Donna Troy and Terry Long: The breakup

[xdoop.insanejournal.com]

You watched them fall in love. Now watch them fall apart.

While this isn't directly related to Donna and Terry's breakup, I'm posting it because we get to see Terry's ex-wife again. It's from New Titans #55, by Marv Wolfman and George Perez.









Flash-forward several years. After giving birth to a son, Robert, Donna gave up her powers to the Titans of Myth and settled down on a farmhouse with Terry. Donna also let the Team Titans, a team of heroes from the future, stay with them.

This is from Team Titans #5. It's written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by Vince Russell.





Wolfman left the series after #12 and was replaced by Phil Jimenez and Jeff Jensen.

Donna and Terry's arrangement with the Team Titans began to strain their relationship.

This is from Team Titans #16. It's written by Jimenez and Jensen and illustrated by Jon Regis.





This is from Team Titans #17. It's written by Jimenez and Jensen and illustrated by Terry Dodson.


Nightrider, a vampire and a member of the Team Titans, was shot by a farmer when he saw him attacking his cattle.





Later...








Terra and Terry end up getting saved by Prestor Jon, another member of the Team Titans.

In Team Titans #18...





Team Titans #19...










In Team Titans #21, Donna returns home. It's written by Jimenez and Jensen and illustrated by Bryan Hitch.

















Our next scene is from Titans v2 #25. Though the issue came out several years later, the scene is a flashback which takes place chronologically after Team Titans #21. It's written by Jay Faerber and illustrated by Terry Dodson.



After Team Titans, Donna would join the Darkstars, an intergalactic police force, where she gained new powers.


As a member of the Darkstars, Donna later returned to the pages of New Titans.

This is from New Titans #118. It's written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by William Rosado.







Then, in New Titans #119...





The court drama continued in New Titans Annual #11. It's written by Marv Wolfman and illustrated by Greg Land. It was around this time that Donna started dating Green Lantern Kyle Rayner.



















At some point Donna gained visitation rights with Robert, though I don't know if this happened offscreen or if I'm missing an issue.

This is from Green Lantern v3 #82. It's written by Ron Marz and illustrated by Tom Grindberg.



Then, in John Byrne's Wonder Woman #121...



Donna receives the bad news in Green Lantern v3 #89, by Marz and Darryl Banks.





...and leaves Kyle in #90, by Marz and Chris Batista.



Then, in Wonder Woman #123...



In Wonder Woman #131...





I'm not sure, but I believe the implication is that Dark Angel was responsible for Terry's accident. Essentially, Dark Angel is forcing Donna to live through thousands of lifetimes with horrible tragedies, starting over each time Donna reached her lowest point.

Another flashback from Titans v2 #25 showed Robert's funeral. It's illustrated by Paul Pelletier.



Later, when Donna "died," Marcia showed up at her funeral. This is from Teen Titans/Outsiders Secret Files 2003. It's written and illustrated by Phil Jimenez.





On Donna and Terry's breakup, Marv Wolfman stated "The break up happened in Team Titans after I left it. I disagreed with it and said so, but the writer did it anyway. It was wrong in my mind to do it--Donna and Terry would not suddenly split up that way. They may have split up if we saw a real problem between them but I just had them occasionally have Donna's power come between them--something they would have gotten through. Once the divorce was done though, and I got the character back, I could not simply undo what was done. Hence my following up on it etc. It was an editorial decision that led Donna to Kyle...which I also don't feel was right, but had no real reason to argue. IF Donna split with Terry and Dick was splitting with Kory, I would have very slowly had Dick and Donna get together...which I did suggest in an overview memo."

Comments

[sandoz_iscariot.insanejournal.com]

And nothing of value was lost.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

It was an editorial decision that led Donna to Kyle...which I also don't feel was right, but had no real reason to argue. IF Donna split with Terry and Dick was splitting with Kory, I would have very slowly had Dick and Donna get together...which I did suggest in an overview memo.

