What made Donna Troy's origin story so confusing?

[GAP]

Similar to my previous thread on Hawkman, how did Donna Troy's backstory become so confusing? How did she get to that point where similar to Hawkman, that her story became so confusing?

[BohemiaDrinker]

Similar to my previous thread on Hawkman, how did Donna Troy's backstory become so confusing? How did she get to that point where similar to Hawkman, that her story became so confusing?

Okay, from the top of my head since I can recall the specifics rn (may be some mistakes here)

- When she first appeared, she was supposed to be a young Diana, but then she joined the Teen Titans. So they cooked up an origin for her.
- When Wolfman got into NTT, he did another one to revamp her.
- Soon after, Crisis hit. They rebooted Wonder Woman day one, but not the NTT, so Dona became a public hero before Diana every left Themyscira as a consequence. And they did another origin to accommodate that.
- The John Byrne started writing Wonder Woman and decided to give her another origin because why the hell not.
- By this time it's Infinite Crisis and they made her something else because multiverse or something.
- New 52 hits and she doesn't exist anymore.
- They make a new Donna with a new origin supposed to be a villain.
- Abnett Titans Hunt restores the Titans to a degree, and that means that Dona was always there. Now the recently created origin doesn't work anymore but I don't think they bothered with it.
- Death Metal and "everything counts" make so that all of the above are true.

[DisneyBoy]

I never followed Donna much, but the above chronology sounds about right...

Look, they just weren't planning for her to be a successful character and there wasn't a clear vision from the outset. Nobody knew if she was Young Diana or a separate character coexisting with Wonder Woman as a sidekick. And I think Donna's origin went from "girl rescued from a fire by WW" to "mirror image of Diana made by Magala on Paradise Island" as a nod to her having once been confused with WW...but ultimately it was Crisis and her existing before Diana as a heroine (one who'd already gotten married to a man, had a child by him and then lost them both before ever meeting Diana!) that cemented things being wonky.

I shouldn't be as messy as it is...but DC never picked one approach and stuck to it. I think they invented the villain Dark Angel as the reason behind multiple origins and traumas, but that didn't help because they just kept making up new stuff.

I think to most people she's just Diana's sister who looks a lot like her but is more contemporary and urban and used to be a Teen Titan. If you leave it at that, you don't get as much of a headache.

[marhawkman]

Similar to my previous thread on Hawkman, how did Donna Troy's backstory become so confusing? How did she get to that point where similar to Hawkman, that her story became so confusing?

well, step 1: The character's first appearance wasn't actually her at all.

So they had to retcon a new character into existing when they realized that they couldn't actually use the original character.

Yeah, the original Wonder Girl was actually just Diana of Themiscyra. And someone wrote a story with a separate character as Wonder Girl. Sooo... RETCON TIME! Yeah... Donna Troy's story STARTS as a retcon. O-o'

[Digifiend]

Yeah, Donna's origin issues stem from two issues: one, is the fact that Donna was never supposed to exist as Wonder Girl was originally a time displaced teen Diana (probably thanks to Wonder Tot, who was the same thing but a toddler and turned out to be a fifth-dimensional imp). The first Teen Titans writer goofed, thinking she was a sidekick. They had to give her the Donna Troy civilian name later on, as a retcon once the mistake was realised. The second problem is of course Crisis, which caused Donna to pre-date Diana as a superhero, meaning it no longer made sense for her to be Wonder Girl. That resulted in another origin change and a new codename, Troia.

[Dr. Poison]

Similar to my previous thread on Hawkman, how did Donna Troy's backstory become so confusing? How did she get to that point where similar to Hawkman, that her story became so confusing?

Bad editorial practices.

[Phoenixx9]

Continuing new origin stories.

[M@Bowers2014]

The crazy thing about Donna's many origins is that Marv Wolfman wrote the very first one in that infamous back up story in the first volume of Teen Titans. Then when he gets the New Teen Titans gig he starts immediately dropping hints that maybe that origin isn't true. I think he was just trying to do something new and entertaining with the character with this retcon. Unfortunately, I think that "Who is Donna Troy?" retcon story is what opened up a can of worms with the character. Things would've been fine if they had stopped with that story but they didn't because the aftermath of Crisis screwed it up. They could've have come up with a less confusing and convoluted fix though if you ask me. I think this retcon left the door open for the next one since most fans weren't thrilled with it or the Troia identity. She really hasn't been the same since. You know as much as I enjoyed Crisis as it was coming out it really did a lot of damage to some of my favorite books like NTT, Legion and Infinity Inc.

