Terry Long- Whatever did he do to you?

[dreyga2000]

I recently have come ro realize that there seems to be a fan wide grugde against Terry Long....

As an old NTT fan I remember Terry as a pretty chill dude who nothing but love for Donna and respect for the Titans... Why do people seem hate the guy. What exactly did he do???

[ryerye17]

He's creepy.

[Mart]

Well, the ginger perm and beard is a pretty ‘orrible look but yeah, I was always a tad icked out by the idea that he was a wish-fulfilment fill-in for writer Marv Wolfman.

Here’s Marv in the olden days: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Marv_Wolfman.jpg

Here’s Invincible Chris on the subject:: http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/terry-long-update-still-incredibly.html

[Bound4olympus]

I recently have come ro realize that there seems to be a fan wide grugde against Terry Long....

As an old NTT fan I remember Terry as a pretty chill dude who nothing but love for Donna and respect for the Titans... Why do people seem hate the guy. What exactly did he do???

If i had to guess, and this is from a place of complete ignorance, I would have to say because he looked too much like this guy

http://www.la-paleta.com/images/Bob_Ross.jpg

But seriously, I think most people didn't want to see Donna powerless and settled down and blame Terry for that. but I really have no idea since i was far to young to read comics at that time and don't even really know what books to read to find out.

[AdamYJ]

He was just this creepy old guy who was hitting on Wonder Girl.

He was the DCU's resident "creepy old man who's dating a 19-year-old" before the current Hawkman settled into that role. :tongue:

[Bound4olympus]

Here’s Invincible Chris on the subject:: http://the-isb.blogspot.com/2006/02/terry-long-update-still-incredibly.html

Um, just followed that link to a horrible horrible place. Thats what Terry Long was like?! No wonder people hate him. What a creep.

[Eliseu Gouveia]

He was just this creepy old guy who was hitting on Wonder Girl.

He was the DCU's resident "creepy old man who's dating a 19-year-old" before the current Hawkman settled into that role. :tongue:
Was it because of the beard?
I never got the "creepy old man" vibe from Terry.
He was what, 25?

That´s not old.

I hope....

[Mart]

He must has have been a fair bit older than that, with an ex-wife and kid, and to have gotten his tenure at university, I'd say, oh, 102.

[CarolStrick]

Here was YET ANOTHER instance of readers not getting a "First Meet."

As a card-carrying member of Romance Writers of America, I've heard many times how important the First Meet is. Why? Because it allows the reader to fall in love with the person at the same time the protagonist does.

We never really saw WHY Donna was so ga-ga over Terry. We never really saw them being romantic. We did see a little romance (mostly effusive adoration but nothing realistic from either), but the marriage came so abruptly (at least for me) that things seemed rushed and unwise. I kept waiting for Terry to be revealed as a villain.

As Mart's link tells us, Donna was Terry's rebound girl after his marriage. For us, we never saw Donna having a serious fling with anyone...until Terry. Doesn't an adventuresome gal get a chance to experiment, get her heart broken a few times, break a few hearts of her own, before she settles down?

Ah, but Donna's the Wonder Woman you can Do Things To. She can be an orphan. She can have a pitiful childhood. She can lose her virginity. She can get married. She can have a kid. Diana can't.

Terry was awkwardly presented to us. He had a few shining moments, but not many, and when the couple began moving apart and squabbling when all they needed was five minutes of honest conversation (RWA deplores squabbling fictional couples and refers to them as lazy writing), well, divorce was a saving grace. I mean, if no one could actually handle them right, why not? Erase program and start over.

[WorstThingUS]

The perm and the fact he wasn't shown to be "better" than your average comics fan, but was boning their girl. It's one thing to be another superhero, a secret agent even a super villain, but to be just some joe was unforgivable so he had to go. Didn't they add insult to injury by making him a jerk later on too?

But mostly the perm.

[eligibility]

Well said, Carol.

I don't have as much of a grudge against Terry in the sense that I feel killing him (and especially Robert) off was cruel and rushed writing, but Terry was ten years her senior (19 when Donna married, Terry was 29), which, again, isn't that unheard of and doesn't make the relationship particularly BAD or wrong.

Buuuut Donna Troy was forced to grow up rather fast. It bothered me on a lot of levels. She was orphaned and never had a real sense of family, which was why I think she was so quick to become a Mother to the Titans and so quick to, as she stated happily at her Mother's grave in "Who is Donna Troy?", get married and immediately start her own family at nineteen. It was very rushed, and it was mostly Terry lavishing Donna with adoration and adulation of "Lover" and "Sweetheart" and talking about how beautiful she was.

