I had the pleasure of getting on board for the classic 1980s Marv Wolfman/George Perez run on New Teen Titans almost from the very start. I'd been reading comics for a few years at that point, and those creators and characters opened my eyes to a whole new level of storytelling. Comics didn't just have to be about super-powers and galactic adventures. They could be about family, friendship and fears. No one character epitomized that amazing creative team and title more than Wonder Girl, AKA Donna Troy. In a touching story, Phil Jimenez remninds us of the depth Wolfman and Perez brought to the character and the closeness of the shared continuity of the DC Universe.
The story's title -- "Who Was Donna Troy?" -- is, of course, an homage to Wolfman and Perez's award-winning "Who is Donna Troy?" tale from New Teen Titans #38 from 1984. To fully appreciate the story, one needs to be aware of that story and of other key moments from Donna's long history. Newbie readers can still enjoy the emotion that serves as the story's foundation, though, but the segment is really only a must-read for the initiated.
The strength of Jimenez's piece seems to render Johns and Winick's story -- also about the emotional aftermath of Donna Troy's death -- something of a moot point. The writers fill in some gaps to show how these characters got from point A (Graduation Day) to points B and C (the new Teen Titans and Outsiders series). While the storytelling is capable and the characterization is pretty strong, the piece pales in comparison to Jimenez's fanboy tribute.
The artwork on both stories tells the story clearly, and not surprisingly, Jimenez packs a lot of imagery into his segment. Mind you, again, those images are more often aimed at those who experienced the corresponding original material from which the artist takes his cues. The real visual treat in this issue is the interesting array of artists who contribute to the profile pages. Seeing Judd Winick's art or Jim Mahfood's in a mainstream comic book is unusual, but both in the same book is pretty much unheard of. Writer Geoff Johns even gets into the artistic act, providing the pencils for the Kid Flash profile page. It's standard super-hero art, basically, but not at all crude.
Still, in the end, this is a profile book, and the profiles just aren't meaty enough to sustain my interest. I wasn't even initially inclined to read the profiles for fear there may be spoiler information from forthcoming issues of the two titles that serve as this book's foundation.
