Donna Troy: Featuring in Solo

[warzon]

Well with Wonder Woman being the first super hero now it's should be easy for DC to get ahold of Donna now .they can just go back to her original origin where Diana save's her as a child n bring her back to Themyscria and given the powers of an Amazon and Queen Hippolyta adopts her as her Daughter or if Jason is still in the picture as her brother Donna can just be his Daughter that way she'll still have Amazon roots.

[Doctor Bifrost]

T...raised and trained by the Amazons after being imbued with their powers.

I'd want more detail on this. Can the Amazons "imbue" any young girl with their powers? Why don't they do it more often? I'd prefer a once-only event that gives her powers similar to Diana's.

I'd also like it to be clear that she spends some time being raised on Themyscira, and some in the U.S. (with members of her biological family, or a foster family, or whatever). Diana, when she comes to Man's World, is a stranger in a strange land; almost everything is new to her. I think of Donna as being more of an "All-American Amazon," who can fit in with the teen set without problem. (It would be nice if she even went to school!)

Other than that, I say: Great! Go for it!

[9th.]

I'd want more detail on this. Can the Amazons "imbue" any young girl with their powers? Why don't they do it more often? I'd prefer a once-only event that gives her powers similar to Diana's.

I'd also like it to be clear that she spends some time being raised on Themyscira, and some in the U.S. (with members of her biological family, or a foster family, or whatever). Diana, when she comes to Man's World, is a stranger in a strange land; almost everything is new to her. I think of Donna as being more of an "All-American Amazon," who can fit in with the teen set without problem. (It would be nice if she even went to school!)

Other than that, I say: Great! Go for it!

Also what makes her special enough to take back to Themyscira? I assume Diana save millions of young girls as a superhero so why Donna?

[docmidnite]

I'd want more detail on this. Can the Amazons "imbue" any young girl with their powers? Why don't they do it more often? I'd prefer a once-only event that gives her powers similar to Diana's.

I'd also like it to be clear that she spends some time being raised on Themyscira, and some in the U.S. (with members of her biological family, or a foster family, or whatever). Diana, when she comes to Man's World, is a stranger in a strange land; almost everything is new to her. I think of Donna as being more of an "All-American Amazon," who can fit in with the teen set without problem. (It would be nice if she even went to school!)

Other than that, I say: Great! Go for it!

Yeah, they can if they choose to with the Purple Ray. Also, yeah. She's trained and partially raised in Themyscira for a bit, but like all kids that leave home, she gets home sick and goes back to America with the Amazons' blessings.

Also what makes her special enough to take back to Themyscira? I assume Diana save millions of young girls as a superhero so why Donna?

I take it you never read Donna's first origin story. Donna was the first orphan Diana ever encountered in her life and the very idea that, that could even happen or was even a thing completely blew Diana's mind and is what made her take pity on Donna and send her to Themyscira.

[SiegePerilous02]

Donna's greatest claim to fame was being part of an ensemble cast in a team book from the 80s. And I loved her there, don't get me wrong, but it's been mostly downhill from there. For both her and the team she was a part of (as far as the comics themselves go). My liking for her in that run means I will never want to completely give up on her, but I also kind of can't blame DC creatives or some fans for just wanting to drop her at this point.

Her connection to the Wonder Woman mythos has always been tenuous at best, even back in Pre-COIE times. That was her only actual good origin, and even that one has details that don't quite add up. And none of it happened in Wonder Woman's actual book, it was all detailed in the Titans. No wonder the WW book often acts like she's a burden that was foisted upon it, when it even acknowledges her at all.

IF we were to get a new mini-series or one shot that details her origins yet again, they should take it as back to basics as possible. Orphaned mortal infant rescued from a burning building and brought to Paradise Island to be adopted by Hippolyta. This 5G nonsense may have some positives in that it can maybe be Diana who rescues her at this point. But I would rather they have stuck to the Rebirth origin for Diana, so in that case a goddess like Rhea or Aphrodite would be the one to rescue Donna while Diana is still an adolescent. She would then leave Paradise Island a year or so after Diana does to become Wonder Girl. Of course that only streamlines her origin and time as Wonder Girl, the problems the adult Titans face ("what the hell do we do with them now?") is still a problem. But her past being in order would ideally allow for an easier time for her present and future to be shaped.

