What origin would you give Donna Troy in Rebirth?

[Harpsikord]

Donna Troy has been a big question ever since the Finches reintroduced her during their run on Wonder Woman. She was a mysterious Amazon with a body of clay, only related to Diana by the fact that her genes were effectively the same as Hippolyta's, and was ostensibly a villain that was meant to take the role of the Queen of Amazon's from Diana by the villainous Derinoe - the problem was, where had his Donna come from? Derinoe's dialogue within the series implied that she was basically a newborn, even going so far as to use a newborn Amazonian baby in her creation, but given the other Amazon's familiarity with her this couldn't have been the case.

And now, we know that what happened during the past two runs of Wonder Woman were "lies." The Themyscira that was introduced in Azzarello's run and introduced the concept of Diana as queen was a lie, and it did not truly exist in the same capacity as the true Themyscira - something that we were introduced to during the Year One storyarc by Greg Rucka with art by the wonderful Nicola Scott. Donna, however, was not a lie. We've already seen with her inclusion in an upcoming miniseries that neither was Hessia, but her origin is being hashed out for the first time. Donna is a big question mark though; who is she and what is her connection to Diana? At least part of this will be cleared up in the Titans annual, but that's a few months away from now. So a question: how would you explain Donna Troy?

For me, it's actually kind of simple. Diana came to Man's world about ten years ago, and we haven't seen her ENTIRE life during Year One - so just do the easy thing and make it so that Donna Troy is the younger sister of Princess Diana of Themyscira; Donna of Themyscira, second daughter of Hippolyta, adopted if not through their genes. She's a few years younger than Diana, but the gap isn't as large as it would appear in current continuity. Donna looked up to her older sister Diana, and when she left the island of Themyscira, she was heartbroken. Against her mother's wishes, five years after Diana left Themyscira, a sixteen year old Donna left as well, and headed for Man's World. When she got there, her nearly identically aged sister was now seven years older than her as opposed to the usual two.

She decides to start fighting crime with Diana, in Diana's honor, as Wonder Girl. She joins up with the Teen Titans. The rest is, as they say, history.

[Agent Z]

I'd just go with the original idea of her parents dying in a fire and being adopted by Hippolyta and Diana.

[Mel Dyer]

I'd like to see a slight variation of Donna's original origin, in which the burning building was changed into a burning ocean liner or an 18th century sailing ship, ..or still some other kind of sea-going vessel that conveniently carried her into the time-lost world of the Amazons. Then, infant Donna Troy gets conveniently rescued from the burning ship, by young Princess Diana or Queen Hippolyta, and taken to Paradise Island, where she's raised among the Amazons!

The rest is history.

Simple, classic, superhero origin story...with no Titans of Myth. No Dark Angel. We need that, again. Donna needs it, again - an origin you can finish in one breath.

[Outside_85]

Titans, due to the shortage of time Diana has actually been in Mans World, that she's now never actually been home, and to explain why Donna is so much more powerful than your average Amazon.

[Lokimaru]

Wasn't the True Wonder Girl Origin that of a Mirror clone of a Younger Diana, what's so bad about that. It's like you guys just pick and chose what you want to be cannon by who writes it. If it's someone you like it's cannon and if it's someone you don't you gleefully chuck their work in the shredder (Then set the shredder on fire).

[Outside_85]

Wasn't the True Wonder Girl Origin that of a Mirror clone of a Younger Diana, what's so bad about that. It's like you guys just pick and chose what you want to be cannon by who writes it. If it's someone you like it's cannon and if it's someone you don't you gleefully chuck their work in the shredder (Then set the shredder on fire).

I dislike what Byrne did with the mirror origins because it needlessly rewrote Donna's origins yet again, seemingly just because Byrne felt like it. Also... it was just kinda crap, I mean the story was that Magala the amazon mage conjured Donna out of Diana's mirror image so Diana would have a playmate... yet the effort is immediately hijacked by a villain and Donna is lost for several years and no one remembering she was ever there. And to top it all off most of this was done to accommodate Evil Donna aka Dark Angel... the least interesting of the 'Dark Wonder Woman' ideas that later gave us Devastation and Genocide.

And as I mention, this was done at the drop of a hat, more or less. And the origins it replaced was the Titans origins crafted by Wolfman/Perez over in NTT, which had taken time and effort into explaining why Donna still remembered the fire origins even though it couldn't possibly have happened and provided a serviceable reason why Donna was as powerful as she was and what the Titans needed her for. After that story, I would have thought everyone had gone: "Right! Everything is sorted with Donna's origins now!" And Byrne went: "Nope, here is my take!" And we were back in the chaos yet again. Also let me point out Byrne has been, till now it seems, the only Wonder Woman writer to ever associate Ares as a father to one or more of the Amazons (either going by myth and have it be Hippolyta or give Artemis an unknown wrinkle), which he did when he wrote Genesis.

