Timeline Saved, Promise Not Delivered
While this review is attached to issue 2, it reviews the 6 issue mini-series as a whole.
Upside
When this series was announced, I was excited to see IDW expanding their X-Files offerings. The on-going Season 10 series has been a lot of fun and I immediately resolved to vote with my dollar to support IDW’s continued investment in this franchise. Sure the idea of a story crossing over with the Ghostbusters, Transformers, TMNT and Crow franchises sounded a bit goofy, but the important thing was to get more X-Files.
The first pages of issue 1 got me very excited. First off, the series would focus on the Lone Gunmen. Putting the focus on fan-favorite supporting characters – great idea. Then lead writer Paul Crilley delivered a wonderfully high concept opening, triggering the story with a data transmission from the future enabled by Higgs singlet transmissions received at the CERN supercollider.
Once decoded by the Gunmen, the data sets up a struggle to stop an alien virus from wiping out millions. The path toward figuring out how leads toward the other franchises. Certainly, this big scale threat gets the reader’s attention and promises interesting things to come.
Downside
Unfortunately, the balance of the series does not deliver on this promising start. Only the books authored by Crilley (the bookends and the Transformers installment) are really central to the plot. The others have a brief connection – a bit of explanation here, a blood sample there, a spiritual dot to connect – but are otherwise standalone stories. They are fun enough stories and the excuses to have them are within the bounds of usual comic book levels of suspension of disbelief. But the result is kind of light – three and a half books of content stretched over six.
I hope IDW comes away from this effort with an understanding that a collection of licenses don’t make a universe. On first read, spread across the months, the cumulative effect was not so noticeable. But when read at a sitting, the differing tones of say TMNT and The Crow really jangled. Varying artists over the books, with very different styles and interpretations of the characters’ faces (John Stanisci’s caricature prune faces being especially bad) didn’t help to smooth it out. The X-Files is a series that succeeds by creating and exploiting a consistent mood. By design, a crossover is at risk of disrupting that central feature. This series, though amusing in several places, so not defend against that risk. As an X-Files universe story, with original connecting pieces to move the plot, the concept of this series could have been outstanding.
Bottom Line
Unless you are an X-Files completist, it is safe to skip this series. Or unless you just can’t resist number 1 issues – there were 5 of them in a 6 issue mini. I hope IDW focuses their energy on expanding the X-Files mythos on its own terms from now on.
