Donna Troy: Good, Bad or Unnecessary

[Kid Seven]

SPOILERS! ABANDON SELF-CONTROL ALL YEE WHO ENTER!



Just wondering what everyone was making of the (seemingly) inevitable return of Donna Troy. I'm happy DC is bringing her back, and I'm sure that Geoff will do great things with her. It just bothers me how seemingly unnecessary it was to kill her in the first place; it was out of the blue and anti-climatic. Turns me off a little to the whole thing.

[Brian R]

Well, I have never read any comics with Donna, so I cant say I like her or hate her. However, I find I am growing tired of all the death/resurrection in comics these days.

Still, its Geoff writing it, so I will probably dig it.

[Arvandor]

Phil Jiminez is writing it, not Johns.


Personally, I couldn't give a stuff.

[Forsaken_One]

Yeah, all I know her from is Green Lantern, where she filled the role of "Girlfriend #2 - with Child Expansion Pack" so I can't say I care much about her. And while I'm tired of death and ressurection in comics (I've ranted on it a few times) I think her return was just so damn obvious right from the get go, hell right from the issue she was killed in, that it can't be included with other ressurections. It did make the whole "OMG Donna died let's split up and reform new teams!" thing kinda silly though.

[SybaritaCybernetico]

I like the character, hated how Phil Jimenez portrayed her in Wonder Woman and din't care for her portrayal in the last few Titans she was in.

However, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez and George Perez are drawing the miniseries that brings her back...how could I say NO to an art team like that?
(and the art will definitely offset what is sure-to-be another Jimenez writing crapfest, IMO)

[Cayman]

It seems a bit pointless, especially since it was instantly revealed in the mini that she wasn't all that dead anyway. I guess I don't care that much. It's just more Didio crap.

Cay

[Glaucon]

It makes me wonder what they will do with Cassandra now that they are bringing back Donna.

[Mr. Bungle]

It makes me wonder what they will do with Cassandra now that they are bringing back Donna.

Cassandra will probably stay as Wonder Girl, and Donna will probably stay as Troia.

[SlightlyMad]

I didn't realize she had died again. She's starting to become the DC equivalent of Jean Grey! ;)

[Gauss]

Between her and her template, Wonder Woman, they've easily got Jean outclassed. :)

[hangmanjury]

Good. I like Donna. And the other five original Titans. None of them should die. Ever. You heard me.

[Ned Leeds]

Killing her off was rather silly, just like killing off Hal Jordan. Both examples of bad deaths.

Examples of good deaths: Robin/Jason Todd, Supergirl, and Barry Allen.

[Typo Lad]

The thing is, with Donna, we all knew she was coming back. Not a big deal, really.

I'm just glad to HAVE her back.

[Logan Jr]

SPOILERS! ABANDON SELF-CONTROL ALL YEE WHO ENTER!



Just wondering what everyone was making of the (seemingly) inevitable return of Donna Troy. I'm happy DC is bringing her back, and I'm sure that Geoff will do great things with her. It just bothers me how seemingly unnecessary it was to kill her in the first place; it was out of the blue and anti-climatic. Turns me off a little to the whole thing.

Leave her alone. Let her rest in peace.

[Kid Seven]

That's my point; it's like 'well yeah, okay she's back now, we just killed her for a bit.' Seems really 'eh'. Maybe some good stories will come out of it though.

[Kid Seven]

Phil Jiminez is writing it, not Johns.


Personally, I couldn't give a stuff.

I knew Jimenez was writing the mini; I was refering to the fact that, hopefully, she'll end up in Teen Titans. Johns has seemed interested in using her so that seems a reasonable assumption.

[Calamas]

Until Hawkeye, Donna's was probably the most useless death in comics. It served no purpose. Let's hope they get her right this time.

Donna's popularity has remained despite every writer she's had since Marv Wolfman and the New Teen Titans.

[Kid Seven]

She's a great character, has had a great origiin and background set up, and has been used well at times by writers.

