What should I read to fall in love for Donna Troy?

[DrNewGod]

I feel like George and Marv ruined Donna when they married her to their surrogate--Terry Long. An older guy with fuzzy hair and a fuzzy beard, with intellectual pretensions. A lot of the fun in Donna was seeing her tease Dick and Wally and Roy--guys her own age. I never wanted to see her married off to some old fuddy-duddy. That was one of the biggest bad decisions on THE NEW TEEN TITANS run and augured the other bad decisions that would come.

The whole Terry Long situation is just weird. I agree that he's pretty awful, but the wedding issue is one of the best single issues in the run.

I think Donna was a better character in that era at least, Terry and all, than she is now.

I'll agree that you can look at the creators and interpret wish fulfillment in Terry Long. If your interpretation is accurate, then yeah, ick. However...

A love interest outside the superhero world is one of the things I liked about TNTT, and either Wonder Girl or Kid Flash seems to me to have been the logical one to have it. They needed Kid Flash besotted with Raven for most of his membership, and although they gave Cyborg a relationship too, it needed to be as complicated as his character.

Terry Long not only provided a less complicated relationship, it provided a way to connect the team (and Wonder Girl specifically) with a wider world, filled with ordinary people. As a character, I also liked the way that he wasn't threatened by Wonder Girl's power, or the fact that she had friends in a world to which he could never belong (it somewhat impresses me that they didn't periodically have him getting kidnapped or what have you in the first several years). It demonstrated that The Titans lived in a world full of all kinds of people other than superheroes, their enemies, and terrified extras.

PS: The accusations of "intellectual pretensions" is probably unfair toward Terry; maybe the creators did have them (I, personally, have no idea), but the character was written as a professor.

[DrNewGod]

Returning to the OP's topic, you might check out TNTT 32 and 33. These issues feature Wonder Girl running the show while Robin is busying going through the issues that will see him leave Batman and take on the identity of Nightwing.

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[Joao]

Thanks everyone for your recommendations!!!! I'm taking notes about them all.

I read the Who is Donna Troy? issue digitally and loved it! I felt really touched, which I didn't expect considering I barely knew the character. Such a good origin. Also, I missed George Perez! The guy does some pretty good stuff.

I think I'll really get those NTT trades!

[Drakeon]

The fact that Marv and Terry look very similar was always kinda creepy but it was later editorial influence that doomed the last batch of issues in that run and destroyed the character.

[JackBNimble]

I think the love for Donna Troy starts with the visual at the end of TEEN TITANS No. 22 (July-August 1969), "The Origin of Wonder Girl" by Marv Wolfman, Gil Kane and Nick Cardy. That story, which establshes Donna Troy as not a younger Wonder Woman, gives her a new look--which is then celebrated on the cover of the next issue by Nick Cardy, TEEN TITANS No. 23 (Septenber-October 1969).

Comic book lovers tend to be attracted first by the look of the character and because Donna looked so good in those visuals--fans decided she had to be an interesting character worth their time. And I think Wolfman & Perez also wanted to have Donna in their comic for the same reason.

Not to be too superficial (but with a two-dimensional art form, it can't be helped), the success of Donna really rises and falls on how well she's drawn. When artists draw her well, she does well. When they draw her badly, her fortunes fall.

Definitely agree that much of my Donna Troy appreciation started with various issues of the 60s TEEN TITANS run. A nice harken back to that period is Amy Wolfram's Teen Titan's Year One mini.