I never thought Kyle and Donna were a particularly good match, but it sure beats Dick and Donna. They work better as friends and/or with a sibling like relationship.

Bye Terry. I sure didn't miss you. Shame about the kid though.

[schala_kid.insanejournal.com]

IF Donna split with Terry and Dick was splitting with Kory, I would have very slowly had Dick and Donna get together...which I did suggest in an overview memo."

Uhhh no I like them better as friends and I also like that Donna is the only girl Dick hasn't slept with because he views her like a sister.

[tavella.insanejournal.com]

Donna looks oddly jolly in that slap, and it's the least skeezy rendition of Terry Long I've ever seen. Though he goes right back to max skeezy in the full panel.

I had always thought that the car accident was y'know, your typical bad luck, having never seen the interlude. Now I see he died as he lived: stupid. "Hey, lets drive at high speeds in a storm along a winding road with such incompetence that we shoot right over a cliff!"

[xdoop.insanejournal.com]

According to Marv, they would have realized that "they were too similar to be together."

http://www.titanstower.com/source/libcutting/donnadick.html

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

I shouldn't have laughed so hard at that. Poor Robert, he was a victim of his father's rampant stupidity.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

I think they would both be mature enough (and experienced enough as far as relationships go) to realize that BEFORE they hooked up...but who knows, it could have made for an interesting story.

[pyrotwilight.insanejournal.com]

I liked Donna and family. Also this has reminded me how much I miss the Team Titans. Sigh.

[foxhack.insanejournal.com]

After reading all that... I'm going to go with Terry on this one. He had all the right reasons to ask for a divorce. He wanted to protect his son. (But the restraining order was pure overkill.)

Also: LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND? Holy crap, he could DRAW! But I still see some faces that look off, almost traced. :p

[pyrotwilight.insanejournal.com]

If anything I kinda want to blame Kyle. He did watch over the kid. It might not be like being one of Kyle's girlfriend's but the end result seems to be the same.

[volksjager.insanejournal.com]

Whats up with Terra's boots ? Yuck there were some BAD outfits in "Darkstars".

[tavella.insanejournal.com]

It's very 90s art, with the hips that won't unsway and the like, but at least he seemed to be drawing it rather than assembling a collage of other people's stuff.

[foxhack.insanejournal.com]

People kept telling me "Land COULD draw", but this is the first time someone's produced evidence of it.

Yep, very 90's art. But it WASN'T TRACED TO HELL. What the hell happened to him?

[neuhallidae.insanejournal.com]

God, I can't get over the bodysuit-and-armor-under-the-godawfully-puffy-dress look. Especially with the slit that just makes the clashing even more obvious. I mean, there's something to be said for having your uniform ready at all times, but that dress is horrible. Who the hell told her that was a good idea?

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

I doubt that, honestly. IMO there's not a lot of entertainment to be had in watching a really good relationship get mangled for the sole purpose of demonstrating that, hey, mangling it was a bad idea. Besides, once you put it out there, somebody's going to decide that it's the ship to end all ships, and that somebody's going to end up writing that character someday.

It feels weird to say, but thank God for Editorial.

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Wow, that's a crappy rendition of one of the Wonder Family's few good costumes.

In other news, Go Byrne Go! Not just for killing Terry, but for every instance of completely fake, painful "we're just like sisters even though we never interact and have nothing whatsoever to do with each other anymore!" crap between Donna and Diana in this post that he put an end to with his Donna retcon. Ow. And there's that Jimenez "Great Hera!" dismayface, too (not that Byrne made any difference to that, mind, just, as long as I'm complaining).

Also, remind me. Was the attack at the courthouse staged by Terry's lawyer? Because it was about the most implausibly providential thing for him that could possibly have happened if it wasn't, and were I the judge, that's the first damn thing I'd have said once the carnage ended - "I'm not awarding anyone custody of shit until someone proves to me that the father didn't have anything to do with that deeply convenient attack on specifically the kid during which she spouted the father's entire case point-by-point."

