Stargirl: The Lost Children #5 Review

   

Written by: Geoff Johns

Art by: Todd Nauck
Colors by: Matt Herms
Letters by: Rob Leigh
Cover art by: Todd Nauck (cover A)
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: March 28, 2023

Stargirl: The Lost Children #5 delivers the penultimate issue in Courtney Whitmore's quest to save lost and forgotten sidekicks from an island out of time.
Is It Good?

Stargirl: The Lost Children #5 is straight-up fun. I was down on the last issue because Geoff Johns went too far out of the way to explain everything happening by trying to tie Orphan Island into every time-related event in the last few decades, whether they were good events or not.

Now, Johns puts all the Time connections and references aside and gets down to the business of young heroes banding together to fight their captors. What you get is nearly non-stop superhero action from start to finish. With so many sidekicks in play, it's impossible to give everyone a moment to shine, but Johns tries and comes close.

Johns increases the fun factor by putting the League of Extraordinary Sidekicks through a roller-coaster battle that shifts the tide for and against them in waves. With each ebb and flow, the disparity between their powersets and battle experience becomes more apparent, leading to interpersonal conflicts between the sidekicks, ratcheting up the drama for a more exciting battle.

Likewise, Todd Nauck's art is gorgeous. Nauck's figure work gives the characters mass, weight, and depth, but Nauck adds energy to the characters' movements to instill a sense of momentum. Nauck's facial expressions are varied and attention-grabbing, and the overall detail work is phenomenal.


About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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Bits and Pieces:

Stargirl: The Lost Children #5 is an action-packed, penultimate issue in the mini-series that puts readers through a roller-coaster of excitement in both the writing and the art. Johns moves mountains to give as many characters as possible a moment to shine, and Nauck's artwork is gorgeous.

 

9/10