Saturday, July 22, 2006

Evil-Sophie's Choice

(When Fangirls Attack, I apologize in advance.)

So, the end of the (properly reviled) History of the DCU reveals that Jade shouldn't have died in the Rann-Thanagar War,

Donna Troy should have.

Which would bump up the number of times Donna has died in the last 10 years to THREE.

But never mind that.

Nobody likes Donna Troy. Some people liked Wonder Girl, from the Bob Haney Teen Titans, when she might have been a young Diana. And yes Phil Jimenez has some kind of bizarre fixation on her, but for the most part, there isn't a lot there to like. She is literally an editorial mistake muddled by a MUCH BIGGER editorial mistake, so her entire history and character are based around explaining how there was no mistake at all. She doesn't seem to do much any more besides weeping and discovering everything she thought she knew about herself was wrong (and in the History of the DCU, she does BOTH), and that gets old real quick.

But some people actively HATE Jade! As a character she's engaged in some pretty awful behavior, acted, for the most part, like a spoiled princess, to the detriment of her brother, who had to deal with his own abandonment issues ALONE, and we all know how well that turned out.

So I leave it up to you, my dear (three) readers, if you had the Evil-Sophie's choice, and could only kill one of them (in a random and boring way that mostly just sets up Kyle Rayner's maxi-series), which one of these hateful women would get the axe (or lightning to the back, as the case may be)?

(clarification: At no point should anything I have written be taken to imply that they should die BECAUSE they are women, any more than I'm implying that they should die because they are photographers. Yes, they are both women (and photographers), but they need to go because they're boring and hated and are wasting valuable panel time. Both being women has nothing to do with it.)

7 comments:

kalinara said...

For me, I'd have rather Donna died. I dislike Jade, but she could have been reworked and reenvisioned and made better.

Donna is actually the more tolerable character, but she's been so often remolded and re-envisioned that she's clay that won't ever hold a shape again. If the metaphor makes sense.

Besides, she'd be back anyway.

Ragnell said...

Much as I hate Jade, I'd rather Donna died because I think it would have made for a better story. All of the stuff leading up to Crisis kept impltying there was some huge destiny to Donna and she did nothing, nothing at the Center of the Universe.

Besides, personality-wise she wouldn't have spent her last moments sucking up to Kyle in hopes of getting him back as a boyfriend.

padgett said...

Man, that is one rough decision. On purely nostalgic reasons, I'd have to pick Jade dying (since the now-unreadable Wolfman Titans run was hugely influential on me at the age of 7).

As far as "which character can actually be used for something down the road," I suppose I'd have to pick Jade to live. If her brother can be salvaged, there's no reason she couldn't be helped out by some decent writing.

Unknown said...

I liked Jade well enough, and wish she had been spared. I am so sick of Donna Troy- I wanted to see her dead just so we could stop revisiting her origins every damn year. Don't get me wrong, pre-COIE, she was fine. A perfectly likable and enjoyable character (other than being married to a creepy loser). Since they've started trying to "explain" her, she's become a tar baby: the more you flail about trying to get loose, the stucker you get. Currently, we have NO IDEA what Donna's deal is. And guess what? We never will. I don't want to see her degraded, humiliated, tortured, or anything else, but damn, DC if you must kill off your female characters, put Donna (more trouble than she's worth) Troy out of her misery! And ours!

ShellyS said...

I like Donna Troy. I've always liked her. I think she's never been fully respected in the DCU by TPTB, but I've always been a fan.

Steven said...

Shelly,

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I am honestly curious what the appeal of Donna Troy is to you.

Personally, I've always found her kind of flat, and no matter how much back-story or special destiny they slap onto her has ever added any interest.

But then, I've never been a big Teen Titans fan either, so if there is some great Donna Troy stories that I just have to read to make me fall in love with her, I'd love to hear it.

Marc Burkhardt said...

I'm one of those people who like the Bob Haney Wonder Girl because she loved rock 'n' roll and kicked ass. Too bad all of that had to go because of "maturity" ...

If I had to spare one, although it'd be better if BOTH were written well, it would be Jade because I always liked her character in Infinity Inc.

In fact, I never found her hateful in the least (even though Judd Winick did her no favors) until she became a heartless cheater by editorial mandate.