Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

X-Files #1
Wildstorm Comics (DC)
Spotnitz & Denham

If you liked the TV show and are remotely interested in the comic, you won’t be disappointed at all. This comic is an excellent reminder of everything that made the show so great. Conspiracies, strange illnesses, government involvement and a little bit of a cliffhanger make for a great comic. This one has it all and then some.

A woman pays Scully and Mulder a visit and explains how her brother, working for the government, was driven crazy and seemingly killed himself. She doesn’t believe it and convinces Mulder to look into it further. Eventually they figure out the man was cremated before an autopsy was done and Scully finds the pictures of the body to not reveal an entry wound from the gun he allegedly killed himself with. Hmmmm.

They push further and find that the man had ties to a firm that was developing some interesting weapons. Things start snowballing and just when you think they have the case figured out something happens to derail their investigation. That’s about as spoiler-free of a recap as I can give. It’s a terrific story.

Now, the comic does a great job at peeling away a layer at a time. Each page and person that gets some dialogue adds a little more to the investigation, or, in some cases, takes something away from it. The story is put out in such a way that it leads you down a path only to really be set up because you thought you knew where it was heading. It’s a story telling technique that is executed to perfection here.

The artwork has some brilliant moments. The comic captures the looks exchanged by Scully and Mulder as you would expect from the TV show. Their investigation takes them to multiple locations that all have their own unique feel to them depending on the type of information they are trying to retrieve. For example, the visit to the government agency has that feeling of mistrust as they try to pry out some information. I did have some problems with the close-ups and shading. I found a couple of the character’s faces to be shaded so dark that I couldn’t determine who I was looking in some cases.

I can’t make a better case to pick this comic up. Either you like this type of story or were a fan of the show or this simply isn’t your thing. I found this comic to be all I was expecting and more. I’m not sure if this whole six issue mini is one arc or not but the cliffhanger here had me convinced to pick the next five for sure.

5 out of 5 geek goggles