Making Donna Troy's Origin Easy: UPDATE

UPDATE: I was chatting with Phil Jimenez about Donna Troy (as I often do!) and he liked my solution for "Making Donna Troy's Origin Easy". I can't think of a higher compliment!

Phil writes (on this blog response, if you look...):

"I love this version and for what it's worth, I'm trying to get DC to adopt it as canon!

Phil Jimenez"

Thanks for the support, Phil!
LOVE that you love it! :) Means alot coming from you

Now it's up to DC Comics......

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I figured out a very simple way to fix Donna Troy's origin. Now, don't run away... really. And it's extremely simple. It occured to me as I was updating Donna Troy's page, restoring Donna's connections to the Amazons in "New Earth" continuity, as revealed in recent events. Yes, I used the words "Donna Troy's origin" and "extremely simple" in one sentence. Read on!

There are two things "essential" to Donna:
1. She was raised by the Titans of Myth and
2. she is Wonder Woman's little sister and a Amazon.

Donna's simple origin: Infant Donna Troy was saved from a fire by the Titan Rhea, who brought her to New Chronus and gifted her with amazing abilities. After growing up on New Chronus with the Titans of Myth, Donna was sent to earth at age 13 and left in the care of the Amazons, who would teach her humility. Donna was adopted by Queen Hippolyta, and thrilled to the exploits of her sister, Wonder Woman. Deciding to follow in her sister's footsteps, Donna became Wonder Girl and soon joined the Teen Titans. Later, Donna reunited with the Titans of Myth and embraced her original Titanic heritage as the heroine, Troia.

This is actually supported by events depicted since INFINITE CRISIS, where it was established that Wonder Woman was one of the founding members of the JLA in the new, restructured reality. This restored Wonder Woman as pre-dating Wonder Girl, which has been the problem plaguing Donna since the first Crisis. We have seen young Donna living with the Amazons in WONDER WOMAN #1 (2005) and TEEN TITANS: YEAR ONE (2007-2008). Diana is also restored as Donna's maid of honor at her wedding, as shown in JLA #0 (2005). I think we can safely assume Donna was adopted by the Amazons and became Diana's little sister in the post INFINITE CRISIS continuity.

Yes, there's Donna's SUPPOSED "new origin" in WONDER WOMAN ANNUAL #1 (2007). But it comes with a new host of problems. It eliminates the rescue from a fire, which eliminates "Who IS Donna Troy?" -- it also keeps Donna as an identical twin... it glosses over the importance of the Titans of Myth by stating that Donna is raised (jointly? shared custody?) by both Titans of Myth and Amazons. It's terrible and I reject it utterly. It's already been contradicted, if you look carefully.

See? Donna's Pre-Crisis Amazon connections have been restored.

Now, Donna's Titans of Myth origin has become as important as her Amazon origin at this point. So that is still firmly in continuity. As readers may remember, the Titans of Myth originally sent their Titan seeds back to their homeworlds at age 13 to learn humility, after stripping them of their memories. Donna was given false memories and lived at Kanigher Orphanage. So we'll tweak that a bit in new continuity, and just assume the Titans of Myth left her in the care of the Amazons (who, remember, would worship the Titan of Myth like gods). It would make sense that they would entrust Donna to the Amazons.

So having Donna spend half her life with the Titans of Myth, and the other half with the Amazons makes perfect sense. It also restores all the important Pre-Crisis Diana-Donna-Hippolyta stories and interactions. It also keeps virtually every story detail concerning the Titans of Myth.

If you think about it, Donna's childhood on New Chronus is very important (but her childhood on Paradise Island less so). Donna's teen years on Paradise Island are more defining, since its always been very vague where she lived while she was a member of the team during the Cardy era. So her initial days of venturing into Man's World (untold, mostly) are somewhat similar to what we are seeing in YEAR ONE. Or, if you prefer, Early Donna is somewhat similar to TV Wonder Girl Drusilla, who was intrigued by Man's World.

Don't worry: The Titans of Myth stuff is still all true, Donna.

Now, what needs to be wiped away is the Bryne revisions of Donna as Diana's "mystical twin" and the whole angle of Donna's "multiple lives." These two elements seem to be the most confusing aspects of Donna's origin, and they are no longer needed.Byrne made a nice-try attempt to restore Donna as Diana's "sister" and sort of make all of Donna's myriad origins "true." But we no longer need these band-aids when we have the very simple Titans of Myth and Amazon upbringings. I would dismiss these "revelations" as a mystical ruse of Dark Angel, who is an insane trickster with a deep hatred for Donna Troy.

Dark Angel would still be an alternate Donna Troy who escaped her own reality, but was driven insane as a result. So her recollections and ramblings cannot be trusted. She may be misremembering realities throughout the multiverse... or just trying to torture Donna, who she hates as her opposite number.

Dark Angel: She's just a crazy bitch. Don't believe anything she says.

This simple fix would make Donna's origin ridiculously simple again, and we would lose no stories in the process. Dark Angel still tortured Donna in WONDER WOMAN #130-136 and TITANS #23-25. But all her ramblings are that of a madwoman. Byrne's band-aids were a "made sense" fix at the time, but now they just weight the character down. File them under "Punisher as avenging angel" and 'Guy Garnder as part alien" and other such wrong-turn character moments. We shall never speak of it again.

I'm not a fan of constantly trying to "fix" Donna's origin.... but restoring WW as JLA founder solves many things, and eliminates the need for the absolute most confusing things that trip up new fans -- the "mystic twin" and "multiple lives" -- where fans have trouble grasping the cascading-happening-at-same-time multiple lives, the reasoning on why Donna isn't Diana's identical twin (or is she?, as some writers even confuse that fact), why they aren't the same age, etc...

If DC is very careful with this ret-con, they can eliminate Donna's confusing backstory and retain most of her important, defining character moments.

Donna Troy: Fixed!