Donna was a sweet enough girl that I could see her falling for how Terry was "mature" and wise, but their relationship was kind of an empty paste-on of pet names and them coming as a pair for everything. Donna started to lose her identity and, yes, eventually her powers for this man. It was actually realistic in the sense that a lot of young girls (and guys, though it's not as widely reported) lose and give up their identities to an older lover. I think of the Little Mermaid and when Ariel gave up her culture, family, and identity for Eric.

I feel that Donna and Terry didn't really have a realistic relationship, and it's added on even more to Donna's current identity crisis -- she's been married twice by the age of twenty five, and both times it was to someone who was a semi-father figure to her at the same time.

I think this was why I liked her relationship with Kyle so much. She got to be petty sometimes, she got to be YOUNG and in love, and they had spats they worked through and you saw their relationship build and grow and, as Carol said, the "First Meet" was written quite cutely. You saw Donna grow with Kyle, admit she overreacted about something, and deal with a stressful divorce while learning not to take out her own trust issues on the relationship.

I've seen a writer complain that Donna was written as a "bitch" with Kyle, which I not only found sexist but just bs -- was Donna not allowed to be imperfect? Or could she only be imperfect in tragically flawed and noble ways?

That was another thing that just rubbed me wrong with Terry and Donna. She was literally a dream girl for him, and it seemed like they both weren't allowed to let up and have stupid arguments or anything like that. It was written as the "ideal" relationship, as the writers even said too, which was just ridiculous to me because of the lack of development and how quickly it progressed into marriage.

I have less qualms with Terry and more issues with the couple and how it didn't sit well with me at all.

Now that Terry is dead I want him to stay that way, but I think that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

[TimmyTony]

Wow...so all the hatred boils down to a dislike for his hairdo and some strawman arguments based on reeeeeally stretching things?

He never gave off a "creepy" vibe, I actually think the irrational "hatred" for the guy is creepier because there's nothing in that link that truly implies that he was hitting on Kory or that he wanted a threesome. The one thing Marv showed was him staring at the Starfire, but what straight guy wouldn't stare at a girl built like Kory, modeling seductively.

I just don't see why the hate, it just comes off as typical fanboy "overprotectiveness" of a beloved fictional character (Donna) and wanting her to be "pure" or whatnot...


The one thing I remember about the original NTT run was that I thought it was cool to see a guy (Terry) that wasn't modeled after the typical square-jawed, dark-haired, blue eyed All-American jock, (Same way I felt about how cool it was that Terra had an overbite)

[eligibility]

Wow...so all the hatred boils down to a dislike for his hairdo and some strawman arguments based on reeeeeally stretching things?

He never gave off a "creepy" vibe, I actually think the irrational "hatred" for the guy is creepier because there's nothing in that link that truly implies that he was hitting on Kory or that he wanted a threesome. The one thing Marv showed was him staring at the Starfire, but what straight guy wouldn't stare at a girl built like Kory, modeling seductively.

I just don't see why the hate, it just comes off as typical fanboy "overprotectiveness" of a beloved fictional character (Donna) and wanting her to be "pure" or whatnot...

Eh, jokes aside, my reasons for not liking the Terry/Donna relationship had nothing to do with me seeing Terry as creepy. I don't really see him as anything but your average (kind of dorky -- but so are a lot of heroes too) nice guy.

I think there are valid reasons to not like them together, and to feel his character doesn't bring much to the table other than pet names, but I don't see a valid reason to have killed Terry off, tbh, though now that it's done it's done I guess. Imo, throwing Donna Troy into marriage and motherhood so early on and having her deal with an antagonizing ex-wife, a stepdaughter, and eventually giving up her powers for it all threw her development off track all by the age of nineteen-twenty. Her character became so revolved around that that upon their deaths she hasn't been able to be truly happy or recover -- which was a ridiculous move, by the way, on Bryne's end, to kill them off, but it showed that she didn't have much outside of them to keep her going. Of course, we have other relationships in her life that were either yanked by editorial mandate (Kyle), ambivalent and unclear (Diana), not given enough face time (Cassie, Dick eventually, Kori eventually), so it's just led to her being a very wasted character.

[Den]

I never really held a grudge against Terry, but then, Donna was never one of my favorite Titans either.

