I have been a member of the cult of Fox and Dana for as long as I can remember. In high school, if friends needed me to sneak out to hang out, they had to wait until X-Files was over and I’d seen the previews for the next week. Since the relaunch has come to an end, I’ve been looking for an adequate substitute to fill the whole in my Believing heart.

I firmly believe that this Jody Houser and Matthew Dow Smith collaboration is headed in the right direction to have me fangirling all over the place. I went into The X-Files: Origin #1 expecting to hate it, I had my hyper critical old school X-files lover eyes ready to find fault with this new jack comic. I expected it to break my heart like the movie. So, when I tell you I was not only pleasantly surprised but, kind of smitten with this new adaptation of some pretty killer source material, you know it’s coming from a special place.

Jody and Matthew each took lead on one of the segments of this two part book. I kind of liked that they seem to have tasked Jody with the job of telling the starting point of Mulder’s origin story. I like the gender crossover and that IDW Publishing had the balls to let a woman write a male character. Jody does an amazing job and by the time part one was over, I was on board with “Mulder The Teen Years.” She started off with Samantha’s “disappearance,” the defining moment in Mulder’s paranormal seeking life. She also showed us his friends and life in the immediate aftermath of his sister being taken. I give her extra points for keeping the male bro bonding scenes tight. She didn’t turn them into cliches and they seemed organic and real. Chris Fenoglio‘s artwork made the comic appear like an old school pulp fiction comic book. It brought back nice nostalgic feelings that worked well with the origin story being told.

If placement in the credits is to be taken as fact, Matthew did most of the story for my beloved Dana Scully. We get to see what I assume will be the defining moment in her life, that turns her into the factual realist that she is. We also get to hear through recollection why she keeps her emotions at bay. It’s a very cynical but, true thought process that shows the difference between how men learn to act in a work environment and how women learn. Young Dana was told she couldn’t because of her gender, she was given a specific example of why her “gender” would be an issue in her dream job and she took it to heart. That one moment imprinted on her and she took away that all males expected her to cry, fall apart, be unable to contain her emotions and would not take her seriously because of it. She learned to stow away her feelings, no matter how she was feeling on the inside. When in the presence of a male, she would be stoic. Corin Howell‘s artwork worked well with the story that Matthew Dow Smith told. It was light and airy to start and got darker and more ominous post body discovery.

I’m glad that this was addressed it’s a nice touch. It also explored how both Fox and Dana experienced profound tragedy and loss at an early age and the imprinting of those events made them who they grew up to become and who we all fell in love with.

Overall I found the beginnings of their origin stories a nice read. And, I can’t for issue #2 so I can find out what happened to Mulder and his friends on the beach with the men in black and how things turned out with Scully and the car headlights that either have something to do with her dad or something to do with the recently deceased Sunday school teacher.

Story : Jody Houser & Matthew Dow Smith Art: Corin Howell & Chris Fenoglio
Story 9.5 Art 9.2 Overall: 9.5 Recommendation: Buy

IDW Publishing provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review