The Titans #25

Who Is Troia? Part Three: This Is Your Life

Jay Faeber Writer
Marv Wolfman Writer pp 14-18
Paul Pelletier Penciller pp 1-8, 25-35
Phil Jimenez Penciller pp 9-11
Nick Cardy Penciller pp 12-13
George Perez Penciller pp 14-18
Tom Grummett Penciller pp 19-21
Terry Dodson Penciller pp 22-24
Bud LaRosa Inker pp 1-8, 28-35
Phil Jimenez Inker pp 9-11
Tom Palmer Sr. Inker pp 12-13
Scott Hanna Inker pp 36-38
Al Vey Inker pp 19-21
George Perez Inker pp 14-18
Terry Austin Inker pp 25-27
Rachel Dodson Inker pp 22-24
Comicraft Letters
Gregory Wright Colors
Heroic Age Seps
Tom Palmer Jr. Ass't Editor
Eddie Berganza Editor

This issue's cover marks the final piece of Phil Jimenez's Donna Troy triptych with the colors of Tanya & Richard Horie. Donna naturally takes the center stage, surrounded by a whole bunch of people we don't care that much about. But there are a few we do recognize from our old New Titans days. Green Lantern and Arsenal on the left, with the Flash and Nightwing on the right. It is an impressive cover, especially when combined with the other two parts of this story, showing off everyone and everything related to Donna Troy, in the way that only Phil Jimenez can do. However, the cover does boast of having 48 pages, but the story is only 38 pages.

Before we dive in, let me issue a warning. Donna Troy has, in my opinion, the most confusing and convoluted backstory of any DC character. Even more than Hawkman. I know DC tried to straighten things out with her back in Genesis, and I'm not sure if this big three-parter changed anything or was merely trying to explain this confusion. In any case, I'm not going to try to get into it at all. I mean, this is an Impulse blog, so why should we worry about such details?

Our story begins on the JLA Watchtower on the Moon, with Kyle Rayner telling Wally West about how he was recently approached by a strange young woman who claimed to know him, but he had never seen her before. Kyle uses his ring to show Wally what she looks like, and Wally recognizes her as Donna Troy. He reminds Kyle that he used to date Donna, but Kyle has no idea what he's talking about. So Wally rushes down to the Titans Tower in New York to find out why people can't remember Donna.

The only Titan at home is Roy Harper, who's nursing a broken leg and playing with his young daughter. Wally tells him about his conversation with Kyle, and while Roy doesn't remember Donna, either, he does tell Wally that she recently approached the Titans. Accompanied by a handful of heroes from an alternate future (we recognize one of them as Wally's daughter, Kid Flash, from Chain Lightning), Donna asked the Titans to help her battle Dark Angel, who is apparently responsible for erasing everyone's memory of Donna. So the Titans agreed to help her, and they all are now battling the villain in the Netherworld.

During the battle, some strange things begin to happen to reality because of the disturbances caused by the dimension-hopping time travelers. Jesse Quick's costume momentarily changes to that of her mom's, and this kind of freaks everyone out. But things get really bad when Dark Angel is suddenly surrounded by several doppelgängers of herself. All the Dark Angels decide to open up time portals and attack Donna Troy at different points in her life. So the Titans (present and future) split up and follow the Dark Angels through each portal.

Wally's daughter, Iris, catches the first Dark Angel and easily brings her back to the Netherworld in the present. The next Dark Angel visited Donna while she was showing off her new red costume to Dick (Robin), Roy (Speedy) and Wally (Kid Flash). These heroes actually defeat Dark Angel, so Jesse Quick just has to pick up the unconscious villain and take her back. And pretty much this same pattern continues. We see young versions of Starfire, Beast Boy, Raven, Cyborg and pretty much every other Titan you could imagine.

The final Dark Angel traveled to the most recent event, just one year ago at the funeral of Donna's young son, Bobby. This proved to be a foolish time to attack for Dark Angel since the funeral guests not only included Wonder Woman herself, but also a reunion of the disbanded New Titans: Green Lantern, Terra, Supergirl, Mirage, Damage and Impulse.

Needless to say, the battle is quick and decisive. The two heroes from the present who came back here were Troia and the Darkstar from the alternate future, who's really Donna's son, but she doesn't know this, even though it's kind of obvious. Anyway, Darkstar takes Dark Angel through the portal, but the portal closes before Troia can follow through. And for two whole panels she's very sad and worried about being trapped one year in the past. But then the Flash comes out of nowhere and rescues Troia. I don't know how he knew he needed to go back one year in the past, or how he knew to take Troia back to the Netherworld, but he did.

So this all sets up one big final fight between Dark Angel and Donna Troy. They both call on the powers of their past selves and doppelgängers, and Donna ultimately wins in the end. She knocks Dark Angel into a "trans-warp singularity" that one of the future Titans has, and they destroy the only way out, forever entrapping the villain that I really don't know anything about, and, frankly, don't care to find out. The important thing is the day is saved, the alternate future Titans go back home, and we get to move on to a quick epilogue.

It's Donna's birthday, and all of her former teammates have shown up to celebrate, including Impulse and Wonder Girl. Cassie is impressed to learn that Bart was once a Titan, but he waves them off, mentioning the time they went into space without him. (Yes! Both Bart and I are still bitter about that!) And, that's about it. We don't see Bart interact with any of his former teammates, so maybe he really is still bitter. Our story ends with Donna happily saying she's earned the right to celebrate.


This was an ambitious story with some really good ideas, but ultimately I felt the execution was lacking. The ending was just a bit too convenient, and I didn't care one bit for the unnecessary bit with Wally traveling back in time to rescue Donna. I will say, however, that this issue handled all the different artists about as well as possible. They each got to do a different time period, and it really helped, too, that a few of these artists are some of the biggest names in the business. As for Impulse, it was nice to see someone remember his brief stint with the Titans. But that's about it.

The letters to the editor don't mention Impulse (naturally), but it is interesting to note that Eddie Berganza announced that this was his last issue on The Titans, but he doesn't say why. Well, let's check out the new ads.

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Next time, we'll continue Young Justice's adventures in space with Young Justice #29.