”I WANT TO BELIEVE”

Those are the words that were on the bottom of the poster in Fox Mulder’s office, and they seemed to capture the public’s fascination with the unknown, unexplained phenomena, and X-Files aimed to explore it for its audience week in, week out for nine seasons. When I heard IDW Publishing was going to explore what would happen if the show got a 10^th season, in addition to collecting the old episodes that were adapted by Topps Comics, I was instantly geeking out at the news. In volume 1, the “PILOT EPISODE”, is probably my favorite, as the adaptation feels like visiting old friends, in a rather beautiful way. The art by John Van Fleet, feels like rotoscope, as seen in the old Ralph Bakshie movies and the script adaptation by Roy Thomas, is a thing of beauty, as he carries over Mulder’s signature snark and Scully’s skepticism to a tee.

Reading the next story arc, “Deep Throat” was almost as good as watching the episode itself. This was a very good adaptation. The following story arc” Squeeze” was downright creepy, it felt like a story that leapt form Stephen King’s pages and sad to say, I barely remember this episode at all. In the next arc, “Conduit”, a teen goes missing from a trailer park, and the tandem goes investigating, with the story ending, with Mulder contemplating on the whereabouts of his own sister. In the final arc, which is collected in this volume, “Ice”, Mulder and Scully investigate a mass murder in Alaska amongst a group of scientists, which is just classic X-Files, at its very essence.

In the 2^nd volume, the first story arc adapted was “Space”; they investigate a case of sabotage in a NASA space mission. This story has all the moral dilemmas and heroics and eeriness that we have come to expect from an X-Files episode. In the next arc, “Fire”, a man catches on fire instantaneously, and soon what seems like unconnected men, start bursting into fire as well, as the arsonist in this story is the typical tortured villain who comes back for revenge to anyone he feels wronged him. In the third story arc,” Beyond The Sea”, Scully deals with the death of her father, while Mulder investigates the disappearance of couples in North Carolina, which shows just how good the writers were at expositing the overreaching story arc with the episode story arc.

In the final story arc, “Shadows”, people start dying because of mysterious reason, which is why Mulder and Scully are called in by some unknown government agency and ends with discovery of an unusual guardian for one of the protagonists. As each story arc opens, as if it were the actual episode, with the disclaimer ”THE FOLLOWING IS INSPIRED BY ACTUAL EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS”, which makes these adaptations closer to the actual episodes. The care taken by the writer and artist on each adaptation can be seen. Overall, the stories by themselves were great, with the graphic adaptation; they only further the immortality of the show in whole.

Story: Roy Thomas Art: John Van Fleet, Sean Scoffield
Story: 9 Art: 9 Overall: 9 Recommendation: Buy

IDW Publishing provided Graphic Policy with a FREE for review