*All preview art from* ***Lunar Room #1.***

By Clyde Hall — Like a Shadowrun world with more toned-down tech, Solar City in Lunar Room combines magic, supernatural beings, and a science not dissimilar to our own for a street level adventure of powerful elites and those beneath them, living and working by paying proper tribute. In the first issues of the series we encountered a pair of not-powerful sorts who combine forces out of necessity, forming an unlikely alliance.

Cynthia ‘Sin’ Breaker is a former mage-hired mob enforcer now cursed. As a ‘bound alpha’, she’s magicked so she cannot shift forms. She ekes out a living strongarming hedge wizards and as muscle-for-hire in low level street rivalries. The pay’s laughable but it’s her loss of reputation that’s worse. She once possessed major street cred, working for criminal practitioners of deepest dye magics. Now she serves punks for a pittance. But what haunts her most is her lost lupine abilities, being apart from her pack.

Zac Zero is a mage. Sort of. With a twin brother in high standing among a very powerful but secret magic cabal called the Knowers, Zero did research for the order once upon a time. Now they’ve chosen a different path. They plan on exposing all the mysteries and artifacts their brother and his ilk covet while grabbing enough to make them supremely powerful. A mage capable of fending off the Knowers’ wrath and making new rules. Zero’s agenda, however, leaves them in a vulnerable position until their arcane might is secured. Zero requires protection. Preferably, a tough bodyguard type who’ll work cheap. Being a gadfly to the secretive eldritch group led by your twin brother isn’t the most lucrative career choice.

In #1, Zero finds Sin and recruits her as that bodyguard by using the meager training they have to call forth the potent raw potential of a mystic shard, a connection they possess to the artifact at stake. They give Sin a taste of her werewolf form restored, only partially and briefly, but enough to win a major fight. Zero offers, in exchange for Sin’s protection gratis, full lycanthrope power restored once they gain access to what the shard channels: The Lunar Room.

It's a partnership of convenience. Barely. Sin respects strength and doesn’t like whiny mages. Zero isn’t a powerhouse (yet) but has a gimmick with vast potential. Sin having her wolf back, even for a moment, is like giving an addict a free hit. She’s in, though with reservations and plans for parting company once Zero delivers.

Until #3 when forces rise against them. We’re given a flashback on how Sin and her former paramour, Angie, met and began working for Gloria. The mob boss is one of the mages with deep, tentacled roots into major mojo sorcery. Fast forward to now, and Gloria’s interest is piqued by anyone able to lift the curse she’d placed on Sin after the she-wolf fell from her favor. She wants Sin, the mage responsible, and answers. Angie’s given the task of bringing them all before Gloria.

Meantime, Zero is left on their own in Sin’s apartment while their bodyguard seeks magical insight from someone she trusts. They do what any curious mage does with time on their hands. Get bored. Dig around. Scan Sin’s e-reader. Unlock magic messages. Check expiration dates on potions in the medicine cabinet. Then get interrupted by a persistent knock at the door.

Sin, meantime, is jumped by hired muscle. She delivers the unconscious tatters back to their employer: Axton, the twin of Zero and the head Knower. Axton proposes a business arrangement. In their talk, he uses every wrong tact possible in attempting to hire Sin away from his sibling, and, in the end, solidifies their partnership. Persuasion failed, Axton pivots in favor of a power display…which is another bad call.

It‘s another whirlwind issue with moments of humor, hazard, and a few surprises. Writer Danny Lore moves his narrative deftly, each issue ending far sooner than I expect or want. In #3 he gives the reader more intimately disturbing views of the indifference in Solar City, of the rule of might invoked against anyone weaker than yourself.

Lore uses that, building our respect and admiration for both Zero and Sin. In the currency of Solar City life, they’re chump change. Nearly beneath contempt. Once part of something more powerful than themselves, now separate, vulnerable yet still enduring. Still striving. And maybe, together, eventually thriving by their own standards. Lore makes us care and makes us hope on their behalf.

Gio Sposito’s art has been consistently rich and stylish throughout the title, and #3 continues the trend. The humorous expressions as Zero kills time rifling through Sin’s belongings flow as organically as the action sequences evolve later. While the aesthetic is clean, even bold for a tale exploring the back alley world of its crimes-and-conjures setting, Sposito works energy into the magic and the mayhem smoothly. Especially unnerving is the aftermath of those more lethal ‘casts and their residual, necromantic dweomer.

The latter effect is aided by colorist DJ Chavis. As soul shards and blood are collected as future spell components, you catch whiffs of iron and ozone via the magic of Chavis’ colors. The selection of hues overlaying Sposito’s strong line work make the characters pop. It also gives their surroundings a perfectly balanced color sensibility. Together, Chavis and Sposito provide a dynamic foreground showcase of visuals, reserving background detail for when it‘s most effective.

The lettering of Nathan Kempf delivers a very intricate, cool conjuring font in early captions, and his conversation and exposition enclosures are clear and flowing. Good sound effects always make supernatural battles better, and these he provides. His placement of the dialogue between Axton and Sin is handled especially well. The attitude of each is kept clear and readable in their expressions while the words fly fast and deft as sword parries.

The narrative runs as high octane storytelling, sometimes dropping you straight into flashbacks as in the opening sequence of this issue. It doesn’t take long reclaiming your chronological footing, but it can be slightly unsettling until your mind wraps, or warps, into the progression. A bit like Mr. Wolf, from Pulp Fiction, fittingly enough: “I think fast, I talk fast, and I need you to act fast if you wanna get out of this.” It’s a perfect distillation of how this creative team paces their mystical urban crime plot.

Power structures at work in Solar City, those above Sin and Zero at least, are brought into sharper focus as they independently target our luminaries. But we also see allies emerge. Plus the many business owners and common people, each under someone’s thumb and squeezed for profit. Or simply for fun. Two unconventional sorts unaffiliated, overwhelmed, but still fighting the powers-that-loom could attract more allies. Even in a city as pitiless as theirs, flawed underdogs like a cursed she-wolf and a mage with purloined power can become more in the eyes of the downtrodden. Like the Knower- and crime community-kicking anti-heroes their city deserves. Well…maybe that’s shooting high.

Overall: From the developments in Lunar Room #3, Sin and Zero strengthen their positions with potential for greatly upsetting the status quo, backed by canid howls for an overdue reckoning. It feels like the kind of change Solar City’s been waiting for. 8.5/10

Lunar Room #3

Lunar Room #3
Writer: Danny Lore
Artist: Gio Sposito
Colorist: DJ Chavis
Letterer: Nathan Kempf
Publisher: Vault Comics
Price: $3.99
Confronted with Zero's mysterious sibling, Sin must decide who to trust, while Zero finds out the hard way what happens when people start talking about Sin in the streets.
Buy It Here: Digital

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Clyde Hall (He/Him) lives in Southern Illinois. He’s an Elder Statesman of Geekery, an indie author, a comics fan/reviewer, and a contributing writer at Stormgate Press. He’s on twitter at: (@CJHall1984)