[SJNeal]

At least partially because no one has any idea who she is. Her origin, purpose, general backstory, and supporting cast has been changed so many times, and so arbitrarily, that it's practically impossible to start with the core of her character and extrapolate from there. Hardly any two people will agree on what the core of the character is.

Although Wonder Girl had some minor presence (as either Diana's younger self or sister, and always on Paradise Island or in its environs, never interacting with non-WW DC characters) before the Teen Titans were created, she was really made into a character to be "the girl member" of the Teen Titans. (Back in those days, almost every team had a bunch of guys and one girl. Except the original Challengers of the Unknown, who had a bunch of guys and no girl.) However, the author had no clear idea who she was (and the editor didn't fill him in).

Ultimately she was given an origin: an human, Man's-World infant rescued by Wonder Woman and brought to Paradise Island, where she is trained in the Amazon ways, and/or exposed to the Purple Ray, and/or comes by her powers through some Amazon-related means. And a name: Donna Troy. So she can be a member of the Teen Titans.

The problem is, all the other members of the Teen Titans - Robin (Dick Grayson), Kid Flash (Ginger Wally West), Aqualad (Garth), and Speedy (Roy Harper) have LONG, established, published histories of fighting crime and danger alongside their mentors. We pretty much know who they are, where they live, why they're here.

Donna Troy has none of this. Does she live with Wonder Woman? (Probably not, but then where, and with who?) Does she fight crime alongside Wonder Woman? (We've never seen it.) Does she appear regularly in Wonder Woman's comic? (No.) Compared to the other Teen Titans, she's a cipher, who only exists to fill the girl quota in the book. (I loved her anyway.)

DC never acknowledged this problem and connected Donna more thoroughly to the DCU at large, and particularly to Wonder Woman and her milieu. She never had the same kind of presence the other Teen Titans already came with.

And so, when Crisis on Infinite Earths came along, and in its aftermath Diana's chronology was changed (a big mistake, I think) , it seemed easier to someone to simply disconnect Donna from Diana - to decide that Donna had debuted as Wonder Girl five years before anyone ever heard of Wonder Woman. They had similar code names, similar powers, similar accoutrements (bracelets, lasso, etc.), even similar costumes at first - but just because; they had never met. (A cheesy time-travel explanation was implanted some years later, I think.) Donna was even further away from Wonder Woman, and the DCU as we knew it, than before.

She was a human, Man's-World girl raised and empowered by the Titans of Greek Myth (who, in the comics, were far less distinctive than the well-known Olympian deities), implanted on Earth as a teenager with fake memories. (And, by the way, those fake memories were never more than generic "I went to school at so-and-so and now I'm here." If Robin ever asked Wonder Girl, "Why did you leave home? Are you in contact with your parents, or foster parents, or whatever? Your friends from school? Where did you get your powers? How about that cool lasso?!!?!", I can't recall it. I wonder what her answers would have been.)

In many ways, although he had a very specific origin, her connection to the world was still vague to non-existent. So I guess it was easy for John Byrne to decide that, in fact, she was a supernatural mirror image of Diana, kidnapped by Dark Angel (another cipher of a character, who thought Donna was Diana), who then forced Donna through a multitude of tragic alternate lives, in one of which she had the Titans of Myth origin. Then she got to worry about who she really was and whether she had a soul - which, for a character with her vague, changing backstory, was a little on the nose. (Also, depressing.)

Then The New 52 came along. Diana was no longer sculpted from clay. (Although people thought she was, which is a mess all in itself - a poorly-chosen lie. Didn't the Amazons ever notice Hippolyta was pregnant?) This left open a space for Donna Troy to be a creature created from earth, lava, and clay by evil Amazons, made to commit evil acts. Which she did. Was this Donna a member of the original Teen Titans? How could she be?

