The General "Icky" Terry Long

[SUPERECWFAN1]

The Teen Titans are reportedly headed to TNT soon and as some news have came out , the series will have a lot of the Wolfman/Perez era run used. Whether its the characters , stories or not ...the Titans will use what those 2 laid down 30+ years ago in a modern way. Of course with using these characters a lot are wondering just who will be on the team and what supporting cast will be around the characters. One of those you have to hope and plead for is that the show realizes how bad Terry Long was as a character.

The idea , the general idea of Terry Long was that he was supposed to be the normal every day character who suddenly gets swept into this world of super-heroes and you see things from his eyes. Except this sorta crashes to Earth quick once Marv Wolfman wrote the character into a situation where he somehow gets with a female super hero and her friends all accept him as a great guy . Also Terry is clearly supposed to be younger but comes across as an older...much older man with a teenage daughter.




Now before people say , Wolfman and Perez's run was brilliant and you should LOVE IT. I do ...the book was damn good there awhile. The book juggled some great stories in there like the Terra storyline and the introduction of some rogues for the Titans to face alongside Dr. Light. That was one of Wolfman's best moves was he told some great stories there for awhile. Before his work grew stale a couple years once George Perez moved on.

Its just sadly that Terry Long came across as very icky in a sense. The character at that time was supposed to be getting tenure at College and working there. Where a very young 18 year old Donna Troy was in a class at college. Its the type of scene that most people would do an ewww...dude. She is half your age. What the fuck man ?

People have pointed out that Marv Wolfman perhaps was writing himself (or a version of himself) into Terry Long. Both men around that time if you google images had beards and all. Both were around the same age. So could Terry Long been the mary sue male character that Wolfman was using and writing himself perhaps into the Titans and deciding he should be with a super hero and more ? It sadly seems that way as much as you really wonder.

While the relationship was downright icky as many older college professor's who try and hook with young inexperienced teenage girls , it kept on rolling along. DC seemed to see that Wolfman and Perez had a golden touch as Titans was selling huge then. So what if Marv was writing this pretty bad relationship ? It rolled straight into a handcuffed character marriage where Marv was locking the character away from anything beyond Terry Long then.



This is considered when things started going downhill for the Titans as a whole. George Perez was soon leaving to write and draw Wonder Woman and Marv never could achieve the highs he had before this. A few fans have told me that once this issue hit , things started the downward fall of that big franchise. Where as Chris Claremont decided that his characters wouldn't marry (they would die , new relationships would begin and so on) Marv seemed to age the Titans beyond what fans would really accept.

Plus a lot of much younger woman marrying the older college professor relationships usually crash and burn. That is if they make it that far. A lot of the relationships end as the guy prowls the next teenage girl and be as icky as fuck still. Like the David Spade character off Rules of Engagement where he accepted being an icky sob who fooled with young women who had daddy issues. (a fact he was proud of by the way lol)

In Terry's deal he was a divorcee who had a failed marriage (he likely again was prowling young teenage girls is my guess , given his ick factor) . He had a teen daughter which makes it even more wild a story that Long was able to get this 18 year old super hero to become a step mother.

This relationship would limp along for years. The book would grow stale as even Wolfman admitted to Jonathon Peterson (the new editor who would come on in the early 1990s') he didn't know if he had anything else he could do with the characters. But Peterson shook things up and gave Wolfman a brief jolt creatively which gave us Titans Hunt which was nice awhile. We also got Deathstroke getting his own title. One change however was voted down...Peterson wanted to split up Terry Long and called him a whiner. This sadly didn't happen as we saw.

Sadly for Peterson his 3 step plan to revitalize the Titans as a franchise didn't happen. He left right after Titans Hunt and the next part became about the son Donna Troy was having with Terry Long and....more icky crap followed. The son seemingly would become a powerful god type in the future. Fueled by the icky power of a man prowling for young chicks and Donna Troy , he was destined to take over. Somehow Titans from the future came back and stopped that. I think they likely made Terry Long get a vasectomy so his future killer children wouldn't somehow grow beards and destroy society.

