Our cover by Phil Jimenez shows Donna Troy heroically leading the Teen Titans and Outsiders into battle. Right beside her is Wonder Woman, who has been inexplicably absent this entire story. And don't let this cover fool you. Diana will make an appearance in this issue, but not until well after the battle at hand is finished. But other than that complaint (and the six Beast Boys for some reason), this is a pretty decent cover, announcing to the world that Donna Troy is back, once and for all.
Our story begins with Donna Troy and her superhero friends leading the forces of Minosyss against the titan gods and their army of thousands. The first three pages of my digital copy are silent, and I only point this out because it doesn't feel like an intentional choice. It looks like room was left on the art for text bubbles, and characters' mouth are open like they're talking and pointing at each other. And when they do start talking on page 4, it feels like we're jumping into the middle of the conversation.
Anyway, Donna flies ahead of the other to take on the titan gods directly. Her "husband" Coeus is torn up by this, but Donna merely tells him she wants a divorce after this war is over. Nightwing loses track of Donna with his binoculars, so he has Raven start searching for her, while the rest of them engage the ground troops. But Cyborg is horrified to see the mass of opposing forces goes two miles deep. Arsenal breaks ranks to go look for Donna on the back of a horse-like creature, and Raven is attacked psychically by the titan god Crius. Nightwing sees Raven fall and has Kid Flash save her, while Cassie nearly falls into a trance, saying being in the presence of the titan gods feels like looking into a mirror.
Donna is easily overpowered by the titan gods and knocked unconscious. Our heroes on the ground are having an equally tough time, especially when the ocean-based titan gods create a massive tsunami that drowns most of the natives. Cassie eventually makes her way to Coeus, wraps her lasso around him, and tells him they don't need the sun-eater. Coeus admits the sun-eater was never their goal — they just needed Donna. And sure enough, we see Hyperion and his wife, Thia, taking off away from the battle with Donna in tow.
Arsenal follows them underground to the sun-eater factory, which you think our heroes would have made a priority to protect. Coeus begs Cassie to release him, saying he needs to ask Donna for her forgiveness before the titan gods' plan is enacted. The fighting on the planet's surface grows worse, with Nightwing noting that there aren't many Minosyssans left to protect. Kid Flash passionately cries out at the ocean titan, demanding to know why they have to kill all these people.
At the factory, Hyperion explains to Donna that they don't care about the sun-eater, but are actually more interested in the device built to teleport the sun-eater to any targeted galaxy — the nexus point. Hyperion says this nexus point can take them outside of the universe, to what was once the multiverse (before Crisis on Infinite Earths), and Donna is the key to operating this device. To help Donna understand fully, Hyperion restores all of her memories from all of her thousand previous lifetimes on the different worlds of the now extinct multiverse.
In a dense two-page spread, Donna narrates her entire history in perhaps the most clear way possible. On Earth-1, she was an orphaned infant, saved from a burning building by Wonder Woman and raised on Paradise Island to become Wonder Girl. But on Earth-7, Donna was saved by the Anti-Monitor and raised to become his harbinger of doom, Dark Angel. When the multiverse was collapsed into one world in the fight against the Anti-Monitor, Donna's very nature was altered in a most complicated manner. As she explains, "This new universe didn't quite know what to do with some of the more complicated holdovers from the multiverse. So it improvised." Substitute the word "universe" for "DC creators" and you get exactly what happened.
In this new universe, Donna was created as Diana's twin sister from a magic mirror. But Dark Angel managed to escape the compression of worlds and subjected Donna to an endless cycle of torture. Eventually, Donna was reincarnated as an orphaned infant once again, but this time, she was saved by Rhea, the queen of the titans of myth. Rhea knew that Donna was the sum total of all her past lives — Donna Troy, Wonder Girl, Troia, Darkstar, Dark Angel and even Harbinger. This makes Donna a unique connection to every universe that had ever existed, and the only being capable of sending the titan gods to a new universe.
Once Donna understands this truth, Hyperion summons all the titan gods to him, putting an abrupt and stunning end to the war. Coeus congratulates Donna on saving them all, but she asks if all the death was necessary for this. Coeus regretfully explains that the titan gods derive their power from the worship or fear of mortal beings, and they staged this interplanetary war to gain as much power as possible before journeying to a new universe. Donna tearfully asks Coeus how long he knew she was the key to this plan, and Coeus says that Rhea died before she could tell the titan gods the truth about Donna. They didn't realize she was the one until she was killed by the Superman robot back in Graduation Day. The titan gods "called out" to Donna's soul, and she responded and was reborn. Thia interjects, saying Donna's memories of her past lives impeded their mission, which was why they tampered with her mind. Hyperion is impatient, though, and he commands Donna to open the stargate.