And then Rebirth came along, and the Wonder Woman stories "The Lies" and "The Truth," which indicated that everything we saw about Wonder Woman in The New 52 was a fake, a kind of delusion and holodeck experience for Diana create by the Greek deities. So where did this leave Donna? Did she exist?

The Teen Titans stories in Rebirth said yes, and that she was an OG Teen Titan. But when Wonder Woman encountered the Teen Titans, she treated Donna coldly, then revealed that Donna was a construct created to be evil - her New 52 origin, but without the infrastructure (evil Amazons) to support it, or an explanation of what she was doing on Man's World, how she had joined the Titans, what her past interactions with Diana were, or why she didn't even know her own origin. (Also, what she mistakenly believed that origin to be).

And now that Diana is a character who started her superhero career in WW II...

So, a solo series? About what? About whom? I'm only interested in one Donna Troy solo series (at first, at least): one that gives her an origin, connects her (in a friendly, sisterly way, I would hope) to Diana and the other Amazons, explains what she's doing on Man's World, what her backstory there is (Wonder Woman sidekick? Something else?), how she joined the Teen Titans, and what her relationship to them is.

And, oh yeah, give her a better grown-up superhero name! All the other original Teen Titans graduated to adult superheroes with names that meant something in English and reflected their powers and/or their appearance: Nightwing, Flash, Tempest, Arsenal. (Although I thought Arsenal was a misstep, since all his opponents and half his friends would probably call him "Arse." And I have no idea who Ginger Wally West/Flash is going to be by this time next week.) Donna got a name that means nothing in English, says nothing about her appearance or powers, and is a sexist insult in much of Italy. Most people call her Donna Troy - but, off the top of my head, I can't think of a single successful DC costumed hero who goes publicly by a kind of standard human name.

It is possible, of course, that, with the new Wonder Woman history, we will be given a coherent, appropriate origin and backstory for Donna Troy. And a great name, too! But given DC's history with the character (and their tendency, with Donna and everything else, to say, "Yes, we're retconning/rebooting/rebranding, but we're going to stuff in as much of the varying details from different versions as we can, whether they make sense together or not - because we love our fans!"), my guess is no.

But that's just me. And I'm perfectly willing to be wrong on this.

(P.S. I still love the character. Strange, isn't it? I suspect I love the character in my mind more than most of what I see of the character in print.)

Every single word in this post is true. And now I'm depressed.

[ExoPink]

I really f***ing hate what's going on with DC Comics. Why? because they give so many issues with every batman and superman family members. Also they featured new female characters like Amethyst and Naomi, but still never features Donna Troy in her solo. You really think that if there is Donna Troy, Wonder Woman will be broke. Look Batman Family, they are all rising. DC always focus onto them but for me it's time to recognize others. DC stuck up with non-metahuman heroes and nothing seems to be new. Rebirth was nearly over but Donna Troy still remains unknown. "Into the Unknown bat-bat-bat-at-at."

[Agent Z]

I really f***ing hate what's going on with DC Comics. Why? because they give so many issues with every batman and superman family members. Also they featured new female characters like Amethyst and Naomi, but still never features Donna Troy in her solo. You really think that if there is Donna Troy, Wonder Woman will be broke. Look Batman Family, they are all rising. DC always focus onto them but for me it's time to recognize others. DC stuck up with non-metahuman heroes and nothing seems to be new. Rebirth was nearly over but Donna Troy still remains unknown. "Into the Unknown bat-bat-bat-at-at."

Amethyst isn't new. She's been around since the 80s.

[titanfan]

I really f***ing hate what's going on with DC Comics. Why? because they give so many issues with every batman and superman family members. Also they featured new female characters like Amethyst and Naomi, but still never features Donna Troy in her solo. You really think that if there is Donna Troy, Wonder Woman will be broke. Look Batman Family, they are all rising. DC always focus onto them but for me it's time to recognize others. DC stuck up with non-metahuman heroes and nothing seems to be new. Rebirth was nearly over but Donna Troy still remains unknown. "Into the Unknown bat-bat-bat-at-at."

