What to do with a problem like Donna Troy? The story behind the original Wonder Girl’s creation is notorious among comic book fans, coming about because of a misunderstanding among the editorial staff. For a long time, DC writers and editors have attempted to make sense of Donna’s confusing backstory. Yet every attempt to fix Donna only made things worse in the long term. The issue stems from how little DC Comics values in keeping the Wonder Woman and Teen Titans mythologies in check through the various retcons. However, one of the best comic book creators in the business has finally given Donna the respect she rightfully deserves.
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Artist and writer Phil Jimenez rocked the comic book industry by illustrating the first issue of Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons, delivering one of the all-time best Wonder Woman comics. Jimenez has not hidden his love for Donna Troy and set out to give the character the definitive origin that reconciles the multiple conflicting origins within the pages of Titans Annual #1 (2025). The comic is a love letter to Donna Troy as a character, and rather than playing into the character’s convoluted past, the story instead simplifies everything.
It All Started Because Wonder Woman Used Time Travel
The confusion began when the DC editors and writers decided to add Wonder Girl to the company’s then-newest teen superhero team, the Teen Titans. The problem is that there was no Wonder Girl. It turns out the creators got their wires crossed with some Wonder Woman stories, believing a Wonder Girl character already existed. However, it turns out those Wonder Woman comics had Diana teaming with past versions of herself, including a teenage version of herself named Wonder Girl, who was not a separate character. Nonetheless, the Wonder Girl character, who appeared alongside the Titans in The Brave and the Bold, was based on the teen Diana design from the Wonder Woman comics. Eventually, DC would recognize its mistake, and writer Marv Wolfman would construct a new origin for this new Wonder Girl.
Donna Troy’s origin by Wolfman was simple, establishing Donna as an infant orphan saved from a fire by Wonder Woman, who then delivered her to Paradise Island to be adopted by Hippolyta. It was a basic yet effective origin story that worked fine as is. Unfortunately, Donna’s backstory got increasingly complicated in the aftermath of Crisis on Infinite Earths. The event completely changed Wonder Woman’s history, with the hero only making her presence known to the world in DC Comics’ present time. Because Diana no longer had a pre-established history with the outside world after Crisis on Infinite Earths, Donna’s backstory no longer made sense. Since Diana was a vital character in The New Teen Titans books, a new backstory was created for her that replaced Wonder Woman saving baby Donna from a fire with the literal Titans of myths, who implanted her memories with Wonder Woman.
DC Couldn’t Keep Things Simple
For some reason, Donna’s origins were rewritten again in the late 90s, where it was retconned that she was a magical duplicate to be a playmate for Diana. Donna would soon perish in the Graduation Day storyline, before resurrecting in The Return of Donna Troy by Phil Jimenez. The Return of Donna Troy was Jimenez’s first attempt to reconcile Donna’s many conflicting histories, revealing her as a multiversal anomaly and a survivor of the pre-crisis universe. All her origin stories were valid because of her status within the multiverse. Jimenez’s first attempt to streamline Donna was not nearly as successful as Titans Annual #1 because The Return of Donna Troy leaned so heavily into Donna’s behind-the-scenes baggage. DC doesn’t need to focus so much on Donna Troy’s confusing backstory. All the company needed was to simplify everything. Making Donna a multiversal anomaly only makes the character more puzzling and off-putting.
Donna was reintroduced in the New 52 as a clay warrior used to usurp Wonder Woman. Nevertheless, that new origin was completely contradicted by the Titans Hunt mini-series, which was published at the time. Titans Hunt unveiled that she was part of the long-lost Teen Titans team from the past. Donna’s backstory was left ambiguous in DC Rebirth, with her golem origin from the New 52 being accepted as her current origin. Infinite Frontier decided to have all DC history, including the contradicting lore, canon, with every character having different memories of various timelines.
Donna Finally Has Her Original Backstory Back
Jimenez decided to forgo the every backstory being canon when writing and drawing Titans Annual #1, instead bringing back Donna to her basics. Rather than untangling the confusing yarn that is every Donna Troy origin story ever, including the writer’s own The Return of Donna Troy comic, Jimenez chose to give back Donna her classic origin story from Wolfman. She is once more an orphan child rescued by Wonder Woman and went to live with the Amazons on Paradise Island. The Annual is a loving tribute to Donna Troy, detailing the character’s many ups and downs throughout her life, including her controversial marriage to Terry Long and the death of her infant son. The comic even brought back long-dormant elements of the character’s history, including Donna reconnecting with her former adopted family before living with the Amazons.
Jimenez was able to nicely piece together Donna’s life, finding the correct chronological events of the character’s history. The writer-artist smartly avoided bringing up the conflicting lore of Donna Troy, keeping the story focused on Troy’s emotional journey throughout her life. The only acknowledgement of the confusing history is Donna overhearing some train passengers remarking on false information about the Teen Titans. Jimenez realized that trying to fix Donna only caused more problems, and instead went back to the origin that worked best for the character. It’s a beautiful comic that truly understands what makes a character like Donna Troy work. While Titans Annual #1 has the same potential danger of being retconned in the next major reboot, we hope that the history of Donna Troy will be taken into consideration.
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