Stargirl Spring Break Special #1 - DC Comics

STARGIRL SPRING BREAK SPECIAL No. 1 July 2021

Weighing in at an impressive thirty-one pages, there was arguably always going to be an element of padding to this one-shot’s narrative before Geoff John’s finally brought the titular character into direct conflict with the notorious Clock King. But whilst this publication’s opening two-thirds tries to make such a ‘penmanship ploy’ less conspicuous than normal by including an enjoyable recap as to just how Oliver Green went back in time to become the Golden Age Green Arrow, the vast majority of this book simply consists of Courtney Whitmore talking to her stepfather, Pat Dugan.

Fortunately, the “legendary comic writer” does eventually inject this book with an incredible amount of sense-shattering shenanigans by the time his storyline reaches its final act, and the American author’s “breakthrough hero” teams-up with Red Arrow for a ‘trip’ to South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach. Admittedly, having been abandoned by the ‘adults’ to find their own way to the ship-shaped “time machine built by someone called Per Degaton”, any convincing explanations as to precisely what is going on with so considerably-sized a cast are debatably thrown right out of the window; “When the boat exploded, it imploded, got shunted through time… and apparently reappeared off the South Carolina coast somewhere.”

Yet, what this pulse-pounding action sequence lacks in exposition, it more than makes up for in dynamism, with the Seven Soldiers of Victory battling a flock of Pterodactyls, whilst Lee Travis desperately tries to steer the out of the control sea vessel to safety. Impressively crammed full of explosions, multiple time distortion effects, and a genuinely heart-wrenching decision as to just who will live and die following the ship’s destruction, this climax is incredibly well-written and is well worth the cover price of the comic alone.

Likewise, Todd Nauck’s artwork throughout this “special” is simply superb, with the Texas-born illustrator even making the more sedentary moments set at the Last Roundup restaurant entirely agreeable to the eye, courtesy of his highly-polished pencilling giving the likes of Dugan plenty of emotion as he discloses what happened to his team-mates from the Forties to an eager-eared Courtney. In addition, Green Arrow’s fisticuffs with the Clock King on board a large flying time-piece hovering above a burning ocean, is outstandingly drawn, and captures all the fast-paced excitement wanted from a confrontation between two such long-standing opponents.

The regular cover art of "STARGIRL SPRING BREAK SPECIAL" #1 by Todd Nauck