[Doctor Bifrost]

Wasn't the True Wonder Girl Origin that of a Mirror clone of a Younger Diana, what's so bad about that. It's like you guys just pick and chose what you want to be cannon by who writes it. If it's someone you like it's cannon and if it's someone you don't you gleefully chuck their work in the shredder (Then set the shredder on fire).

"True"? It was something John Byrne tossed in, ignoring everything else that came before, and its no more "true" than any of the previous or subsequent versions. I never liked it because, as a general rule - and certainly for Wonder Girl - I prefer when characters have parents, an upbringing, and an actual history as people. Also it lead to the whole "Is she real? Does she have a soul?" Pinocchio argument that I found tedious and wholly inappropriate to Donna Troy. Let Wonder Girl be a real girl!

[bretmaverick2]

Wasn't the True Wonder Girl Origin that of a Mirror clone of a Younger Diana, what's so bad about that. It's like you guys just pick and chose what you want to be cannon by who writes it. If it's someone you like it's cannon and if it's someone you don't you gleefully chuck their work in the shredder (Then set the shredder on fire).

I agree with the above. While Donna's original origin worked at the time, by the time Byrne was able to redefine the world of WW, his origin worked really well for Donna. I wouldn't mind that version of Donna's origins becoming the new 'cannon' of Donna's creation.

Byrne's WW run is often maligned. I happen to think it was a very good version of Diana and her world. I am looking forward to re-reading his run when it's collected in trades later this year.

[Joao]

I'd like to see a slight variation of Donna's original origin, in which the burning building was changed into a burning ocean liner or an 18th century sailing ship, ..or still some other kind of sea-going vessel that conveniently carried her into the time-lost world of the Amazons. Then, infant Donna Troy gets conveniently rescued from the burning ship, by young Princess Diana or Queen Hippolyta, and taken to Paradise Island, where she's raised among the Amazons!

The rest is history.

Simple, classic, superhero origin story...with no Titans of Myth. No Dark Angel. We need that, again. Donna needs it, again - an origin you can finish in one breath.

That's a good origin! Especially now that we know Diana never returned to Themyscira after she first left.

Maybe Diana trained Donna herself out of the island, who knows. That would actually be good to tie their stories together.

And since new 52 Themyscira was fake, let's just forget that Donna ever existed.

[Jim Kelly]

Byrne was trying to restore some pre-Crisis concepts to Wonder Woman. The mirror Wonder Girl was a way of acknowledging Wonder Girl's true origin--in the Impossible Tales. All efforts to explain how Wonder Girl could exist were retcons, pre- and post-Crisis. I'm not sure why one of these origins has any more relevance than another.

All of the origin stories for Donna have their problems and they just make my head hurt.

I'd imagine a lot of writers would just want to chuck everything out and start with a clean slate. Give Donna a good origin story--one that isn't too boring, but can be explained in three sentences.

[CRaymond]

I'm liking the whole Stands-with-a-fist idea. Kinda Tarzan-like. 5 year old Donna washes up on Themyscira, raised by Amazons. Follows sister. Joins Titans.

No idea how she gets superpowers. Magic spell? Magic items?

[Outside_85]

Byrne was trying to restore some pre-Crisis concepts to Wonder Woman. The mirror Wonder Girl was a way of acknowledging Wonder Girl's true origin--in the Impossible Tales. All efforts to explain how Wonder Girl could exist were retcons, pre- and post-Crisis. I'm not sure why one of these origins has any more relevance than another.

You could argue that the first retelling of an origins is the defacto origins of a new continuity (like post-COIE) until a writer comes along and explains that it actually isn't and why isn't. What Byrne did however was done out of nostalgia, as you point out. He didn't bother with explaining why the ToM origins was suddenly not it, he just threw it out the window like it was never there and did his own thing. (Maybe feeling it was time Donna had an origins and actual connection to Diana for once?)

Donna is problematic because you have several origins to choose from, some better explained and defined than others, most of which are only tangentially connected to Diana. Like the mirror origins isn't even Donna's origin, it's one of many explanations of how Diana the adult could go on adventures with both her mother, and two younger versions of herself.

[Doctor Bifrost]

Byrne was trying to restore some pre-Crisis concepts to Wonder Woman. The mirror Wonder Girl was a way of acknowledging Wonder Girl's true origin--in the Impossible Tales. All efforts to explain how Wonder Girl could exist were retcons, pre- and post-Crisis. I'm not sure why one of these origins has any more relevance than another.

In the Impossible Tales she actually was Diana at a younger age - the actual person - not a conjured, magical duplicate.

[Doctor Bifrost]

Perez included a detail in his Wonder Woman where infant girls, lost at sea, are brought to Themyscira by nereids. The Amazons raise them for a year or so, and then have them returned to Man's World, believing that they will (more or less subconsciously) carry the spirit of the Amazons with them.

I thought this would be a perfect set-up for an origin for Donna Troy - at first, I thought that's what it was for. Here's my origin:

And infant 2-year-old girl, who we will call Donna, is lost at sea and brought to Themyscira.She is raised by the Amazons. Diana, at this point, is about 11, and has been the only child on the island. She dotes on Donna, her "little sister." Seeing this, Hippolyta - perhaps unwisely - allows the child to stay longer than usual.

