Jean Grey is the patron saint of the X-Men, a character who played a massively important role in the history of the Marvel Universe. She’s also one of the more complicated characters in comics. Her existence is full of death, rebirths, and retcons to the extent that I’m not even sure what her deal is, and I’ve been reading about her for 35 years. One of the things you realize about superhero comics after a while is that they all sort of repeat each other. Marvel and DC Comics both have characters that echo across universes, and I’ve come to the conclusion that DC has their own Jean Grey.
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Donna Troy is one of the most unique characters in comic history. To begin with, her entire existence is a retcon; the original Wonder Girl wasn’t a unique character, but Diana’s version of Superboy. When the Teen Titans were created, someone threw Wonder Girl on the team before anyone remembered exactly what the character’s deal was. Donna only exists the way she does in order to fix that mistake. Since then, Troy has had quite a time in the comics, as numerous creators have tried to find the perfect origin for the former Wonder Girl. Donna and Jean have numerous similarities, something I realized two decades ago, around the time of Infinite Crisis.
Infinite Crisis Redefined Donna Troy Yet Again
Infinite Crisis was a flawlessly built event, and one of the best parts of it was DC Special: The Return of Donna Troy. This four-issue series, from writer Phil Jimenez (the best Donna creator ever) and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, is a DC masterpiece. The series returned Troy to life after her death in Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day, redefining the Troia origin — that she was a daughter of the Titans of Myth, the gods who existed before the Greek ones — all while setting her up for a role in Infinite Crisis. Troy had been replaced in the pantheon of the DC Universe at the time, so it was a surprise that they brought her back.
Donna hadn’t been important in years in 2005; her heyday at the time was the early ’80s. Crisis on Infinite Earths changed the DC Multiverse completely, especially Wonder Woman, which meant that Troy’s old origin of being Diana’s adopted sister was gone and replaced by the Titans of Myth origin. DC put out a New Teen Titans: Who Is Donna Troy? trade that collected several of the important Wolfman/Perez stories that gave her pre and post-Crisis origins, and after reading it, I was hit with the realization of Donna and Jean’s similarities. Even back in the Silver Age, Donna and Jean mirrored each other.
One of the things that everyone forgets is that back in the ’60s, the Teen Titans and X-Men were competition. They were both teen comics meant to appeal to the same audience. Donna was the Jean of the team up until the introduction of Lilith Clay, a red-headed telepath who would never reach the same level of importance as Jean. However, Troy would be the main woman of the group until the days of New Teen Titans, when the team was in competition with the X-Men again. Jean’s return in the mid ’80s presaged the Donna origin retcon, just as her death in “The Dark Phoenix Saga” would presage Troy’s in the early ’00s.
Their lives have mirrored each other ever since. Donna and Jean’s histories have been changed numerous times over the years to fit what creators need. Both of them were the main girl of a teen team, and rose to the top of the ranks in their teams. Both of their deaths caused major upheaval for their loved ones, and each of their returns redefined their corners of their universes and what they could be. In many ways, they couldn’t be any more different, but there’s so many little similarities that show each of them hold the same place in their universe: the vaguely important superheroine whose life has been constantly changed in order to fit stories that themselves are often retconned and changed down the line.
Jean Grey and Donna Troy Are Sisters Separated by Universes
Donna Troy and Jean Grey came up in the same kind of fan environment, with fanbases that were rabid for both of the teams that made them popular. The two walked a road that saw them changed numerous times, with retcons replacing retcons, leading them in all-new directions. Each of them has creators who have been devoted to fixing them, with Phil Jimenez continually coming in to write bangers that smooth over any problems with Donna. They’ve both had their importance wax and wane, and both of them have disappeared for years at a time before returning in triumph.
Jean is much more popular than Donna (and will only get more popular when she premieres in the MCU), but any fan who loves Jean will also really enjoy Donna. Both of them have their complications — strangely enough, it seems like when one is in one of her more complicated periods, the other is easier to understand (currently, Donna is the easy one; I still don’t know how Jean’s relationship with the Phoenix has changed lately) — but that’s part of their charms. They’ve always been characters that mirrored one another in strange ways, and they’re more like sisters than any two characters from DC and Marvel.
What do you think Donna Troy and Jean Grey? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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