And yeah, like you say, I hope they get it right this time.

[titanfan]

Frankly, I'm shocked as hell that DC is making a pretty big event out of this. I didn't think that they thought that Donna Troy warranted this. (I expected her to just return in Titans as a generic cliffhanger)

Donna Troy is as important to the DCU as Jean Grey is, imho. Both are essential supporting character types. I agree you can't really count it as a "death" since they said she was only being used as a plot device to relaunch Titans/Outsiders. However, in this case, her "resurrection" couldn't possibly cheapen her death because the story in which she died in was so terrible--easily in the Top 5 worst comic stories I've ever read.

I'm just as excited about the Donna Troy TPB collection than I am about her return.

[noodleboy]

I wonder how/if at all this will diminish Cassie's role? Hopefully Donna will go to the Outsiders, it seems like a better fit anyways.

As far as "Good, Bad or Unnecessary":

The Return of Donna Troy rates very low on my interest scale.

[hangmanjury]

I miss Lilith too.

[Dave Cote]

I was thinking she would replace Starfire in the Teen Titans. Isn't she one of the main reasons Titans was formed in the new system with Cyborg Beast Boy an Starfire as mentors so the wouldn't suffer the fate of Donna. Oh yeah I'm glad shes back she was a great character when Marv Wolfman wrote her.

[Adem]

I want her to go on the Outsiders team she'd porbably like to be with most of her old friends and I personally think Cyborg is the only mentor the Teen Titans need. I could though see it working for her to be on the Teen Titans and would be a great mentor. Argh I can't decide which team I'd like her on more.

[tricksterpup]

Hey I am looking forward to doing this. Just seeing Perez work with Donna in any capasity is cool in my book.
So I will reserve my copies today. :)

[barbgrayson]

maybe its good at some sense since her death at the hands of an android superman is totally stupid. but just makes you wonder again of the point of killing characters just to bring them back to life...

[LordAllMighty]

I'm happy to see her back, seeing that she really wasn't dead. To tell you the trurth, I just upset their doing another recon of Donna's history, it jst pointless.

[clt123456789]

character A gets too confused...even though they are liked well by all who are still reading anything she may be appearing in...editorial gets tired of trying to make sense of the confused character so we just kill them..wait people didn't like that lets bring them back or lets just use a supposed death to hawk more books..of course a company would never do that...wait how many times in the last 15 years have we seen this kinda reaction guys...the reason why they killed Donna was because she got too confused...i'm just glad they are bringing her back so fast...it took a long time to get supergirl back!

[Tenebrae]

character A gets too confused...even though they are liked well by all who are still reading anything she may be appearing in...editorial gets tired of trying to make sense of the confused character so we just kill them..wait people didn't like that lets bring them back or lets just use a supposed death to hawk more books..of course a company would never do that...wait how many times in the last 15 years have we seen this kinda reaction guys...the reason why they killed Donna was because she got too confused...i'm just glad they are bringing her back so fast...it took a long time to get supergirl back!

Killing Donna Troy and then bringing her back doesn't stop her having a confusing history, it just muddies the waters further. Having said that I'd say, considering some of the twists and turns her life has taken, the writers had done an okay job of explaining it away. As a character she certainly seemed to retain her integrity, at least.

I'm glad to see her back. Her death, as has been said, was never going to last. I used to be of the school of thought that characters should either not be brought back or not killed in the first place, but I've changed my mind on that. It happens so often these days that when a character dies I just feel irritated by it, because it only means I'm going to be deprived of reading stories about them for a while. I'd rather at least know there's a chance Donna, Colossus, Psylocke etc can turn up in a story than have them removed from play entirely for a while.

But I'm babbling. I love Donna, glad she's on her way home.

[Ontir]

What Donna Troy really needs, is to be put back into the Wonder Woman (along with Fury) Family, which could be done, if DC gives WW the much needed "Birthrignt-ing."

