Pinnacle City: A Superhero Noir

In Pinnacle City, comic book life is more complicated than black and white. For the superpowered Solar Flare, being promoted to the city’s top superhero squad should be her dream come true, but instead, it reveals the callousness of those in power. For former henchman and current private eye Eddie Enriquez, even his cynical outlook couldn’t prepare him for a sinister plot against the city’s least fortunate. But together, they might stand a chance of saving the city.

Pinnacle City manages to epitomize the noir genre while cleverly playing with the classic tropes of comic books to create a marvelous morality play. As the story ricochets from the shadowy alleys of the Crescent and West Pinnacle City (where Eddie plies his trade) to the glittery lights of Solar Flare’s time with the city’s wheelers and dealers, you’re granted insight into the complexities of a major city where superpowers are simply one more variable to be handled or exploited.

It’s an engrossing world, one with all sorts of angles to be played, victims to be saved, and villains to be thwarted, one where corruption can be found anywhere. And curiously enough, this cynical world makes the optimism at the heart of the story shine even brighter.