Donna complies, creating a large portal of light that the titan gods excitedly leap through, salivating at the planets and galaxies they will control. Coeus asks Donna to join them, but she refuses. One of the titans manages to stick his head back out of the portal long enough to warn Coeus, Hyperion and Thia not to enter. Donna had tricked them, opening the portal to Tartarus, a place of eternal torment designed for the vilest of deities. Hyperion orders Donna to bring the titan gods back, but she says she knows they will never stop conquering and killing, which is why they deserve eternal punishment.
Hyperion and Thia attack Donna, prompting Arsenal to leap out of the shadows in a foolish, yet valiant attempt to save his former girlfriend. But while Arsenal fails to damage the titan gods, he does manage to turn the heart of one of them — Coeus. Inspired by Roy's love and willingness to sacrifice himself, Coeus turns on Hyperion and Thia by unleashing the sun-eater on them. Since they are living embodiments of the sun, this monster is one of the few creatures in existence that can harm them. The sun-eater begins consuming Hyperion and Thia, who try to escape through the portal, but have their bodies torn to pieces instead.
All this fighting causes the cavern to begin to collapse. Coeus willingly journeys to Tartarus, vowing to make sure the other titan gods never leave. Wonder Girl and Athyns fly down to save Donna and Arsenal, as the landslide becomes the perfect prison for the sun-eater, which is unable to penetrate the unique ore of Minosyss (which is why it became the site of the sun-eater factory in the first place).
Donna kisses Roy, embraces Cassie and reunites with all our heroes. Beast Boy comments on the sexiness of the two Wonder Girls in a stupid Jar-Jar Binks voice. Bart is the only one who calls Gar out on his inappropriate timing. Donna remembers how she always thought Bart was immature, but now she sees him as the new heart of the Teen Titans. The remaining soldiers of the titans' army surrender to the Minosyssans and vow to help them make sure the sun-eater never escapes, working under the leadership of Athyns. The travelsphere then takes the Teen Titans and Outsiders back to Earth, but Donna chooses to remain behind. To my surprise, nobody even asks her to consider coming home with them.
Donna returns to New Cronus, the now abandoned home of the titan gods. Wonder Woman visits Donna here and presents her with a glowing red sphere from the priestesses of Themyscira. Donna instantly recognizes it as Harbinger's History of the Universe Orb, realizing it is now her destiny to be the keeper of all these mysteries and knowledge. After Diana leaves, Donna activates the orb and tells it to show her everything. She watches the past, the creation of the multiverse and the ensuing crisis. She watches the present and the future, but the future horrifies her. Donna finally understands why the titan gods were so desperate to leave this universe. Donna realizes this impending catastrophe is going to be too big and she needs help.
Well, I think that actually makes sense now. It's still convoluted, but I think I understand the basics of who Donna Troy is. Even more importantly, I understand now how her history became so complicated. The creators at DC just couldn't decide what to do with her and kept making things more complicated. What Phil Jimenez did here feels almost like salvaging the character — turning her weakness into a strength. But is this new position ideal for Donna Troy? Basically removed from everyone and everything, watching the history of existence unfold around her? Seems like a waste of her skills and strength.
As a whole, this story was a grand, sweeping epic. It was a little frustrating working through it, though, as so much crucial information was withheld until the very end. All this fighting was caused by the titan gods' fear of the upcoming Infinite Crisis. But we didn't find that out until literally the last page. And to learn that truth, we had to learn about five other things first, with each bit of essential information pointlessly being delayed as long as possible. Like the sun-eater factory. Kid Flash saw it, but we the readers didn't. He then went back and told the others about it, but we didn't hear what he said. We had to wait like four or five pages before we finally knew what Bart knew. And that's how it went with everything in this story.
The pacing was also problematic. So much of the first three issues felt like scenes were being unnecessarily prolonged and drawn out. Fights that could have and should have been resolved quicker were stretched out. We were given scene after scene of the titan gods sitting around saying the exact same things over and over again. And when we get to the final issue, we suddenly have too much to do and not enough room to do it. The climax with the sun-eater and Hyperion was almost entirely relegated to caption boxes, as the art simply didn't have enough pages to actually show what was happening. And I still can't believe we didn't get a scene of the heroes saying goodbye to Donna and/or asking her to come home with them. They were quickly pushed away so the precious amount of limited space left could be devoted to setting up Donna's role as Harbinger. She didn't even have time to say more than two words to Wonder Woman.
I actually really liked Bart's arc in this story. He forged a strong bond with these aliens, and it strongly effected him to see them senselessly being slaughtered. This was a great way to show that not only has Bart matured, but he really is the heart of the Teen Titans.
Next time, we're going to take a break from the world of Donna Troy and tackle something completely different with Gotham Central #34.
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