was NEVER his student by the time they got together. Terry himself was an oddity since he was only 29 and a full professor thus he only had like about a 7 yr age gap on Donna which is NOTHING.

Thorw in the fact that Donna has been a superhero for at least half her life by then which incidentally means that if anything, she was the more experienced, worldly of the two. How many dead bodies, acts of betrayal had Donna see by that point in her life? What life experiences could Terry have that could even compare?


Thus, like I said, people HAVE to be hating Terry for his normalcy since the facts don't support the "creepy professor" charge.

[Aaron Kashtan]

Terry himself was an oddity since he was only 29 and a full professor thus he only had like about a 7 yr age gap on Donna which is NOTHING.

Just to nitpick, the term "full professor" has a specific meaning. You don't become a full professor until after you already have tenure, and it would be difficult or impossible to become one by age 29. Terry was probably an assistant or associate professor.

[Gilda Dent]

I've read and reread the issues in question several times and I really don't get the hating on Terry. He seems like a decent, normal, nice guy. I liked that, as AllistarH mentions above, the relationship was one that broke the typical power bound relationship. Male heroes routinely would have a beautiful, supportive, non-powered girlfriend. Heroines, with the notable exception of pre-crisis Wonder Woman, seem to be required to have a super for a boyfriend, and even in the case of couple supers like the Hawks or Bulletman and Bulletgirl, the girlfriend/wife is less powerful. Even with Wonder Woman, Steve Trevor was a strong, action-oriented, tough he-man type who, in the Golden Age, rescued Wonder Woman as often as she did him.

It plays into the male power fantasy of the superhero genre, especially as it existed being aimed at ten year-old boys for the first several decades. Generally, the girlfriend/wife must have and demonstrate less power than the husband/boyfriend or it gives the appearance of being symbolically emasculating. The male hero can have an ordinary girlfriend because it plays into that fantasy--the hero who rescues the damsel in distress becomes an avatar for the target prepubescent male audience, like the stereotypical pre-teen fantasy of fighting off a gang of attackers and having the attractive young teacher fall in love with you. It's a particularly attractive fantasy for boys this age because they tend to be starting to try to figure out what it means to "be a man," with mainstream culture and pop culture feeding the image of physical prowess, in the form of dominance games and sports perfromance, being a measure of the man, but at the same time most of the power figures in the boys' lives tend to be female in the form of mom and mostly female teachers. Superhero comics for a very long time provided an outlet for this, inverting the power structure.

A heroine who is physically dominant over a man, particularly one who is of the intellectual type rather than an action hero type, undercuts this very powerful and very attractive element of superhero comics, which is why I suspect we very seldom, if ever saw this sort of thing before, and not very often since.

It's one of the appeals of the character and the relationship to me--that it didn't just regurgitate the stereotype.

[AllisterH]

A heroine who is physically dominant over a man, particularly one who is of the intellectual type rather than an action hero type, undercuts this very powerful and very attractive element of superhero comics, which is why I suspect we very seldom, if ever saw this sort of thing before, and not very often since.

It's one of the appeals of the character and the relationship to me--that it didn't just regurgitate the stereotype.

Exactly.

I mean, where do people get the creepy professor vibe from? There is NOTHING in the comics that suggest anything like this but going by the typical fan reaction, Terry was some type of stalker/professor.

Furthermore, equating Donna Troy as a young, impressionable, girl is the height of sexism since frankly, she is the one with all the power in the relationship. She's the one with the physical power AND the emotional power.

Even back then, I thought the relationship was different in that here you have the guy who was weaker than his spouse yet he didn't seem to mind. I remember a scene where Terry himself is asked about this and he mentions that Donna doesn't have a problem with this and thus why should he.

[Kid Kyoto]

Exactly.

I mean, where do people get the creepy professor vibe from? There is NOTHING in the comics that suggest anything like this but going by the typical fan reaction, Terry was some type of stalker/professor.



He does hit on her teammates which is generally uncool.

[AllisterH]

He does hit on her teammates which is generally uncool.

He hits on Starfire. STARFIRE.

EVERYONE hits on Starfire and personally I find this laughable since if you actually read the scene, all he does is compliment her and kiss her hand right there with Donna and that's his first meeting with Kory. After that, do we see Terry trying to jump into Kory's pants everytime? Nope.

re: Gotham Central
Gotham Central had a great scene where we get to see "normal" people's reaction to Starfire and even Maggie Sawyer who has been in a long term relationship since forever was drooling like an idiot over Starfire.

If you have a pulse and are attracted to the female form, you're supposed to be going gaga over Kory.

[Kid Kyoto]

And in his first appearance he spends the day hangng out at Starfire's photoshoot and drooling. While his girlfriend takes the pictures.

[sheets]

I think I hate Terry Long because of his hair, both the beard and that goofy early 80's afro. That's it, really. I'm shallow...

[Johnny Triangles]

I think I hate Terry Long because of his hair, both the beard and that goofy early 80's afro. That's it, really. I'm shallow...


Exactly, he's a total dweeb. I hate him for shallow reasons also. Even for the era he debuted he was out of style.

[Matches Malone]

I always thought it was less a case of Mary Sue-ism and more a case of Marv Wolfman being unable to write a believeable relationship. His characters tend to either do nothing but talk about how much they love each other (or "care" for each other), or fight. Nightwing and Starfire were written just as poorly, IMO, but at least with them there was something more to the characters, i.e. their superheroics. With Terry Long there was nothing else - his only purpose in the book was to be Donna's significant other.

But even Terry Long wasn't as whiny as the angelic Azrael.

[Agentum]

I didn't hate him, he was just a suporting background character after all, i didn't even know he was killed off.

Was it that he was not cool and had superpowers that made people hate him?

He is nothing to miss but he is really not worth hating either, get a life or something:D

[John Nowak]

I'm inclined to think that Terry was just an average guy in a superhero universe, who had problems with his ex-wife. It wasn't one of the great comic book romances -- Wolfman had to juggle 80+ plots. Still, it wasn't handled appreciably worse than the hundreds of superhero man / normal woman relationships over the years.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

I think what hurt Terry Long was the fact that even though he was supposed to be 29 , he was drew with a beard and looked older on the page. I always pictured him as a late 30's creepy character who as one poster said , hit on young women.

I think Marv really wanted the 2 central relationships , Starfire/Dick Grayson and Terry Long/Donna Troy to be the stars of his run. Its just that Marve really couldn't sustain them. Long was a wish fufillment type character because he was supposed to be " normal " and he marries an Amazon Goddess.

But no one at DC seemingly really wanted the 2 togethor. Its like they just never even accepted it. I don't think anyone outside Titans ever even mentioned Donna Troy had a husband or had a kid. Its like he was person non grata.

Do I think Wolfman stayed too long on Titans and hurt himself ? Yeah I do. I think his love of the characters hurt. He also had characters there like Roy Harper and Dick Grayson who odds are many fans could see with Donna Troy more so than Terry Long. Who I'm sure many thought was boring as fuck and was a creepy old man.

Marv doomed his own love. He so wanted the Titans to be different from the X-Men. But in doing that relationship he sorta rocked the boat of what readers wanted. He should have left the series after the Wedding issue and handed the reigns to some new writer who had plans for the characters.