A Bad Romance

[cuntfucius]

I'm tired of everyone picking on my hunk of a man, Terry Long. If he shaved his beard, you guys would be all over him. In fact, I am going to do a series one day of photoshopping his beard out of the equation, and see how the reception of his scenes change. Is it because he doesn't have a stylish villain goatee instead? Or Ollie's sexy beard?

A happier time for Donna Troy! I'll showcase all of her loves: The First Love (Roy Harper), The Love of Her Life (Terry Long), and The Second Chance at Love (Kyle Rayner). But right now, only Terry Long, because he is way sexier than Roy and Kyle.



Marriage looked good on Donna. No, really! I mean, retiring her on a farm with a bad haircut and giving her a creepy baby plot didn't look good on her, but marriage did! Or maybe it was that red suit.









YOU WISH YOU HAD A LOVE LIKE THEIRS. Oh yeah, look at that. He's all ... charming and nearly 30 and making bad jokes. This is his second wedding, and he's very excited and confident about it! How can you beat a man who loves commitment that much? He's not jaded from his past divorce, which only took place like, under two years ago at this point. Terry is a man not afraid of the altar!



Terry Long was understandably popular with the ladies. All students on campus loved him, but the girls did in particular. And why wouldn't they?



Donna don't play that shit, though.



"DROOOOOOL." Could a sexier, smoother thing be said in such a moment? I think not. Just look at his boyish charm! Watch out, world, Terry Long's coming for your heart. He compliments Donna by telling her she looks like her Mother right before they bang on the plane. I'd be fanning myself at this point. Now, it could be said that Terry idealized Donna a bit since he was so obsessed with Greek mythology and Donna was tied to it, but ... that's okay, he paid for that later with the whole Greek Tragedy bit.

"To peace, wisdom, and unity." Donna, this is not a beauty pageant.

But look at how comforting Terry is! What a MAN.



And I mean it. Comforting. He does the right thing and doesn't make it about him when Donna has something traumatizing happen to her.



Here is Donna, looking like a delicious 80s watermelon. In the first panel, she seems to be checking out Terry's chiseled physique. And who wouldn't!?

But look at that, he doesn't press the issue!



Call it creepy all you want, the way Terry Long tries to flirt with both Koriand'r AND Dick Grayson at every turn. He's just a free-lovin' man! In the end, he knows his heart is with Donna. And look: He knows she's boss, and doesn't feel emasculated at all! Meanwhile, Dick talks about Kory's culture and their "savage" ways. Oh Dick! Stop changing the subject when Terry winks at you as he massages his wife's shoulders, it's obvious you want some of the Long.



Do you guys remember Jennifer Long?

... Yeah, neither does Donna.



So there was a time when Terry got fired from his job for not doing his homework like a good boy, and he blamed Donna over it and ran off for three days to brood. Dick move, right? Well, he came back! And we are given this sweet scene.



He is a THOUGHTFUL and considerate man! Sure, he might act self-indulged once in a while, but in the end he's always going to admit when he's wrong.



Prone to dramatic posing when he feels inadequate about being a civilian and dating a super heroine. With all of the pressures on masculinity, and the expectations of a man to provide for his woman -- and with Donna leading a life he's barely involved in, I could see why he would ... uh, pose dramatically and get upset. I would too.



They don't care about a ten year age difference. PFFFT and why should they? A LOVE LIKE THEIRS CANNOT BE DEFEATED. Unless it is by Starfire. But still.



Look at those two love birds! Fandom, stop throwing paper airplanes. BE MATURE. Like the beautiful love between Terry and Donna.



And ... yet again, Donna goes off with her friends, spending a majority of her time with them, while Terry is left to kind of sulk and overthink his unemployment, inadequacy, and loserdom. But that can't tear them apart!!!

And a relationship with Donna Troy is like a walk in the park! No obstacles will ever come in your way.



Uh



Er...



Okay, about that...



Wait, surely this is a misunderstanding!!



... :(

ADMIT IT, SCANS_DAILY. YOU ARE GUILTY OF THE CARDINAL SIN... OF NOT LOVING THIS MAN. But seriously, don't tell me you wouldn't date him.

Comments

[destroyed]

I can't think of anyone who WOULD date him. Terry Long has always felt like an awkward insert to me, and nothing about showing scenes where he's 'wooing' Donna by being lame helps.

- He's a ginger. No soul. Maybe Raven could help with that, but...
- Brillo hair AND pedo facehair? Move over, Bond.
- He's divorced. You see a man unafraid of the altar. I see a man who already *failed* once and who is only willing to go at it again because he's landed a superheroine half his age. Who'd say no?
- His charisma feels very, very forced. What kind of girl would go from Roy Harper to this guy? Those aren't remotely compatible scales of taste in guys. And college girls swooning over a history professor, especially one who looks as dorky as him? Sure. Happens all the time.

Terry Long feels, to me, similar to the 40-something divorced Canadians who come here (Asia) to 'work' and then do nothing but bitch about how ineffectual they are at their jobs (because they're not really qualified) and hit on Asian high school and college girls. Eventually they hope to find one with daddy issues and marry her on back to Toronto where she'll be miserable and he'll be high-fiving his burnout buddies.

Not cool. Not cool, Terry Long.

[cuntfucius]

He's not just being "lame." He's being thoughtful and considerate and a good listener. And he's nice.

