Team Titans #1: Terra

Terra turns out not to be the real Terra because Marv once promised that Terra was really, really, really dead and wouldn't be coming back to life ever. Plus people had speculated that maybe she'll come back to life because of being buried in the earth with earth-based powers, so they obviously couldn't use that perfectly reasonable explanation to bring the real Terra back to life. Plus she was Slade's Lolita and nobody wants to be reminded of that awful mess.

I mean, they're reminded of it every day because Slade got his own comic book and he became a massively popular character and he gets to continue to do whatever he wants without anybody thinking about how he once had sex with an underage girl. But, I mean, you know how it is! The victim is the one that retains all the baggage! For some reason that's probably sexist or something. So DC killed her and hid her away and promised never to bring her back. Until they did! Right here!

Except, of course, it's just an orphan that sort of looked like Tara Markov who had some plastic surgery and was injected with DNA from the real Terra's bones to give her her super-powers. Sure, it's a way more convoluted origin than "Terra's earth powers enabled her to heal while buried in the earth." But this Terra wasn't a rape victim! So she's more acceptable, somehow. I mean, she looks just like her and every time I see her I think, "Hey! That's the girl Slade took advantage of and then got killed!" So it didn't really work, I guess.

I do have to admit, though, that when I see Slade, I don't think, "Hey! That perv took advantage of a minor, manipulated her into having sex, and then got her killed!" I mean, not every time. Just a lot of the time. Especially when I get messages from Deathstroke fans who insist I stop discussing what an awful, terrible, rephrehensible, morally bankrupt character Slade Wilson is.