Donna has always been a great character, one that Wolfman and Perez, especially, did a great deal with pre-Crisis. She's an incredibly enduring character, which is why despite all the iterations, permutations, and convolutions, they keep bringing her back, and trying to make her work as well as she did, before they shot her continuity all to hell!

[Captain Jim]

The thing is, with Donna, we all knew she was coming back. Not a big deal, really.

I'm just glad to HAVE her back.

Well, I'm not sure *I* knew that. Sure, they left an "out", but that doesn't mean they had to use it--especially this soon! This is just silly and irritating to me. If you don't intend to leave someone dead longer than that, don't kill them in the first place.

[Michael P]

What Donna Troy really needs, is to be put back into the Wonder Woman (along with Fury) Family, which could be done, if DC gives WW the much needed "Birthrignt-ing."

Donna has always been a great character, one that Wolfman and Perez, especially, did a great deal with pre-Crisis. She's an incredibly enduring character, which is why despite all the iterations, permutations, and convolutions, they keep bringing her back, and trying to make her work as well as she did, before they shot her continuity all to hell!
There's never been a time when Donna's continuity wasn't shot all to hell, right from her first appearance in the original Titans stories in the 60's.

[Paradox]

clt123456789 leaves a secret message:

character A gets too confused...even though they are liked well by all who are still reading anything she may be appearing in...editorial gets tired of trying to make sense of the confused character so we just kill them..wait people didn't like that lets bring them back or lets just use a supposed death to hawk more books..of course a company would never do that...wait how many times in the last 15 years have we seen this kinda reaction guys...the reason why they killed Donna was because she got too confused...i'm just glad they are bringing her back so fast...it took a long time to get supergirl back!

Could you give us a hint? :)

[Paradox]

"Pointless" describes pretty much everything done with Donna for 15 years or so.

That said, a pointless return wouldn't really hurt things much...

[Avi Green]

I'm glad that Donna is coming back, but, what about Lilith Clay? When is Omen coming back? That I wanna know! ;)

[Forsaken_One]

Ha! They don't even mention Lilith anymore. Every time they talk about the deaths of that day it's "Donna died" and "Donna was killed" and "your android killed Donna." No one mentions Lilith dying, no one mentions Empress being beat up (or even existing!) or anything like that. They're so set on staying away from Young Justice and the Titans that they'll probably just ignore their existance completely.

I mean, all you need to know Geoff isn't paying much attention to YJ (and the canceled series of Superboy and Impulse) in my opinion, is to look at the relationships (or lack thereof) between the former YJ characters. Robin and Superboy are still tight but there's no mention of Superboy telling Wonder Girl that he loved her nor does he mention his previous girlfriend being killed, there's not a single line exchanged between Robin and Wonder Girl despite them being friends back in the day, Bart doesn't seem to have any interaction with Carol, mention Max or Helen, or really do much of anything beyond spout facts like a walking encyclopedia, and none of them (none of them!) mention any previous adventures in Young Justice. Hell, even Robin didn't mention the death of Spoiler in the issue focusing on him when every last one of them had met her in Young Justice! Hell, Superboy even met her in the pages of Teen Titans and that wasn't mentioned.

Ah well, just my own little rant. It's still a good series, I just have to ignore anything I learned about the characters outside of Teen Titans and consistantly think of Robin and Impulse as some time-displaced Dick Grayson and Wally West, since they don't seem to be acting like themselves.

[Ray192]

well, I think Spoiler didn't die yet as of TT #20... and Impulse DID mention Max, while considering Kon is obviously in a relationship with Cassie, I'd say the "He loves her" part is covered.

At least he gave mentioned to Red Tornado and cameos for Greta and Cissie...

[Forsaken_One]

Current Batman books state that Steph/Spoiler died before Jack drake by less than a week. The only reference I remember to max was in the future arc where he basically said "oh yeah, he raised me before Jay" and little else and Bart seems suprisingly hung up on Rose considering he and Carol were finally dating seriously. And I'm not too sure about Kon/Cassie; their relationship seemed to be awfully chaste for people who were professing their love to one another a short while ago.