-Ginger jokes went out of style.
-There's no such thing as pedo facehair. I don't know where you got this pop culture inference but plenty of pedophiles are clean-shaven, I don't know a direct correlation between face hair and child-luvins.
-How do you see divorce as a failure? Sometimes it just doesn't work out between people. It's not as simple as to just look at it as a failure. And Donna isn't half his age. And who would say no? Terry eventually did. He initiated the divorce.
-"What kind of girl would go from Roy Harper to this guy?"

Uh, yes, they are remotely compatible in taste in guys. Terry and Roy both have inadequacy issues, bad luck in love, thought Donna was practically perfect, needed to be prodded in to responsibility often, and had less of a mature charm and more of a boyish charm. Kyle fit that pattern, too. And... uh, yes. Swooning over college professors happens a lot. Most teachers I've crushed on have been far from ideal in the looks department, and a lot of girls can say the same.
-Terry Long feels, to me, similar to the 40-something divorced Canadians who come here (Asia) to 'work' and then do nothing but bitch about how ineffectual they are at their jobs (because they're not really qualified) and hit on Asian high school and college girls. Eventually they hope to find one with daddy issues and marry her on back to Toronto where she'll be miserable and he'll be high-fiving his burnout buddies.

Now, that's a skeezy type of guy. And Terry did a LOT of whining about his job and self esteem. So I can see where you'd conflate this in, even though in canon he was never shown to hit on his students and was always shown to be not only respectful but to always consult Donna on what she wanted and needed, and yielded to her 99% of the time.

[cuntfucius]

Oh, and Roy and Terry were both dedicated and loving fathers, despite being bumbling sometimes irresponsible manchildren! More correlations. The fact of the matter is, Roy has been shown to hit on younger girls, was joked to have flirted with teenage girls, frequents strip clubs, but is just better looking than Terry. And has more "hip" attributes, he's a bit younger now than Terry was, and we've been showcased him more so there's less attributes that we can project on to him. :( If Roy had a beard and an afro I swear people would hate him as much as they hate Terry Long.



DIAGNOSIS: MEANIE MCJUDGYPANTS. POSSIBLY SECRETLY IN LOVE WITH TERRY LONG.

[jaybee3]

If you think about it, Kyle is the one man out considering Donna's love life since he's nothing like (really) like Terry and Roy. I wasn't a big fan of the relationship at first (since it was clearly derived on DC's part from their efforts at pushing hard their new super-hero aka "the one and only GL who would surpass all others" who they were pushing down everyone's throat at the time post-Emerald Twilight by hooking him up right away with Wonder Women's sister and one of the company's most beloved heroines). But as Kyle developed I could definitely see it working and he was good for her. The fact that DC then just dumped the relationship and never looked back to the point where there they talk ad nauseum about whether Soranik or Jade are Kyle's "true loves" as if Donna never existed is pretty insulting.

[cuntfucius]

Kyle's initial pushing with Donna Troy was a biiiiig gimmick to market Kyle. Of course, Ron Marz had a HUGE crush on Donna (jeez, Donna and her self insert author boyfriends, even Bryne and then Grayson football passed her around specifically for their personal pet pairings) and really loved her character, but ... the marketing of Donna and Kyle? It worked. Now, a lot of Donna fans were angry about it, since Kyle was hated at first right off the bat. But it established Kyle VERY quickly, brought readers (myself included) into his book, and helped integrate him with the Titans and introduced him to John Stewart. People warmed up to the relationship and I actually think they developed it very nice, albeit slowly, and it was a very healthy relationship for Donna (though I admit, Kyle was a bit too immature for her at the time). I obviously liked it.

Buuuut the handling after leaves a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths, motto to EVERYTHING you said. Alex of course is just the random girl that is mentioned sometimes to give Kyle angst and Donna barely gets a mentioning at all. It seemed, for a while, around Infinite Crisis era, that they were pushing for some Donna-Kyle stuff (Ion: Guardian of the Universe certainly did, along with getting Kyle involved in a slow lame Peter Parker love triangle, isn't that always the case with him?), but as Jade came consecutively after Donna and also had more mileage with Kyle + a tragic death in his arms (that served only to power him up -- which was retconned by Johns anyway!), it's just all about the red and the green in his life now, baby. This is just Tomasi's writing -- and the sad thing is, this is all about writer bias on pairings, too. I mean Dick Grayson kind of suffered this with Kory and Babs, too, but Koriand'r never got the erasure that Donna did, and yet what happened to her was still more offensive.

But yes insulting anyway :D people have very short histrionic continuity and myopic future vision when they write, it seems. The further away a relationship was in canon, the less likely it means something, I guess.

[levyrasputin]

I've never thought about how Terry and Roy compared but this is true. Roy just have more rawrrrl rebel in him in Terry has more self-esteem rollercoaster (as Roy's self esteem is always on the background floor if not in the basement) but this is all true =)

I read them together when Terry and Donna have long ago split up and he was dead, and going backward you realize how their relationship wasn't doomed or it would have never worked from the start. They were doing pretty fine.

you and me sisters as usual - the more people hate on Terry Long the more I feel the urge to defend him. )=

My dad had a fro in the '70. And it was awesome. If only my hair would allow for it I'd have a fro as well, a beard too maybe.
S_D's knows nothing about fashion and sex appeal..!

[psychopathicus_rex]

Tintin has ginger hair. You sayin' Tintin has no soul? Them's fightin' words! Put up yer dukes!

[eightleggedbeast]

I think Terry Long's reallty hot ._.