[tavella.insanejournal.com]

Seriously! You have two little sobbing kids in the car, and instead of pulling over and waiting out the storm while having a little singalong (and I've never been on a cliff road in then US that didn't have *some* kind of pull off for emergencies, hell if nothing else slow down to 35 or so so you have plenty of time to stop) he's zooming along. Look at the air he's catching as he goes off the cliff -- he must have been going 80 something! Not to mention either wavering in and out of his lane or trying to pass people, because trucks normally don't blare their horns at you if you are just quietly going along in the opposite lane.

Terry wasn't that bad.

[nefrekeptah.insanejournal.com]

Really, I do not at all get why so many people seem to despise Terry so much. All jokes aside, he was a perfectly nice character.

And I winced at the flashback of Donna and Terry arguing; I get why people wanted the two Divorced, but did they really have to mangle Terry's character in the bargain? Thank God Pierez was there batting for clean-up.

[queenanthai.insanejournal.com]

You should track down SUPERGIRL #10 and #11 from Pe-- uh, that one guy's run. Land is really, really drawing. And very well! It scared me because the next time I saw his work it was PHOENIX: ENDSONG and I was all YEAHBUHWHAT?

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

I have a hard time liking a guy who springs a restraining order against a non-abusive parent like this. Especially for a situation he agreed to when they married (even if he didn't get how hard it would be. The divorce, yeah, I'm with him there. Even wanting custody (though actually if you think about it logically, people are going to go after the kid regardless of who he lives with and Donna's got a better chance of protecting him than a guy who can get taken out by a clock.) Was there any thought given to the pain for the kid if his mother's taken away from him?

I can't help but hope he had a second to appreciate the irony as he went over the cliff.

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd be mighty suspicious too.

I don't think that's Terry's fault.

[nefrekeptah.insanejournal.com]

I personally think that that was the writer's fault, not Terry's. To me, this screams of "We hate the marriage, so we're going to break it up, and because we hate Terry, we're going to ignore his previous characterization and make him the villain."

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for posting. Man, I hate that both Robert AND Jennifer had to die with Terry. I was a little confused reading this though as Donnas' first shown the wreckage there didn't seem to be any trace to prove the kids were killed. It was abnormally hot and they didn't even know how many people were in the car. In the phone conversation there's suddenly remains?

[kitty_tc_69.insanejournal.com]

Well. I never knew just how they ended that, or if Terry was dead or just lost in "we don't talk about that anymore" limbo. I also didn't realize it took them so long to get rid of him. I can't begrudge the wile e coyote cartoon ending they gave him (though that poor little girl's shocked face was something I could have done without), though ideally that's not how I'd prefer to see it.

Me, I'm more leaning towards the "it never happened!" school of thought, with maybe someone like with pre-crisis memory or something asking her about him and her have no honest to fuck-all clue who or what they're talking about.

"Terry Long? What the hell is a Terry Long? Wha, huh? Hus- what? No way. Are you kidding? Really? Terry Long? No offense, but that sounds like a gay 70s porn star an-- (blinks looking at picture) umm wow, he -looks- like a gay 70s porn star too. Why would I ever get involved with someone like that? It's creepy as hell. No I don't want to know more. I want you to never bring this up again, ever. I don't know who that guy is and I don't want to know. End of story.".

The only problem with Terry Long being killed is, it means that Terry Long was once alive. Which means all that icky creepy stuff between he and Donna happened. And I can't accept that.

Re: I don't think that's Terry's fault.

[kingrockwell]

"And because we don't know how to write kids, we're going to let him keep them. And because it's Green Lantern, we're going to kill people for ANGST! (only we'll be sneaky and have it happen in a different book!)"

Re: I don't think that's Terry's fault.

[kirayoshi1.insanejournal.com]

Okay, I'm calling it. Sometime during "Blackest Night" Donna's going to go up against a Black Lantern Terry Long, who will taunt her by saying that he intentionally crashed the car to kill himself and the kids just to spite Donna.

Okay, that was sarcasm, but I wouldn't hold it against the current DC writers!

