Good golly, it's been a while!

Sorry about that. How about a review?

Titans 2025 Annual

What a beautiful book! The art is absolutely GORGEOUS. However.

There is no story. This is a vignette or series of such; it has no plot.

And Donna's character goes through yet another major downgrade.

As usual when writing a Wonder, Phil J. MUST include EVERYTHING. He doesn't know how to toss out the unimportant in order to focus on the important. We have loads and loads of characters shoveled in who don't have anything to do with whatever story he's trying to concoct. It is all to enhance the "twee effect" that Phil, left unsupervised, loves to work with. It's how many capes he can pack to a panel, how much useless trivia he can include. How much empty dazzle. We are left with the epicycle-heavy $#!! that Wolfman and Perez gave us in order to make Donna's origin story confusing and too complicated (while they ignored the extremely important aspect of Amazon Training). Now Phil adds another layer of unnecessary complication. Whyyyy?

Funnily enough, he does leave out one important item in Donna's established history. Two if you count Byrne. Hm. Actually, three, now that I think about it. Points awarded for that, but the first two figure in my own very simplified origin* (works for every continuity) I've given Donna for my own enjoyment.

Still: what did Phil intend to accomplish here? He presents Donna as a VERY emotionally needy person (why isn't she in therapy?) who longs, longs, longs for love and always feels that she isn't getting any (though she's SURROUNDED by it!). Ew. She feels she just wants a sister and then says she has them, only to claim again and again that she wants a sister. ??? It’s a setup for the confusing ending, but doesn’t make sense along the way. Just as bad, Phil presents Donna as a BAD WIFE and WORSE MOTHER. (Despite Robert's image appearing several times, he doesn't seem to play an important part in her daily thoughts. Really?) I was reading the book when those stories actually appeared, and that's JUST NOT TRUE. It makes no sense for the character and it detracts from what Phil's giving us.

Donna's relationship with Roy is also presented as being "off." Which it has always been. (And I hate he’s depicted as an original Titan. He was NOT.) It's part of the Wonder Litmus Test, in which Wonders are used to prop up the macho reputations of other heroes. WW gets major ones to prop up, like Superman, Batman and Aquaman; WG gets the minor ones. Roy has usually been presented as one not-well-in-the-head guy (imho the most abhorrent male DC "hero" next to Damian Wayne), and now we see that Donna realizes that, that he treats her terribly (remember when he called her all those awful names in front of the JLA and NO ONE DEFENDED HER, not even herself? Oh, DC!), and that she still loved him. Bleah. Grow an emotional spine, Donna.

DC has had a long history of presenting Sad Feminism. (I learned that phrase way back from another reviewer, and she was also talking Wonder.) If you're a feminist, you must be sad because feminism is such an unnatural state. Scene after scene in this book shows us how emotionally ill Donna is, how incredibly sad and lonely. It ends with yet another stab by her to try to find happiness.

Get some therapy, Donna. And someone get Phil a decent editor so we don't have to read things like this in the future.

It would have been nice if this retrospective issue had included Donna's CAREER in addition to her relationships. She is a HERO but we don't see that here. She is merely a large collection of twee female emotive tropes. Bleah. She has had victories in all areas of her life but we don't see them here. She is a loser.

Why didn't this Donna spotlight focus on her fabulous career and the effect she has had on the DCU? One gets the impression that if she had a Y chromosome, we would have seen such. But she's a female character and thus must be given an issue that seems as if it evolved from "Young Romance." She is all emotion and no action, no PURPOSE. No IMPACT.

Ah well, DC continuity. In three months this will all be moot as they go through another continuity cleanse.

But do get this for the art. It's gorgeous.

PS: There should be a LAW against reversed-out copy in comic books.

*Buy me a chai latte and I'll tell you what it is.