[Alan2099]

Okay, from the top of my head since I can recall the specifics rn (may be some mistakes here)

- When she first appeared, she was supposed to be a young Diana, but then she joined the Teen Titans. So they cooked up an origin for her.
- When Wolfman got into NTT, he did another one to revamp her.
- Soon after, Crisis hit. They rebooted Wonder Woman day one, but not the NTT, so Dona became a public hero before Diana every left Themyscira as a consequence. And they did another origin to accommodate that.
- The John Byrne started writing Wonder Woman and decided to give her another origin because why the hell not.
- By this time it's Infinite Crisis and they made her something else because multiverse or something.
- New 52 hits and she doesn't exist anymore.
- They make a new Donna with a new origin supposed to be a villain.
- Abnett Titans Hunt restores the Titans to a degree, and that means that Dona was always there. Now the recently created origin doesn't work anymore but I don't think they bothered with it.
- Death Metal and "everything counts" make so that all of the above are true.

There was also that point where she ceased to exist so they had to recreate her using nothing but her friends memories of her, making her wonder if they were even remembering her right.

[M@Bowers2014]

There was also that point where she ceased to exist so they had to recreate her using nothing but her friends memories of her, making her wonder if they were even remembering her right.

Yeah wasn't that the DC Special mini after the Byrne mess? The one by Phil Jimenez and Jose Garcia Lopezwhere Donna ended up in her black starfield suit.

s-l1600.jpg

[Digifiend]

The crazy thing about Donna's many origins is that Marv Wolfman wrote the very first one in that infamous back up story in the first volume of Teen Titans. Then when he gets the New Teen Titans gig he starts immediately dropping hints that maybe that origin isn't true. I think he was just trying to do something new and entertaining with the character with this retcon. Unfortunately, I think that "Who is Donna Troy?" retcon story is what opened up a can of worms with the character. Things would've been fine if they had stopped with that story but they didn't because the aftermath of Crisis screwed it up. They could've have come up with a less confusing and convoluted fix though if you ask me. I think this retcon left the door open for the next one since most fans weren't thrilled with it or the Troia identity. She really hasn't been the same since. You know as much as I enjoyed Crisis as it was coming out it really did a lot of damage to some of my favorite books like NTT, Legion and Infinity Inc.

Yeah. Just having Hippolyta instead of Diana being the one who saved her from the fire would've worked fine. Diana wasn't active when she was a kid (did Diana have the clay origin at that point?), so some other Amazon is used instead. Hippolyta makes the most sense as the substitute since the other half of the origin involves her adopting the toddler Donna. Much less complicated than the Titans of Myth stuff that led to the Troia transition.

[Nomads1]

Yeah wasn't that the DC Special mini after the Byrne mess? The one by Phil Jimenez and Jose Garcia Lopezwhere Donna ended up in her black starfield suit.

s-l1600.jpg

Say what you will, but with layouts by José Luiz Garcia Lopez and inks by George Perez, that was a beautifully rendered story.

Peace

[astro@work]

Donna's first origin wasn't confusing at all.
"Baby rescued from a fire by Diana, raised on Paradise Island".
That's it, that's all we ever needed.

What added a mind-numbing number of convolutions to her origin was the Post-Crisis wrinkle of Donna having shown up as Wonder Girl BEFORE Diana showed up as Wonder Woman.
This is what led to all sorts of side turns, and conflicting retcons as Diana's history kept changing with each DC reboot.

The current version "Donna emerged from a vat of clay to destroy the Amazons" is just horrible. It is the antithesis of who Donna is as a character. They should have just gone back to the first one.

[M@Bowers2014]

Say what you will, but with layouts by José Luiz Garcia Lopez and inks by George Perez, that was a beautifully rendered story.

Peace

Oh I enjoyed it immensely. I did not enjoy what Byrne did to Donna though. Totally forgot Perez inked this mini. Unfortunately, it just ultimately added to the ongoing confusion of the character.

[M@Bowers2014]

Donna's first origin wasn't confusing at all.
"Baby rescued from a fire by Diana, raised on Paradise Island".
That's it, that's all we ever needed.

What added a mind-numbing number of convolutions to her origin was the Post-Crisis wrinkle of Donna having shown up as Wonder Girl BEFORE Diana showed up as Wonder Woman.
This is what led to all sorts of side turns, and conflicting retcons as Diana's history kept changing with each DC reboot.

The current version "Donna emerged from a vat of clay to destroy the Amazons" is just horrible. It is the antithesis of who Donna is as a character. They should have just gone back to the first one.

I totally agree on her original origin. Heck even the "Who is Donna Troy?" story was very well done and added to her character. The problem was with their fix for how Donna could exist before Diana. Honestly when the editor on Wonder Woman suggested Perez make Diana debut current to that era, he should have refused. Of course all this could have been avoided if they had relaunched the entire DC line with new #1's and new continuity. It's funny too because the other character with a similar messed up continuity is Hawkman because of a similar decision with Hawkworld which also wasn't originally meant to be set during that era.