This mini-series came out in late 2008. I don't actually know what prompted it. There was the original, New Teen Titans Terra. The traitor, the Judas Contract, creepy relationship with creepy-ass Deathstroke, all that jazz. There was a second Terra, who looked a lot like the first, and got killed a year or so prior to this mini-series, by Black Adam when he declared war on the entire world for some reason I no longer remember.
And then this, with a Terra who looks very little like the first two. Who comes from a subterranean civilization which she defends from threats both native to that realm and from encroaching surface world dwellers. Who doesn't seem to want to associate with anyone or explain anything. She's all about that world-saving grind, 24/7, or however they measure time underground.
That can only fly so far, and Palmiotti, Gray and Conner do offer some backstory when she runs into Geo-Force, who is at least a natural person for a team-up, given his connection to the previous Terras. That's mostly in issue 3, which is when Conner gets to show us what Terra's (or Atlee, as that's her real name) home looks like. It's a giant cavern, with a lot of tall narrow buildings and bridges presumably formed from existing rock formations. A lot of their technology seems to be biologically based, as Geo-Force gets helped by some floating jellyfish thing that rewires his neural interface. It fits with how the society is presented, as watching the surface world warily, concerned about humanity's track record of using technology in the worst way.
Geo-Force ends up helping her with a guy that wanted to be a great underground explorer and stumbled into something he didn't understand. Even after the guy, who is acting out of grief and anger because, again, he's a stranger in this world, causes a lot of damage, Atlee's hope is he can be helped and restored. Which helps establish her as someone with a lot of compassion and an optimistic outlook on things. Of course, I feel like she got sucked in some "teen heroes forced into gladitorial combat" thing I vaguely remember from Teen Titans of that time. That would seem to do a lot to blunt someone's optimism about humanity. Or maybe I'm confusing that with whatever Terror Titans was.
But Conner, Gray and Palmiotti would make Terra a major supporting cast member in their Power Girl series that came out in 2009. That had its rough moments for the character, but built up a big sister/little sister relationship between the characters that was usually a lot of fun to read. We'll get to that when we get there.
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