I mean that in two ways. First, I know her father was a demon. What is her mother? They look human, but so does Starfire. Second, she uses magic (at least I think its’ magic though I suppose it could be telekinesis) so would she be classified as a “witch” or something else?
Raven’s father was an extradimensional demon, and her mother was a human, making her a human/demon hybrid. Her powers are, presumably, mystic in nature.
I don’t watch the show so my information is from the comic books from a couple decades ago when the character was introduced.
Raven’s mother was seduced and abandoned by an extra-dimensional demon named Trigon. She was impregnated; I don’t recall if that was intentional or not, but I lean toward “yes.” Despondent, Raven’s mother contemplated suicide until she was taken to another extra-dimensional place called Azarath. There, Raven was born and raised. Her mixed heritage gave her empathic abilities (the ability to draw wounds and illnesses into herself to dispel them), limited precognitive abilities and the ability to manifest a “soul-self,” a black bird-shaped energy entity which IIRC could incapacitate those enfolded within it and I think had some limited teleportational ability. Eventually her demonic origin manifested itself and Trigon took over Earth using her as a conduit. He was beaten back by the Titans and the combined energy of the denizens of Ararath (whom IIRC Raven killed en masse under Trigon’s influence) who had been residing inside her “soul-self,” which became white at that point.
I know there is more to the story but it’s been too long and the plotlines got really convoluted. I’m sure one of our resident comics fiends will be along shortly to fill in my blanks.
You’ve got it pretty much right, Otto. I can’t think of anything significant to add, except the current Teen Titans book is doing an arc about Raven. They even recapped her origin.
Incidentally, let’s all take a moment to be glad that the OP didn’t ask, “Who is Donna Troy?”
Who is Donna Troy?
No one at all…from a certain point of view…
And why is she like a writing-desk?
SOmeone please tell me what this in-joke is about.
Donna Troy was Wonder Girl. Originally her origin defined her as being the adopted sister of Dianna- Wonder Woman. The wound up rewriting her history several times there have been at least two issues of the Teen Titans titled “who is Donna Troy”- an both had very differnet aswers as to what her “true” origin was. I am not sure what the official answer currently is.
Actually, right now the official answer to that question is “A dead super-lady.” Last we saw her, she was striding off across some batlefield in the afterlife, a sword gleaming in her hand.
But who knows? Given the number of times they rewrote her origin story (don’t get me started about the “She’s Wonder Woman’s mystical twin sister, forced to live dozens of lives by the evil Dark Angel, each life ending in tragedy” one), she’s sort of DC’s answer to Phoenix. Which means that she’ll probably be back.
Thanks guys. I knew that she was born and raised in Azarath, but I thought it was an alien planet, hence the confusion.
I think that Wonder Girl was originally Wonder Woman as a teenager. When DC added her to the Teen Titans. Someone must have pointed out that the Teen Titans takes place when Diana is an adult, so Wonder Girl became Donna Troy, Diana’s adopted sister.
IIRC, before her latest death, her final status was as follows:
She was as a piece of Diana’s soul that was given physical form so that Diana (who lived on an Island with no other children) would have someone to play with. An enemy of Diana’s mother, seeking revenge, tried to send Diana through a series of reincarnations where she would repeatedly suffer violent deaths. As a result of mistaken identity, Donna was the one who lived those lives, explaining all the different biographies/continuities she has had in the DC universe.
I’m fairly sure that in her most recent life, she was selected as a child to be brought up by the Titans of myth, along with some children from other planets. She was sent back to earth when her training was done. Somehow she got involved in the formation of a group of super teenagers and it was her suggestion to name the group the Titans. At some point her connection to Diana was discovered and I think the cycle of violent death followed by reincarnation into a new biography has been broken. So she should return from her current death into the same biography she left.
I was going to say the continuity she left, but I am not confident that that will be the case.
Wonder Woman was not active as a hero while a teen and never went by the name"Wonder Girl." Not in any iteration or continuity. Our very own Mockingbird maintains a pretty comprehensive Wonder Woman site and this is his Donna Troy/Wonder Girl page.
A new Wonder Girl, who apparently is pretty universally hated, was active the last time I read comics with any regularity (about six years ago), but she is not an Amazon and AFAIK is no relation to Wonder Woman or Donna Troy.
No, I’m pretty sure Sir Prize is right. While not as popular as Superboy, I’ve read a couple of “Adventures of Wonder Woman when she was a Girl”. The action centered around her adventures on and around Paradise Island. She was also active as a baby, calling herself “Wonder Tot”. Also like “Superbaby”, she was remarkably intellignet for her age, although a bit prone to mischief and utterly lacking in grammar skills (“Me want to read “A Tale of Two Cities” again!”).
Otto:
Assuming that you’re referring to Cassie Sandsmark, whatever hatred there is for her is far from universal. Especially after Peter David made her one of the more capable female characters in comic-dom in the Young Justice series.
Let me add my support for Cassie, who is much more interesting as a character than the melodramatic hodgepodge that Donna Troy became.
I wasn’t counting “Imaginary Stories” or other non-continuity stories when I was talking about WW not being active as WG. The ones along those lines I’ve seen are clearly not in continuity, but I’m not invested in it enough to squawk.
Re Cassie’s being hated I was going based off the letters pages and the like from when she was first showing up and it was pretty negative IIRC. This was half a decade ago so if she’s been made into a strong and popular character, cool. Not enough strong and popular female characters in comics.
Well, continuity was pretty much optional back in the early sixties when the stories like that were published, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t officially set aside as “imaginary stories”*. But I’m no expert either.
*Best term EVER. For the unititated, imaginary stories were stories that explicitly took place outside of the hero’s normal story unoiverse, usually involving huge undoable twists and character changes such as Superman marrying lois and having a super-genius baby. These stories were merely “what ifs”. The were “imaginary”, as opposed to the regular Superman stories, which actually happened, of course.
I dunno…some bitch they just threw in there