[TimmyTony]

The perm and the fact he wasn't shown to be "better" than your average comics fan, but was boning their girl. It's one thing to be another superhero, a secret agent even a super villain, but to be just some joe was unforgivable so he had to go. Didn't they add insult to injury by making him a jerk later on too?

But mostly the perm.

With all due respect, I don't see anything odd and certainly nothing "unforgivable" about a superheroine falling for a regular Joe. Now, if any superheroines are gonna fall for down to Earth, average guys, wouldn'ty that be Donna and DIana? I mean, all the preaching about love, equality, and valuing the mind and heart over the looks and external, youknow?

If any character is aware that all the shallow things we as a culture give value to are ridiculous, that would be the Wonder gals. And in fact, except for that pesky thing about supervillains trying to kill him, I could see how WW would actually fall for a normal, "regular Joe" kind of guy...

I certainly can't imagine Diana purposely dismissing a potential romantic interest based on suff like..."Well, he is a janitor/fast food worker/student" or "He is so plain, and...ordinary" or whatnot...

[WorstThingUS]

With all due respect, I don't see anything odd and certainly nothing "unforgivable" about a superheroine falling for a regular Joe. Now, if any superheroines are gonna fall for down to Earth, average guys, wouldn'ty that be Donna and DIana? I mean, all the preaching about love, equality, and valuing the mind and heart over the looks and external, youknow?

If any character is aware that all the shallow things we as a culture give value to are ridiculous, that would be the Wonder gals. And in fact, except for that pesky thing about supervillains trying to kill him, I could see how WW would actually fall for a normal, "regular Joe" kind of guy...

I certainly can't imagine Diana purposely dismissing a potential romantic interest based on suff like..."Well, he is a janitor/fast food worker/student" or "He is so plain, and...ordinary" or whatnot...

With all due respect, you said pretty much the same thing I did: a fanboy reaction to a beloved character. I just gave a reason behind it I stand by that reason. Terry was average. He wasn't exceptional in any way so how dare he get a Wonder Girl!?! They hate him for being them. If he were a professor like Indiana Jones or even Robert Langdon you wouldn't hear these complaints about the age difference (though I find a 29-year-old man dating a 19-year-old equally creepy). No one ever mentions that technically Green Arrow at a minimum, a decade senior to Black Canary (Hal/Spectre made his body younger when he brought him back) because Ollie is and always was a superhero and exception and worthy of a goddess.

[TimmyTony]

With all due respect, you said pretty much the same thing I did: a fanboy reaction to a beloved character. I just gave a reason behind it I stand by that reason. Terry was average. He wasn't exceptional in any way so how dare he get a Wonder Girl!?! They hate him for being them. If he were a professor like Indiana Jones or even Robert Langdon you wouldn't hear these complaints about the age difference (though I find a 29-year-old man dating a 19-year-old equally creepy). No one ever mentions that technically Green Arrow at a minimum, a decade senior to Black Canary (Hal/Spectre made his body younger when he brought him back).

Oops.:frown:
I misunderstood that you were actually explaining the reasons for the hatred, as opposed to just saying that you personally disliked him for that.
Sorry.


(*slowly sits in the back of the class, humilliated*)

[Donna M.]

Thank you Carol, for summing it all up so concisely. You pretty much hit the nail on the head. Nevermind that I've heard through the fandom grapevine that Terry was just a stand-in for either Len Wein or Marv Wolfman or both!

[WorstThingUS]

Oops.:frown:
I misunderstood that you were actually explaining the reasons for the hatred, as opposed to just saying that you personally disliked him for that.
Sorry.


(*slowly sits in the back of the class, humilliated*)

No worries. I was just confused as to why you were disagreeing with me for agreeing with you.

[meek?]

Ever gotten sick of coming across too many sitcoms that feature a pairing of a frumpy, mostly obese, husband and a hot wife?

It's like that only multiplied by a million and all encapsulated into one single marriage.

Donna could have anyone in the world. ANYONE. And she chose a recently divorced geriatric dude that left drips of Soul Glo on the sofas he sat on. Someone who very well could have been bullied around by her father when he was in high school.

Thank you for the creepiness, Terry, but leave that stuff for your Facebook page...

http://www.facebook.com/people/Marvin-Tikva/1600956940

Peace.

[WorstThingUS]

Donna could have anyone in the world. ANYONE. And she chose a recently divorced geriatric dude that left drips of Soul Glo on the sofas he sat on. Someone who very well could have been bullied around by her father when he was in high school.



