More (Eh) Scary Monsters
For those who didn't watch the X-Files TV series, it had two major kinds of episodes: the conspiracy or mythology episodes, which were usually multi-episode arcs and carried the through-line of the plot; and the scary monster episodes, which are pretty self-explanatory: stand-alone episodes with scary monsters. And they were--at least to me, ten or twenty years ago--pretty scary sometimes. They did a good job of making short, effective experiences of suspense and horror.
X-Files Season 10, the official comic continuation of the TV series, has more or less followed this same structure. The volume started off with a conspiracy arc, which was excellent. It brought up a bunch of characters and story lines from the TV show, and created new developments that were exciting. The art had a nice loose style similar to Chris Samnee, or Brahm Revel's Marvel Knights X-Men.
For the last few issues, the series has been mostly about the scary monsters, and that is true of this one, a stand-alone issue about a spirit of fear that lives through or controls insects.
The problem is, a single comic is hard-put to deliver the sense of fear and uncanniness that a TV show can. I'm not saying comics aren't as good as TV. But every medium has its own natural strengths and weaknesses, and it's harder for a comic to do what a TV can do when it comes to building fear. It's not impossible--Walking Dead does it, for instance. But this issue, and the previous scary monster two-issue arc, Hosts, just don't do it. They deal with the same kinds of things (and in the case of Hosts, exactly the same thing) as the TV show, but they don't share the atmospheric intensity and don't build as much reader/viewer involvement as the TV show's scary monsters.
The writing does some nice stuff with Mulder and Scully as characters. I liked Mulder's humor, and Scully's feelings of vulnerability about William at the end were evoked nicely. It builds a little more background into their new lives as returning FBI agents. The art is decent, although not amazing--it's about the same quality as Hosts, but not as good as the conspiracy issues. Overall it's by no means a terrible issue. But it's nothing special and feels a little warmed over. It leaves me wanting more of the conspiracy stories (which we got a little taste of again last issue). I just hope the series finds a way to make the scary monster issues as worthwhile of a read as the conspiracy stories.