At this point Wolfman's hold over the Titans was at an end. DC had saw that the franchise was truly dead and they finally after a 15+ years of icky as fuck Terry Long , he'd be killed off....off panel. DC seemed to finally realize the idea of Donna Troy being with a much older man wasn't good anymore. A fact they never seemed to sense for years.

While Marv Wolfman is a great writer and his Titans work was very good those early years , he sadly fell into the hole of some writers. They let the "pet" characters get too much and really do more than they should be allowed. In the case of Terry Long , he never should have been allowed as a character to marry Donna Troy. That to me was the downfall .

So TNT , I hope you stay away from Terry Long as a character. Having one icky comics character is enough...we don't need an icky TV character.

[worstblogever]

Here comes Terry Long, rocking a ginger afro...


*backs away slowly*

[The Darknight Detective]

Here comes Terry Long, rocking a ginger afro...


*backs away slowly*

Heh.

I think the biggest problem with the character was why Donna would have been attracted to him in the first place. However much Wolfman tried, he never succeeded, IMO.

[t hedge coke]

Heh.

I think the biggest problem with the character was why Donna would have been attracted to him in the first place. However much Wolfman tried, he never succeeded, IMO.

Donna, I'll accept. Maybe it's her thing. He zips her zipper.

Why everyone else tolerated him...

[The Darknight Detective]

Donna, I'll accept. Maybe it's her thing. He zips her zipper.

Why everyone else tolerated him...

Yeah, the latter never made sense to me, either.

[surgeon_general]

You're using "Mary Sue" wrong. Not every writer's POV character is one.

[Michael P]

And not every Mary Sue is a self-insert, either.

But the self-insert who's the perfect, thoughtful romantic partner who gets to marry the character all the other characters (and fanbase) are just a little bit in love with, and like, that's canon? Yeah.

[t hedge coke]

And not every Mary Sue is a self-insert, either.

But the self-insert who's the perfect, thoughtful romantic partner who gets to marry the character all the other characters (and fanbase) are just a little bit in love with, and like, that's canon? Yeah.

Yup. Terry was dodgier than Beast Boy on a particularly bad day, but somehow his combination of being out of shape and older just drove the girls wild.

[Darrell D.]

And not every Mary Sue is a self-insert, either.

But the self-insert who's the perfect, thoughtful romantic partner who gets to marry the character all the other characters (and fanbase) are just a little bit in love with, and like, that's canon? Yeah.

Yeah, having one of them a middle aged man and the other a 19 year old knockout doesn't make it creepy, at all.

[Michael P]

Wasn't it literally a college professor and his student thing?

[byrd156]

Wasn't it literally a college professor and his student thing?

Yeah but he wasn't her teacher, though he was a teacher at her college.

[Darrell D.]

Wasn't it literally a college professor and his student thing?

He was a college professor, but she didn't go to college, she somehow, at the age of 19, became a supermodel photographer.
Yeah, I know, but comics. When I was 11 reading it, it didn't faze me, because, well, I was 11.

[Agent Z]

He was a college professor, but she didn't go to college, she somehow, at the age of 19, became a supermodel photographer.
Yeah, I know, but comics. When I was 11 reading it, it didn't faze me, because, well, I was 11.

I thought she was in her 20s when she became a photographer.

[t hedge coke]

He was a college professor, but she didn't go to college, she somehow, at the age of 19, became a supermodel photographer.
Yeah, I know, but comics. When I was 11 reading it, it didn't faze me, because, well, I was 11.

When you're 11, a lot of that stuff seems "fine." Everyone 14 yr old girl in an x-comic was in her underwear or a bikini all the time, and grown adults constantly grabbed them by the back of their bottoms, but it seemed perfectly natural.

Unless you mean the job thing, in which case... in superhero comics, anyone can become a super-famous and successful photographer by owning a camera.

[Darrell D.]

When you're 11, a lot of that stuff seems "fine." Everyone 14 yr old girl in an x-comic was in her underwear or a bikini all the time, and grown adults constantly grabbed them by the back of their bottoms, but it seemed perfectly natural.

Unless you mean the job thing, in which case... in superhero comics, anyone can become a super-famous and successful photographer by owning a camera.

Oh, yeah, it was definitely a break from super-genius Peter Parker having to sweat his rent every month.