If you think 29 is geriatric, life is going to be long and hard for you.

[philippos42]

OK, this is harsh, but...

I'm a short guy, with curly red hair. I am totally in favor of the meme wherein short nebbishy redheaded guy gets the tall hot brunette superheroine.

What squicks me about the relationship is that he had an ex-wife who looked roughly like an older version of Donna. Donna comes off as the replacement, the trophy wife. And Marv wrote the ex as a horrid shrew.

I don't know if he had the self-awareness to realize that he made Terry look like a toad with that backstory. It almost seems like we were meant to sympathize with Terry while he was leading on that poor girl.

[Deus ex Chris]

He wasn't interesting, and the relationship aged Donna too much. How's that?

[eligibility]

He wasn't interesting, and the relationship aged Donna too much. How's that?

Perfect :biggrin:

[dreyga2000]

So... what I'm getting was that he was old and too normal... And somehow lessened Donna as a character???

*Sigh*

[SybaritaCybernetico]

Geriatric indeed. 29.


(fanboys never cease to astound me. 29 is geriatric....?? lol)

[Sean Whitmore]

He wasn't interesting, and the relationship aged Donna too much. How's that?

It's a great reason, I just don't think it's the reason the majority of the people who dislike him dislike him.


SEAN

[Eliseu Gouveia]

He wasn't interesting, and the relationship aged Donna too much. How's that?

It´s the Peter Parker syndrome.
Once you marry, you become old and stop being interesting.
it´s in the clause, apparently. :rolleyes:

[Deus ex Chris]

It's a great reason, I just don't think it's the reason the majority of the people who dislike him dislike him.


SEAN
I don't mind being in the minority.


No jokes, Sean.

[Deus ex Chris]

It´s the Peter Parker syndrome.
Once you marry, you become old and stop being interesting.
it´s in the clause, apparently. :rolleyes:

Well, I imagine it had more to do with the execution than the idea--except for the ex and the kids. Those were just bad ideas, along with the loss of her powers.

[Sean Whitmore]

I don't mind being in the minority.


No jokes, Sean.

You wound me, sir.


SEAN

[eligibility]

It´s the Peter Parker syndrome.
Once you marry, you become old and stop being interesting.
it´s in the clause, apparently. :rolleyes:

No, once you, at the age of nineteen, have an accelerated pregnancy, marry after a short time of dating someone, and give up your powers and turn into a literal den mother and have all of your plotlines having to do with your son or your husband/his older ex-wife, you are forced to grow up much too quickly and lose some integral parts of your character.




So... what I'm getting was that he was old and too normal... And somehow lessened Donna as a character???

*Sigh*

Other people have given better and more thorough reasons-- that's a flattening and simplifying argument for them.

[meek?]

If you think 29 is geriatric, life is going to be long and hard for you.

Ha! 29?? No way! He didn't look a day younger than 48! XD

That's even worse if he was 29 and looked like that. I think that's a disease. lolz

Peace.

[Flamebird]

I recently have come ro realize that there seems to be a fan wide grugde against Terry Long....

As an old NTT fan I remember Terry as a pretty chill dude who nothing but love for Donna and respect for the Titans... Why do people seem hate the guy. What exactly did he do???

He touched me in the "bad place".

I can only show you on my dolly. :wink:

I always liked Terry, when he was introduced and all the way up to the wedding.

I took a many years hiatus from comics shortly after that, so I have no idea if the writers changed him radically or if people just decided they didn't want Donna to be married.

[Death by Mime]

It was that he was ordinary. It was that he was aggressively ordinary. And I don't just mean that he didn't have any powers or had an uninteresting job. Personality-wise, he was just a nice schlubby guy who was generally unremarkable. He felt like a real dude that the author knew personally in real life and had inexplicably decided to transport unchanged to this world full of young people in tights running around and fighting evil.

And even though he was an unremarkable guy, everyone really liked him for some reason. The Titans thought he was a stand-up guy, Starfire felt vaguely attracted to him, even his female students kept overtly hitting on him (and of course, being a decent guy, he never took advantage of it). Oh, and yeah, he was marrying Wonder Girl.

And then you find out that, oh hey, he has a strong physical resemblance to the author!

Basically, real-life ordinary dudes in superhero comics are as creepy as hell.