And all the other things you mentioned happened as one line comments in one issue (seven). Out of twenty-two comics he's mentioned each of those people once. One of their mentors before Cyborg and two of their best friends (who Cassie is now going to school with!) and they mentioned them one time. One.

Now I realize he writers in a somewhat decompressed style but he's been focusing a lot on Titans history throughout his run, to the detriment of Young Justice history in my opinion.

[Ray192]

spoiler died before Jack? That doesn't really make sense, but maybe Johns wasn't aware of that fact. And regarding Kon and Cassie, they're teens. ;) And I didn't get the impression that Bart was very hung up on Rose, he just said "I got to know her, Kory, and I kinda liked her." It works with the little crush he had on Rose back in TNT.

To be fair though, it's not like the YJ books had many references to their respective solo series either. And titans history is far more well known than YJ's. It's simply a better bussiness move.

on the other hand, I miss Carol too. Bring her back!

[Forsaken_One]

spoiler died before Jack? That doesn't really make sense, but maybe Johns wasn't aware of that fact. And regarding Kon and Cassie, they're teens. ;) And I didn't get the impression that Bart was very hung up on Rose, he just said "I got to know her, Kory, and I kinda liked her." It works with the little crush he had on Rose back in TNT.

To be fair though, it's not like the YJ books had many references to their respective solo series either. And titans history is far more well known than YJ's. It's simply a better bussiness move.

on the other hand, I miss Carol too. Bring her back!
Maybe.

Truth be told the whole War Games/Identity Crisis timeline doesn't make sense. I've tried to work it out, but it seems to have Batman pulling double duty with the JLA and dealing with Gotham (and possibly with Kara Zor-el in Superman/Batman) and, as far as I can tell, dealing with the JLA and Hal Jordan in GL: Rebirth as well. Robin seems to be in the middle of a gang war, leaps off in the middle of it to go hang out with his friends in SF, then comes back and has his girlfriend and dad killed. And apparently fight Parallax in GL: Rebirth. And yet it stated in Batman that Steph died first, then Jack Drake was killed less than a week later (well I think the line was "a few days").

I accpeted Young Justice not mentioning other series (with some exceptions like Spoiler/Secret or Tana Moon dying in Sins of Youth) because it was mostly lighthearted and fun. There were very few huge character moments in there and it wasn't trying to be serious. Also, it didn't mention any past, be they Teen Titans or individual characters. In Teen Titans they mention the past all the time, they just seem to have a selective memory about it.

Keep in mind this is a pet peeve of mine. I don't expect other people to share it and I don't expect my arguments to be entierly fair. :p I grew up with the Young Justice characters whereas Starfire, Raven, and Cyborg were being introduced around the same time I was born (I know I'm dating myself here). One of my first comics was Robin #1 and I got the first issues of Impulse and Superboy as well, plus the horse-face days of Wonder Girl in Wonder Woman comic, complete with the stupid flying sneakers. So it's not like I'm unbiased. But, damn it all, if you're going to make a point in your series to focus on history then you should acknowledge all history, not just the parts you want. If we have to accept all the stories from the New Teen Titan days even unto the B and C list characters that are going to be/are popping up then we should also see some acknowledgement that Impulse had previously been a member of the Titans, that Young Justice did happen, that Superboy already had issues with "am I controlled by my genetics," and so on. I don't think he should have his cake and eat it too.

[Captain Jim]

spoiler died before Jack?

Absolutely. Tim had given up his Robin identity at the beginning of War Games, and doesn't resume it until mid-way through. And Jack is involved in the storyline as well, clear up until near the end, where Spoiler dies. At the beginning of IC, Tim seemingly has Jack's reluctant blessing to be Robin, a scenario which could not exist until after WG.