When Donna is about 4, Diana takes her on on a walk through the woods - basically, they go on a picnic. (They've done this before.) At about this time, several prisoners escape from Doom's Doorway. While the Amazons deal with the others, one slips away: Usculesp, the Titan of Mirrors, who carries a mirrored shield and wields strange mirror-related magic. (An ancient, mythological version of Sam Scudder, let us say.)

Teenage Diana comes face-to-face with Usculesp. Donna is in danger (and throws rocks!). There is a battle. Usculesp tries to absorb Diana's powers into his mirror, but the attempt is disrupted (by Diana's prowess, by Donna's rocks) and a portion of them wind up being reflected into Donna. (I could detail the mystical aspects, but they're not terribly relevant here.) Diana defeats Usculesp, just as Hippolyta and the other Amazons - having defeated the other escapees - arrive.

Hippolyta realizes that they have unfairly and unsafely kept Donna for too long. And perhaps, in Usculesp's magical mirror (much like the Wicked Witch's crystal ball), Diana saw that Donna still had a parent, or other family, waiting desperately for her in Man's World. They arrange for Donna to be returned. She remembers little of Themyscira - it's like a dream, and no one believes a 4-year-old anyway. She is raised by her family.

Her powers remain mainly (but not entirely) dormant. Ten years later, she sees Wonder Woman on TV - and recognizes Diana, or at least feels a connection. This awakens her powers. She creates a costume like Wonder Woman's and becomes a teenage superhero, Wonder Girl.

After a few months, Wonder Girl and Wonder Woman meet. Diana realizes this is Donna, and they have a great reunion. With Donna's family's permission, she takes Donna back to Themysicra to see the Amazons who had loved her so much. After that, Donna spends her summer vacations with the Amazons, being trained in their ways.

And Usculesp can become a recurring villain for Donna Troy.

***
Now, that was for a Wonder Woman whose story is closer to Perez's. With the one we may have now - and we still don't know the details, do we? - I'd make these changes:

- If Diana turns out to be hundreds of years old, this has to have happened hundreds of years ago. Then we need Donna's return to Man's World to include a "time slip" into the present day. There are enough mystical forces, unpredictable nereids, and other possibilities involved to explain this. In this case, Donna probably wouldn't be raised by any biological family, but by an adoptive family.
- If Diana doesn't get her powers until she journeys to Man's World, then we say that Usculesp's mirror created a mystical connection between Diana and Donna (which can show up in dreams and the like), and that when Diana gets her powers, Donna gets a share of them too. (The connection may have other effects as well.)

Maybe even John Byrne himself might be glad that I'm using a magical mirror in this story....

[Phoenixx9]

I thought this would be a perfect set-up for an origin for Donna Troy - at first, I thought that's what it was for. Here's my origin:

And infant 2-year-old girl, who we will call Donna, is lost at sea and brought to Themyscira.She is raised by the Amazons. Diana, at this point, is about 11, and has been the only child on the island. She dotes on Donna, her "little sister." Seeing this, Hippolyta - perhaps unwisely - allows the child to stay longer than usual.

When Donna is about 4, Diana takes her on on a walk through the woods - basically, they go on a picnic. (They've done this before.) At about this time, several prisoners escape from Doom's Doorway. While the Amazons deal with the others, one slips away: Usculesp, the Titan of Mirrors, who carries a mirrored shield and wields strange mirror-related magic. (An ancient, mythological version of Sam Scudder, let us say.)

Teenage Diana comes face-to-face with Usculesp. Donna is in danger (and throws rocks!). There is a battle. Usculesp tries to absorb Diana's powers into his mirror, but the attempt is disrupted (by Diana's prowess, by Donna's rocks) and a portion of them wind up being reflected into Donna. (I could detail the mystical aspects, but they're not terribly relevant here.) Diana defeats Usculesp, just as Hippolyta and the other Amazons - having defeated the other escapees - arrive.

Hippolyta realizes that they have unfairly and unsafely kept Donna for too long. And perhaps, in Usculesp's magical mirror (much like the Wicked Witch's crystal ball), Diana saw that Donna still had a parent, or other family, waiting desperately for her in Man's World. They arrange for Donna to be returned. She remembers little of Themyscira - it's like a dream, and no one believes a 4-year-old anyway. She is raised by her family.

Her powers remain mainly (but not entirely) dormant. Ten years later, she sees Wonder Woman on TV - and recognizes Diana, or at least feels a connection. This awakens her powers. She creates a costume like Wonder Woman's and becomes a teenage superhero, Wonder Girl.

After a few months, Wonder Girl and Wonder Woman meet. Diana realizes this is Donna, and they have a great reunion. With Donna's family's permission, she takes Donna back to Themysicra to see the Amazons who had loved her so much. After that, Donna spends her summer vacations with the Amazons, being trained in their ways.

And Usculesp can become a recurring villain for Donna Troy.

***

Now this origin story I like! Good job, Dr Bifrost!