[Mars Getsoian]

Also: when your response to your wife, in new lingerie, trying to seduce you is to compare her to her mother, you will probably not win points from the audience for that. Dude was creepy. Not super-creepy in and of himself, but mildly creepy. In a way that became super-creepy when the rest of the cast responded by thinking he was awesome instead of, you know, the way you'd expect superheroes to respond to mild creepiness.

[EricAD]

I never had a problem at all with Terry Long in the 80's. I think people have an issue with him because he was drawn to look so much older than his stated age of 29. I didn't think it's creepy that they were getting married....just ill advised. But I remember liking Terry as a kid...he was the normal guy that got to hang out with the cool super people and was not intimidated by them. Then, in the 90's, he suddenly became a dick, like Marv didn't know what to do with him. And then he got killed off. Since Donna and Terry's relationship was supposed to be the "real" relationship in the book, it would have been interesting if it ended for realistic reasons...like Donna married too young and maybe falls for someone else? Instead he is turned into an ass and then killed off while we all cheer. Lame. Marv made a lot of ill advised (even by his own admission) choices for his Titans in the 90's, like making Raven evil again, killing Jericho, and turning Terry into a dick.

[scandalsavage]

It was that he was ordinary. It was that he was aggressively ordinary. And I don't just mean that he didn't have any powers or had an uninteresting job. Personality-wise, he was just a nice schlubby guy who was generally unremarkable. He felt like a real dude that the author knew personally in real life and had inexplicably decided to transport unchanged to this world full of young people in tights running around and fighting evil.

And even though he was an unremarkable guy, everyone really liked him for some reason. The Titans thought he was a stand-up guy, Starfire felt vaguely attracted to him, even his female students kept overtly hitting on him (and of course, being a decent guy, he never took advantage of it). Oh, and yeah, he was marrying Wonder Girl.

And then you find out that, oh hey, he has a strong physical resemblance to the author!

Basically, real-life ordinary dudes in superhero comics are as creepy as hell.

Well that sums up nicely for me the essence of "a certain special Mr. Terry Long" (which is how, IIRC, Donna actually referred to him in an issue).

And then of course he went from creepy and icky to plain ole A-hole when he decided that his wife's career made her unfit to be the primary caretaker of his son and sued for custody.

[dreyga2000]

Other people have given better and more thorough reasons-- that's a flattening and simplifying argument for them.

True... there where good reasons I don't mean to lessen.... Sorry if it came out that way... But I was really trying to dechiper what the general majority hated about him...

It seems to be he was old, boring, and creepy to most... Which I can understand... Though disagree with..

[philippos42]

I never had a problem at all with Terry Long in the 80's. [...] But I remember liking Terry as a kid...he was the normal guy that got to hang out with the cool super people and was not intimidated by them.I wasn't reading it in the 1980's, so I only saw Donna & Terry now & then. And I felt this way. It was later that I realized he had an ex & kid, & I liked him less.

I think that in the real world Terry & Marv would not be regularly mistaken for each other. But the fact that Jenette Kahn thought they looked alike & called it out in a column kind of made it a fan perception that he was self-insertion.

I figured Byrne killed off Terry & the kids to allow later writers to fudge Donna's age, & to wipe away some past continuity (as happens). The "many lives" story would have allowed Donna to lose all her 1980's continuity. But then certain people (like Phil Jimenez) immediately re-established that all her Wolfman stories were still in. Agh.

[n8twing]

Terry Long is one of the most maligned characters in comicdom.

Let's debunk a few myths:

myth: Terry is a creepy old man.
fact: Terry was, in fact, 29 years old. Exactly 10 years older than Donna. Not a big-deal age difference. Also, is Reed Ricards a "creepy old man" for marrying Sue? Ollie for Dinah?

myth: Terry was lucky to have nabbed a hot trophy wife since he's such a dud.
fact: Terry wasn't a bad looking guy. Some of his college students even flirted with him.

myth: Terry Long is a proxy for Marv Wolfman and even drawn to look like him.
fact: Terry's appearnce was loosely (loosely!) based on then-editor Len Wein, as an in-house joke, nothing more.

myth: fans hated him
fact: fans didn't start disliking him until post-marriage, where, admittedly, the quality of the entire NTT series dropped after Perez's departure.

myth: Terry Long was a whiner and a loser
fact: Terry Long was depicted as a bit of a whiner after the "Titans Hut" era because then-editor Jonathan Peterson wanted to get rid of Terry Long.

