Whatever Happened to the Sidekicks of the Golden Age?
Stargirl: The Lost Children is a six-issue miniseries from DC Comics, published as part of the DC Infinite Frontier initiative. It is written by Geoff Johns (Stargirl, JSA, Green Lantern) with art by Todd Nauck (Young Justice).
Courtney Whitmore returns as Stargirl, the teen superhero of the modern Justice Society of America. However, upending her life is Emiko Queen (Red Arrow), and a vision that tells her that the lost sidekicks of the Golden Age must be found! Courtney, despite being incredibly familiar with Golden Age history thanks to her time in the JSA, has no recollection of any of the missing heroes. Despite being grounded, Courtney joins Emiko in her investigation into these supposedly missing heroes.
The series was preceded by the Stargirl Spring Break Special and The New Golden Age one-shots. It also serves as one of the follow-ups to Johns' Flashpoint Beyond series, alongside his other title as part of "The New Golden Age", Justice Society of America (2022).
Stargirl: The Lost Children provides examples of:
- Ambiguous Situation:
- It's not very clear what the deal is with the Newsboy Legion. The concept would seem to favour the idea that they're the original Newsboys, de-aged on arrival like Dan the Dyna-Mite or taken from the past like the Boom. But the presence of Famous Bobby in her hoodie and sneakers, and the fact they get dropped in the present day with everyone else (when the original Newsboys do have a place in history) suggests they're the clones.
- It's uncertain just who Air Wave is supposed to be behind the mask. While a note on Dyna-Mite's String Theory board indicates that he's supposed to be Larry Jordan, the fact that Larry was an adult gadget-based hero while his son, Harold, has the same power set as the Air Wave in Lost Children (with his mentor-mentee relationship with his older cousin fitting the theme of the Orphan Island residents being lost sidekicks) muddies things.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Quiz Kid is able to accurately assume Courtney is from "the future" from looking at her.
- Bittersweet Ending: The missing sidekicks are all rescued along with the android Hourman. However, Corky's mission involved needing to send Wing back to his point in time or time/space would be obliterated. Despite Stargirl trying to save him, Wing opts to let go and return to his Heroic Sacrifice. The sidekicks are sent back to the present where Stargirl decides to turn them into the Young Justice Society.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Hourman is revealed to be controlled by the future Corky Baxter, thanks to a circuit implanted in his brain. The kids manage to get it off in the last issue, freeing Hourman.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Corky Baxter of the Time Masters is just as obnoxious and unpleasant as he was in Flashpoint Beyond. The captured kid heroes all make it clear they cannot stand him. Salem the Witch girl too, as all she does is complain and insult everybody around her.
- Break the Haughty: Corky is devastated at the fact that he had to lie about Wing and is more than certain the other sidekicks hate him.
- The Bus Came Back: This series serves as one for Stargirl, since she hasn't been used since Justice League United in 2015 outside of background appearances.
- During their brief visit to the Arrow Cave, Courtney and Emiko see statues of Miss Arrowette, Leapo the Clown, Bonzo the Ape Archer, Spider, Crimson Archer, Rainbow Archer and the Green Arrows of the World, all of whom hadn't appeared in years or even decades.
- Little Miss Redhead and the Blue Boys are among the sidekicks kidnapped by the Childminder.
- The intended buyer of the lost children is the Hourman of the DC One Million saga.
- All the Golden Age sidekicks who haven't been invented specially, since the idea Earth Prime even had a Golden Age was retconned in relatively recently.
- The Newsboy Legion includes Famous Bobby, who even in the previous continuity had been written out of the Newsboys when her creator, Karl Kesel, left the Superman titles.
- Continuity Overlap: Despite being a limited series, The Lost Children runs in tandem with the 2022 JSA relaunch. Despite the time travel elements, events and elements of JSA is still have ripple effects here (like Jay and Joan Garrick's lost daughter Judy being mentioned in the former and appearing here in the latter).
- Empathic Weapon: The Cosmic Staff is now one, when previously it was just a regular staff Courtney used.
- False Reassurance: Rip Hunter tries to reassure Corky that he isn't his bitter future self and will never become him, but he also tells the sulking kid that the people he tried to befriend him now hate him and that being a Time Master, he can never truly make friends and will only make people hate him.
