Missing on the Moon, Graphic Novel

In this alternate history, the Soviets beat the United States to the Moon, yet somehow, we won the Cold War sooner. That sounds like a heck of a story, but it is only the stuff of footnotes and appendices in this hardboiled lunar noir. A cynical detective’s search for a missing girl takes him into the underground community of Soviet descendants in Cory Crater’s graphic novel, Missing on the Moon, illustrated by Damian Couceiro, which is now on-sale.

Rendered obsolete by robot cops, Daniel Schwinn ekes out a living by “mopping up” junkies. However, his old boss Oz has a real case worthy of his old skills. A senior senator’s daughter Penny has been abducted. So far, the only clue is a shoe found abandoned on the moon’s surface, without any footprints or body-parts leading away it.

Schwinn’s investigation soon focuses on the post-Soviet “Darksider” revolutionaries, who presumably kidnapped Penny for leverage. However, the Darksiders have the drop on Schwinn and might even have messed with his head, in ways that might turn him outlaw against his wishes.

The idea of a noir mystery set within a retro world of Chesley Bonestell-esque lunar colonies sounds endlessly intriguing. Unfortunately, Crater neglects the promising alternate history premise, in favor of an overly familiar and highly ideologically-charged sf setting. Disappointingly, the world of Missing on the Moon is nearly indistinguishable from that of Outland, the Alien franchise, Murderbot, and dozens of other polemical near futures built around companies that act the way that governments actually behave in real life. Frankly, the results are boring.

Seriously, you have seen everything in Missing on the Moon dozens of times before. At least Murderbot had a fresh central character to carry the adapted Apple TV+ series. Unfortunately, Crater’s lunar colonies are simply populated with unremarkable stock characters: bitter P.I., corrupt former boss, angry rebel child, and the clunky robot who naively follows the exact letter of the law.

Nevertheless, Couceiro’s art is considerably cooler than the derivative narrative deserves, especially the moonscapes outside the colony domes, which appeal to the nostalgia of Bonestell fans. Unfortunately, the storytelling is far too didactic, regularly expressing disdain for capitalism (even though it has steadily driven the expansion of human prosperity and rising living standards throughout our times). Too cliched and predictable to recommend, Missing on the Moon is now available at book and comic retailers.