Terry Long was actually a nice, normal guy. The intention was to create a male Lois Lane. A normal person who could "handle" being the mate of a super-hero. Marv made him older and divorced to reflect the more modern world. And isn't Donna a bit of an "old soul" herself? Didnt Donna, Dick and Wally act more like 30-somethigs than 19 year olds during teh NTT run?

Also refreshing, Terry and Donna didnt have petty arguments. Terry's masculinity wasn't threatened by Donna's strength or her status as a super-heroine goddess. Sure, he considered himself lucky, but Donna is catch, to be sure. Arent these reasons to like the character??

I think the biggest problem was marrying them off, quite frankly. The "Teen Titans" were too young to marry off, and you just set up a situation where some other writer will probably undo it, kill off the husband or whatnot.

I did, however, grow to like the Kyle/Donna pairing for many of the reasons others have mentioned on this board.


for fun:
[Marv Wolfman Interview from Comics Journal #79 - 1983]
from
http://titanstower.com/source/libntt/sex.html

DECKER: No. Although Donna Troy's relationship with her older divorced boyfriend might raise an eyebrow.

WOLFMAN: Again, we're not showing them in bed. What you leave to the readers' imagination is sometimes a lot stronger. Yes, of course, they're having a very healthy sexual relationship. No reason they shouldn't. But we're nor stating in a Kinsey version exactly what they're doing. [laughter]. Nothing's wrong with that. We haven't received a single complaint, and I probably would ignore most of the complaints anyway, because I think we're doing it tastefully.

DECKER: Right. Although isn't she, what, 19?

WOLFMAN: Yeah, she's 19. That's above age. [Laughter]

DECKER: Yeah, well, still, he's ten years older than she is...

WOLFMAN: Yeah. And divorced. And has a kid somewhere. So? That doesn't happen?

DECKER: It almost happens a little too much. It's almost a little too trendy.

WOLFMAN: Not in comics. This is about the first time I think this has happened. But again, we haven't even gone out of our way to keep pointing to it. We mention it once; it's there. And the difference between what I'm trying to do and sometimes what is done in comics is again the lack of giant neon arrows. We set up the characters, they have a very healthy relationship. As far as I'm concerned, at some point in the future they can get married and it wouldn't change Wonder Girl's relationship to the Titans one whit. I don't see why it has to. It's a realistic relationship.

DECKER: Yeah, but perhaps a little too realistic, in that Donna Troy is a super-heroine...

WOLFMAN [puzzled]: Yes?

DECKER: She can ride wind currents, she wears a costume, and she goes out and fights crime.

WOLFMAN: Yeah. And she can't full in love with someone?

DECKER: But he's so prosaic, so normal, he's Lois Lane as a man.

WOLFMAN: At the same time~ he's older than she is. He is someone who's had his kiddy relationship in a sense, already in a sense, and her knowledge and the experiences she comes to, she probably could not have found someone her age that she could have related to. She needed someone who was older who had probably gone through an equivalent type of relationship, and being a history teacher as he is, there certainly would be a lot in common even there.

DECKER: I still tend to think that if there were super-heroes they'd be a very clannish lot, that they would tend to many among themselves, simply because other people wouldn't understand them or know how to relate them.

WOLFMAN: Possibly. Yet... Well, there's no way to determine that, is there? [laughter]

[n8twing]

George Perez on Terry Long:
http://titanstower.com/source/libntt/amaz50.html

""This is, again, to portray the power and drama, without having to go into superheroics. Dick became a real hero for helping Donna, not because he was a master detective, that's how it worked, but because he loved her. It became such a big thing as far as people realizing what a good, heroic man he was; just the fact that he would go out of his way to such a degree to help a friend, Where the Batman has that streak of vengeance, Dick has that height of compassion. Some were considering the possibility of making them love interests, especially since Dick admitted that he did once feel that way about her, But the fact is that he was not enough of a man, and she was too much of a woman for him, He was never mature enough to take her, which is what he admires about Terry Long. Like that scene where he says 'I always wondered what she saw in him. Now I know!' Dick's grown up a lot because of her relationship. He's learning a lot. He's seen the relationship between Terry and Donna, and obviously that's influenced his relationship with Kory. Obviously their relationship has grown up a bit. He's facing the same thing that Terry's facing being married to someone who's an overwhelming powerhouse [laughs]. Terry can do it; why can't he.

