Missing On The Moon #3 - Mad Cave Studios

MISSING ON THE MOON No. 3, March 2025

It’s probably a fairly safe bet that many of this mini-series’ readers were wondering just where Cory Crater’s narrative was going to go next, having read his somewhat rambling narrative for Issue Three of “Missing On The Moon”. True, the “emerging author in comics and graphic novels” certainly seems to be composing a rollercoaster of a ride for his audience when Daniel Schwinn suddenly discovers he’s been physically transformed into a blue-skinned Darksider at the start of this instalment. But by the end of the book’s twenty-two page storyline, many a bibliophile will doubtless be querying the persuasiveness of a plot which seems to make some disconcertingly large leaps in logic so as to progress its overarching storyline.

Foremost of these bemusements has to be Osborne Scott’s unconvincing role in all of this title’s political subterfuge, terrorist attacks and adolescent mass murders. The writer never explains how the overweight police commander somehow survived the deadly ambush deep inside the moon’s ice mines – nor indeed how the law enforcement agency was even attacked underground – Yet having managed to return to his offices alive, he then spends a significant portion of this publication blaming his former friend for betraying the authorities to Sidhe’s rebellion, even though he knows damn well that isn’t the case.

To make matters even more confusing though, it’s subsequently revealed that the huge droid Oz ordered to act as Schwinn’s bodyguard is actually the department’s perfidious mole, having somehow been reprogrammed by Alina at some unknown point to do her bidding. Such a revelation is certainly shocking. However, it arguably makes as much sense as Daniel’s uncharacteristic naivety in believing that if he gives the extremist’s Scott, they’ll somehow prove to the world that he wasn’t a traitor after all – even though in doing so he’ll become precisely the double-crosser he pathetically pleads he is not; “Do me this favour and I’ll get you whatever you and your cronies desire… access to L.D.S. weapons, intel… just name it.”

Far more convincing than this comic’s penmanship is its layouts by Damian Couceiro. Coupled with Patricio Delpeche’s sombre palette of colours, the illustrator’s pencilling is predominantly first-rate, with the horror of Schwinn’s conversion into a Darksider proving particularly palpable. Likewise, the artist’s handling of the pulse-pounding gunfight inside the Tankard Pub in Buzztown is truly exhilarating, with the rapidity of everyone’s weapon discharges almost leaping off of the printed panels.

Writer: Cory Crater, Artist: Damian Couceiro, and Color Artist: Patricio Delpeche