- Fountain of Youth: Dan the Dyna-Mite finds where the missing child heroes have apparently gone, and is shipwrecked. As he makes it to shore, he suddenly de-ages him back to a teenager. And then he's attacked. This is later stated to be because the sands of the island's beaches are made of Miraclo.
- The Childminder was holding the sidekicks captive at the promise of having her youth restored. She gets it and then some when a blast of temporal energy reverts her to an egg.
- Future Me Scares Me: Corky is horrified when the true villain turns out to be an insane adult version of himself. At the end of the series, Rip assures him there's no chance of him becoming his future self.
- Generation Xerox: Stargirl and Red Arrow begin what amounts to a revival of the Seven Soldiers, albeit with just the two of them initially.
- Growing Up Sucks: Corky has to contend with seeing his adult self bitterly fulfill his mission of sending Wing back to his death and this being revealed in front of all the other kid sidekicks he was hoping to impress as his friends. While dejected over this, Rip gives him cold comfort saying that Time Masters only make enemies, never friends, because they have to do what it takes to insure history goes down the right path, and completing his mission is putting him well on his way towards becoming one.
- Happily Married: Pat and Barbara are happily married, and the one hurdle they had — Courtney's initial disdain for Pat — is completely gone by this point. In the Spring Break Special, she says that he's a great dad.
- Insult Backfire: In issue 4, Secret derisively refers to Childminder as "Mother Goose", only for Childminder to claim that she actually was the inspiration for Mother Goose, after a chance encounter with Charles Perrault back in the 18th century.
- Mythology Gag: The series begins with Courtney having fought Solomon Grundy off-screen, and informing her family. An issue of Geoff Johns' JSA also began the same way. Mercifully, things go a lot easier for Courtney here, as no-one suddenly bursts in to kill her family.
- Only Friend: Courtney believes she's this to Emiko Queen, who she thinks doesn't have anyone else she can be herself around. However, readers familiar with Emiko will know this isn't entirely true — while she doesn't really have fun with the Teen Titans like she does with Courtney, she at least has a close friendship with Ace West, although that one is more romantic in nature than her friendship with Courtney.
- Parents as People: Courtney's parents can accept her being a superhero, but her failing grades means that they ground her from everything but a Crisis-level emergency, since they know she'll be needed but do think that she needs to focus on school.
- Remember the New Guy?: Most of the sidekicks mentioned to have "gone missing" from the Golden Age did not actually exist, and were created for this series. Some examples especially stand out, like Judy Garrick, the biological daughter of Jay and Joan Garrick... who previously only had an adopted son for a few days before he died, with the Flash Family explicitly being Jay's surrogate children to fill that void.
- It's also justified in-universe as these characters literally are new guys (as they were just reintegrated into the timeline during Flashpoint Beyond and The New Golden Age). So, now everyone 'remembers' the new guys.
- Ret-Canon: The Cosmic Staff being an Empathic Weapon is carried over from Stargirl (2020).
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: A mystery set up in the first issue. Courtney and Emiko somehow weren't affected by the temporal reintegration of the missing Golden Age characters following Flashpoint Beyond. So, they've never 'heard' of these missing characters (like everyone else) and have no idea who they are.
- Sequel Hook: The story continues over in Justice Society of America (2022), as well as the upcoming Jay Garrick, The Flash mini-series.
- Sequel Series: Serves as one of the sequels to Flashpoint Beyond, namely due to the hunt for the missing sidekicks mentioned there.
- Snap Back: Courtney goes back to her classic Stargirl look, the one she wore when associated with the JSA as well as her more "fun" stories. Post-Flashpoint, she had worn two different outfits, both as part of two separate Justice Leagues, and was written with more angst.
- Teen Genius: Quiz Kid is a teenage genius on par with his mentor, Mr. Terrific.
- Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World: Courtney's back in Blue Valley, Nebraska, doing this. She's still a member of the JSA and all, but her parents want her to focus on school due to her bad grades, and tell her she can only go superheroing when the JSA call her for a Crisis.
- Wicked Witch: The Childminder looks like an actual witch with bird-like legs.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: The captured kid heroes know they've been on the island for a while, but none of them realize that it's been literal decades since they were abducted. Stargirl appears heartbroken when she hears Ladybug state her parents must be worried about her, and Courtney knows Ladybug's parents spent years trying to find her before they died.