"Of course, we swore that Terry Long was not going to be Steve Trevor [laughs]. We're determined that when they do get married, they will have a happy, decent marriage. Not that they'll be without disagreements, every marriage has them, but they're very mature adults and they will deal with everything for the common good of the marriage and each other, And it's about time. They're not going to be endangered just for the sake of story contrivance.""

and
http://titanstower.com/source/libntt/focuson.html

"When I married my second wife, I have had such a good life that it kind of reflected. Suddenly everything I do no longer has a heavy, somber look. Everything's become a little lighter. I was determined, as was Marv, actually, that Donna's wedding was going to be ideal, as far as her relationship with Terry. Not idealistic, in the sense that they never had arguments, but in the fact that they understand each other. He's not Steve Trevor, God forbid, he's not Lois Lane, you know, that type of relationship. They're two adult people who understand each other, respect each other, and genuinely love each other. And that whole thing has become a big thing in the stuff I tend to do. I tend to do a lot of happy stuff. [...] Terry and Donna have a nice, adult relationship, thank God! I think there are still some in the world. "

[Mars Getsoian]

DECKER: But he's so prosaic, so normal, he's Lois Lane as a man.

Problem is, he's not.

Lois is extraordinary. She's the best reporter there is. She's so brilliant that she's a threat to a kryptonian, and that was back when kryptonians were supposed to make humans look like frogs, intellectually. She hobnobs with the wealthiest and most fabulous men in the world. She crusades against criminals and is a regular target of the mob not just because of her association with Supes, but because she's actually effectively taking bad guys down through her investigative acumen. She's fearless, and relentless, and she figured out Clark's secret. People like to talk down about Lois, all "LOL, she couldn't see through a pair of glasses," but that's utterly ridiculous - she could. She was the only one who could. The lengths Superman had to go to to convince her she was wrong were completely insane, far more than he ever had to do to throw off guys like Luthor and Brainiac, and even then he never managed to really convince her, she was always at it again next month.

Lois doesn't have superpowers, but she's in every way a comic book character, an amazing, remarkable human being with talents, accomplishments, and virtues beyond those you will ever encounter in a real human being. She does not behave like you or me or anybody either of us knows, she behaves like someone exceptional and iconic and part of a superhero world, who deserves the heart of Superman.

Terry... was very much not a Lois Lane, of any kind.

[4PointOh]

Terry... was very much not a Lois Lane, of any kind.

Legend/rumor has it that "Terry" was Marv writing himself into the story and hooking up with the hot, young thang.

[n8twing]

Problem is, he's not.

Lois is extraordinary. She's the best reporter there is. She's so brilliant that she's a threat to a kryptonian, and that was back when kryptonians were supposed to make humans look like frogs, intellectually. She hobnobs with the wealthiest and most fabulous men in the world. She crusades against criminals and is a regular target of the mob not just because of her association with Supes, but because she's actually effectively taking bad guys down through her investigative acumen. She's fearless, and relentless, and she figured out Clark's secret. People like to talk down about Lois, all "LOL, she couldn't see through a pair of glasses," but that's utterly ridiculous - she could. She was the only one who could. The lengths Superman had to go to to convince her she was wrong were completely insane, far more than he ever had to do to throw off guys like Luthor and Brainiac, and even then he never managed to really convince her, she was always at it again next month.

Lois doesn't have superpowers, but she's in every way a comic book character, an amazing, remarkable human being with talents, accomplishments, and virtues beyond those you will ever encounter in a real human being. She does not behave like you or me or anybody either of us knows, she behaves like someone exceptional and iconic and part of a superhero world, who deserves the heart of Superman.

Terry... was very much not a Lois Lane, of any kind.

Keep in mind, tho this is Pre-Crisis Lois they are talking about. This is an old-ass interview.

[Mars Getsoian]

Keep in mind, tho this is Pre-Crisis Lois they are talking about. This is an old-ass interview.

I know. So was I. Silver Age Lois was, if anything, more extraordinary than her current self usually is. (Yes, she was also completely crazy, but then again, so was Superman, so you can hardly hold that against her.) And Bronze Age Lois was a semi-superhero kung fu master with adventures of her own.

She was never a perfectly average shlub. Terry was never anything else.

[Vic Vega]

I'd always suspected that Terry Long was a Marv Wolfman stand in.

Terry Long was the guy that you see with a beautiful woman and say: how? why?

That kind of thing pisses guys off enough [B]in real life [/B but ]to be confronted with it in a fantasy must have been annoying as hell for the haters.