DC is aware of Donna's popularity, that's why over the decades they've always tried to make room for her. (GL, Darkstars, Countdown, etc)

I would be shocked if there are many Donna Troy pitches for a solo--writers just don't want to deal with the baggage and/or be inundated by the "When are you going to fix Donna Troy?" questions.

They had a great chance for a "reset" with New-52 and then gave her a terrible origin. Again.

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Yeah, Starfire's book ended because of Rebirth - she went to Teen Titans and then Justice League Odyssey.

The problem with Donna is, she doesn't have a codename. Would the book be called Troy?

She went by Troia for a long while.

Anyway, I think the issue with Donna Troy is that, like with a lot of characters screwed over by the New 52, we don't know what her story is. Though, to be fair, she was confusing before the New 52, but at least then, we had somewhat of a grip on how she related to other characters around her, namely the Titans. However, now, with the stories of that generation of characters erased and the NTT in limbo thanks in part to Dan Didio's long-held grudge against those characters for reasons unknown, we have no idea of her place in the DC Universe.

I think that the New Teen Titans continuity would have to be restored (if it hasn't been already?) before she got a solo title. But I for one would be happy to see her finally get one.

At least partially because no one has any idea who she is. Her origin, purpose, general backstory, and supporting cast has been changed so many times, and so arbitrarily, that it's practically impossible to start with the core of her character and extrapolate from there. Hardly any two people will agree on what the core of the character is.

Although Wonder Girl had some minor presence (as either Diana's younger self or sister, and always on Paradise Island or in its environs, never interacting with non-WW DC characters) before the Teen Titans were created, she was really made into a character to be "the girl member" of the Teen Titans. (Back in those days, almost every team had a bunch of guys and one girl. Except the original Challengers of the Unknown, who had a bunch of guys and no girl.) However, the author had no clear idea who she was (and the editor didn't fill him in).

Actually, I've always heard it told that Donna was essentially created by accident. Originally, "Wonder Girl" was simply meant to just be Diana as a young girl and there were several stories in the 50s and early 60s that were about a young Diana going by "Wonder Girl." However, when the Teen Titans were being created, Bob Haney (who had actually written Wonder Girl stories that took place in the then-present of the DC Universe) was not aware of the fact that Wonder Girl was just a younger Wonder Woman. So, he put her in the Teen Titans. When the higher-ups found out, they basically were put in a situation where they now had to make her a separate character. So, they created the identity of Donna Troy.

[astro@work]

I would love to have a mini to really flesh out Donna.

First issue could be a dramatic retelling of Donna's OG origin, and really dive into why Diana brought her to the island. And then her subsequent training.

Subsequent issues could cover Donna's return to man's world as a teenager, her early TT years, her later TT years, and end with maybe her post Hell Arisen status.

Donna has been around for 50+ years now, and deserves a little love. I think DC also needs to get past certain things that have always held her back such as "oh she was created due to a writer's mistake" (she's been around for over 50 years, so what!) and "she needs a tough gritty modern origin" (I call BS, her OG origin is one of the most beloved around, and the reason so many hate the updates).

The one thing I would do is giver her a codename and get on with it already. Troia never resonated with me because it's frankly nonsensical. Doesn't mean anything.
I'd use Fury based on Donna's trials and tribulations, as well as there being some precedence for Wonder Woman's partner using that name (E2 Diana and Lyta, as well as JSA-Polly and Helena). But seriously DC, get on with it!

[WonderScott]

I’d be game for launching a series starring Donna Troy if we get a universal reboot or burp that effectively returns her to a child saved by Diana, taken to Themyscira, raised by the Amazons, and granted powers from an adventure she has there.

The first arc would establish her origin while reminiscing and would set up her adult life now. Donna is easily the “straight man” in her story, surrounded by colorful and wild characters surrounding her. Essentially, she needs to get back to the basics of her original characterization and given some direction outside, but also including bits of her Amazon and Titans past. She needs to blaze a new path for herself.