Re: I don't think that's Terry's fault.

[kitty_tc_69.insanejournal.com]

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Good riddance, Mr Long!

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Said it before, said it again, the number of partners Dick has had is a lot smaller than you might think, and is only something like five; Liu, Kory, Babs, Cheyenne and an OOC one night stand with Huntress (Mirage doesn't count because she was impersonating Starfire anytime they were intimate). Probably forgetting one, but all things considered he's been pretty controlled on that front.

[heat16.insanejournal.com]

A woman suffering and pleading for mercy in a John Byrne comic.
Shocking...

[tahngarth.insanejournal.com]

What's up with Donna's white hair and outfit in that Team Titans scan?

Also, I used to own that one issue drawn by LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND and holy crap was it 90's. PAINFULLY 90's. I imagine it's the kind of thing that Geoff Johns uses for horrible blood sacrifices to bring back the silver age.

[ook.insanejournal.com]

Maybe Toonces was driving the car! :D

[thebigapricot.insanejournal.com]

Ah, The Days of our Donna. It's like the worst soap opera on steroids: mean ex-wife, meddling friends, fights, divorce, custody battle, new love, TRAGEDY.

Glad Marv Wolfman didn't get his way. One DICK is enough for poor Donna

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

What, that a villain attacked the family member of a superhero as a means of gaining leverage over said superhero? It's like, the third rule of villainy, preceded only by robbing banks and attacking the hero.

Though were I the judge, I'd take into consideration who fought back, and who went down like a little bitch. True, Donna's work as a hero might endanger Robert's life, but she's one of the few people who can also protect him.

[moneyless_jew.insanejournal.com]

I can understand finding Terry Long off-putting since I did too, but I always felt it was overly harsh and cruel to kill off him, his daughter AND Donna's son in a fiery car crash. Comics keep talking about moving forward into the future but that, like OMD, was the worst kind of violent regression. Maybe if Donna still had her child, she'd have more lines of differentiation between her and Diana that would help them re-define the character in the ways they seem to have trouble with now.

[xdoop.insanejournal.com]

The Crimelord had it arranged, because Donna losing custody "should destroy her effectiveness."

[seriousfic.insanejournal.com]

I think Cheyenne would also count as OOC.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

At this point if you're not a full grown male with your own book you ought to just kiss your butt goodbye if Kyle so much as looks at you.

The curse is now suspected to travel via osmosis

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

I doubt it too, but I was trying to be positive and give Marv the benefit of the doubt! Yes, thank God for editorial.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

I do tend to agree that there was a better way to handle the entire thing. I really hate when comic writers kill off kids especially, it just seems so mean spirited. I'm left wondering why they bothered introducing them in the first place when most should know that kids and superheros tend not to mix. The best they can typically hope for is to be rapidly aged and given their own powers, or to be the child of a low tier superhero so their existence doesn't offend (like Animal Man).

I also feel a little bad that I always forget about Jennifer

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

It's the timing rather than the actual action that I'd check out if I were her.

But I would also question the second part. The kid's Donna's whether he lives with Terry or not. Terry can't protect him at all, Donna's got a shot. So I don't think him being near her is a danger.

[greenmask.insanejournal.com]

For the breakup of a whole marriage.. that was oddly sparse.

Also, Dick/Donna.. the Harry/Hermione of comics? Yurck!

[freyaeinde.insanejournal.com]

Wait! So what you're saying is that at one point Greg Land used to actually draw. Consider my mind boggled for the day.

[pyrotwilight.insanejournal.com]

Soso true.

http://pics.livejournal.com/pyrotwilight/pic/00116gfw

[thebat_man.insanejournal.com]

Could you please scan pages 14, 15 and 16 of New Titans #55 where Dick Grayson's in the Batcave and Batman hits Dick Grayson and yells at him and tells him to leave his key to Wayne Manor with Alfred and says he never should have had a partner and never will again.

[silverzeo]

Wow..... the way Terry and the kids died... horrible dialogue/art patern...