And the "College Professor that is constantly being hit on by cute college chicks" trope doesn't help either. That's way too close to home also for fanboys.

[Mart]

Well, I hope everyone caught The Return of Terry Long in Blackest Night: Titans #2 this week:

http://dangermart.blogspot.com/2009/10/titans-blackest-night-2-review.html

[meek?]

Well, I hope everyone caught The Return of Terry Long in Blackest Night: Titans #2 this week:

http://dangermart.blogspot.com/2009/10/titans-blackest-night-2-review.html

Still looked creepier when he was alive. XD

Peace.

[DHacker615]

I recently have come ro realize that there seems to be a fan wide grugde against Terry Long....

As an old NTT fan I remember Terry as a pretty chill dude who nothing but love for Donna and respect for the Titans... Why do people seem hate the guy. What exactly did he do???

Terry Long ruined the New Teen Titans is what he did.

I was 4-5 years younger than the Titans during their heyday. They were all roughly college-aged as I was starting High School. Like the X-Men, they were appealing as "the older kids". They got to do stuff that I was not yet able to do. Unlike the X-Men, they all seemed pretty healthy and well-adjusted. It was sort of like "Friends" that way. Pretty, happy young people in New York doing stuff that you hoped to do.

Then, here comes Terry Long. He is a loser who is described as 29, but looks 40. He is divorced. He makes lame jokes and wears bad clothes. It made no sense that Donna was involved with him. You kept waiting for the twist that never came.

Then, she MARRIED HIM.

Suddenly, this cool 19 year-old is somone's step-mother. It made her and the rest of the Titans suddenly seem a lot older. Romantic problems that were totally normal for teens seemed immature and lame when dealt with by these adults. The bickering and the hanging out all seemed immature for people who had peers with kids. The enitre book jumped the proverbial shark and has never recovered.

[ScottyQuick]

People like to talk down about Lois, all "LOL, she couldn't see through a pair of glasses," but that's utterly ridiculous - she could. She was the only one who could. The lengths Superman had to go to to convince her she was wrong were completely insane, far more than he ever had to do to throw off guys like Luthor and Brainiac, and even then he never managed to really convince her, she was always at it again next month.

GOD, yes, THIS. I don't get how people think Lois is dumb because she can't completely prove it whereas every other person is all "CLARK CAN'T BE SUPERMAN".

[T Hedge Coke]

Terry always reminded me of that guy from Manhattan, so I transposed some nastiness/pettiness from there to him, fairly or unfairly. And, while I absolutely adore romance and romancy stuffs, Terry/Donna was sort of cold for me, an attempt rather than a state of being. I've believed her missing him, post their relationship, much more than I bought the romance while it was happening and I was reading it.

[dupersuper]

she's been married twice by the age of twenty five,

Twice? Who was # 2?

[dupersuper]

she's been married twice by the age of twenty five,

Twice? Who was # 2?

[eligibility]

Twice? Who was # 2?

Coeus. :biggrin:

[dupersuper]

Coeus. :biggrin:

Right...that was forgettable...

[Apathetic-piggy]

Problem is, he's not.

Lois is extraordinary. She's the best reporter there is. She's so brilliant that she's a threat to a kryptonian, and that was back when kryptonians were supposed to make humans look like frogs, intellectually. She hobnobs with the wealthiest and most fabulous men in the world. She crusades against criminals and is a regular target of the mob not just because of her association with Supes, but because she's actually effectively taking bad guys down through her investigative acumen. She's fearless, and relentless, and she figured out Clark's secret. People like to talk down about Lois, all "LOL, she couldn't see through a pair of glasses," but that's utterly ridiculous - she could. She was the only one who could. The lengths Superman had to go to to convince her she was wrong were completely insane, far more than he ever had to do to throw off guys like Luthor and Brainiac, and even then he never managed to really convince her, she was always at it again next month.

Lois doesn't have superpowers, but she's in every way a comic book character, an amazing, remarkable human being with talents, accomplishments, and virtues beyond those you will ever encounter in a real human being. She does not behave like you or me or anybody either of us knows, she behaves like someone exceptional and iconic and part of a superhero world, who deserves the heart of Superman.

Terry... was very much not a Lois Lane, of any kind.

Congratulations, you win eleven internets for this post.

[CarolStrick]

Right...that was forgettable...

Don't forget it. She's STILL married to him. We've never seen any godly lawyers present anyone with papers.