Last month, Mulder and Scully were sent to Saudi Arabia for a regular old investigation of a terrorist attack. As you might expect, weirdness followed them… along with a person from their past. This week, we get to start dealing with the fall out and delve deeper into the X-Files mythology. Is it good?
The X-Files: Season 10 #12 (IDW Publishing)
Mulder reacts to seeing Alex Krycek alive the same way most of us would: With furious mix of anger and confusion. Unfortunately, their reunion is cut short by a hail of gunfire.
“If one more of you guys comes back from the dead, we’re taking the license from IDW to Marvel or DC!”
Krycek says a bunch of confusing stuff as the pair attempts to flee. Then out of nowhere, a flying saucer (I think) takes him.
…and I’m pretty sure one of them farted right before the ship disappeared.
Back at the hospital, Scully is still trying to pump severely injured attack victims for information when the black oil attacks. It begins jumping from person to person like the demon from Fallen confusing the hell out of everyone and barely letting Scully escape.
Back at the U.S. Embassy, Mulder is getting chastised for causing an international incident before being allowed to leave with Scully. He tells her that he experienced missing time when the UFO came, which Scully (and the reader) seems to think is pretty dubious proof that anything happened.
The pair then heads out into the desert to the oil field where the attack from last issue occurred. As you might imagine, that ends up not being a very good idea.
Is It Good?
This story is either going to be brilliant or completely garbage. Krycek shows up for five minutes, babbles about being held hostage, and gets abducted in broad daylight by a UFO…in the desert…and only Mulder saw it.
Now Scully gets abducted, too, which we’ve seen happen before. Black oil is shown to be very scary and able to influence people to do scary things…which we’ve seen happen before. Even the Cigarette Smoking Man makes a heavily implied appearance.
The old stuff feels tired while the new stuff feels confusing. I have a feeling (and a hope) that this issue will read better in the context of the entire arc, but right now, I honestly have no feel for where writer Joe Harris is going with this.
To his credit, however, the dialogue between Mulder and Scully continues to be great. His actions scenes are also incredibly well written. Unfortunately, Matthew Smith’s art just feels too stiff for a lot of the more kinetic sequences.
Overall it’s a good issue, but stuff needs to start making sense soon before everything starts going off the rails.
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