Rewinding Donna Troy: Michael Johnson on TITANS #20

from Newsarama: " With next week's Titans #20, Johnson gets the chance to take a closer look at Donna Troy as a character, just before the events of Blackest Night saw the character taking a turn for the worse."

Nrama: So I take it you've always been a Titans fan? And a Donna Troy fan?

Johnson: I've been a Titans fan for as long as I've been reading comics. I started a few issues into the classic Wolfman/Perez run and I was hooked. Anybody reading this who hasn't read those: get off the internet right now and go and find them. Buy them all. Read. Repeat. I could spend hours just talking about the covers alone. "Who Killed Trident?". Terra's earth-ring. The double-whammy of #38 & #39.... And #38, of course, asked "Who Is Donna Troy?" I fell in love with Donna (like a lot of young impressionable fanboys) not only because she was "purty" and powerful, but because she was kind. She was (and is) the moral center of the team, the rock on which the others depend. She is the heart and soul of the Titans.

Nrama: We've seen some changes for Donna during Blackest Night, but assuming this issue takes place before that, can you tell us about how you see Donna – who she is and what she's going through as this story picks up?

Johnson: Yes, this story takes place just before the events of Blackest Night: Titans, so we are seeing Donna react to the events the team has gone through since they reunited, and it hasn't gone as well as anybody hoped. The team dynamic isn't the same, especially since each of them are in a very different place than they were as teenagers. Everyone is spinning off in different directions as their lives inevitably evolve, and Donna has remained in the center, the rock, trying to hold the team together. But that puts enormous pressure on her, and she's reached a point where she wonders if she needs to let go and focus more on her own life. She's just come through another universes-shattering crisis, and jumped right back into the old team, but Donna was always the one who sought to balance super-heroics with a real life. This issue shows her seeking that balance again.

Nrama: How does the story start off?

Johnson: I always loved that Donna was a photographer. It gave her another dimension beyond just a superhero, so the story starts off with Donna being offered a job that requires her to dust off her camera and get back to work. It's an opportunity to get away from super-powered drama and just be herself. Take a bunch of pictures, go to the beach, relax, throw down with the Fearsome Five. The usual.

I love this quote from Johnson: "seeing Donna react to the events the team has gone through since they reunited, and it hasn't gone as well as anybody hoped."

Aint that the truth, Titans fans? lol.

Sounds like he's a real Donna (and Titans) fan tho, so I hope that comes through in the story!