While The X-Files TV show makes its triumphant return to the airwaves, IDW’s X-Files comic series starts bringing its current run to a close with Endgame. Is it good?
The X-Files: Season 11 #6 (IDW Publishing)
The Plot
- Holy crap, Mulder. What the heck did you do?
- Nothing better than Lone Gunman dialogue via Joe Harris.
- Not saying that Mulder/Scully have always had great plans, but this one seems particularly bad.
- Oh look—a pair of conspiracy-minded journalists who don’t know who Mulder is despite his name being plastered all over the news. How convenient…
- Good lord that’s creepy.
- What…what just happened?
Is It Good?
I was a bit disappointed to hear that the television revival wasn’t going to keep in canon with the comics. I understand why they did it though. IDW’s series has built up a lot of new mythology that couldn’t really be covered in six episodes.
Fortunately, Joe Harris (writer) and Matthew Dow Smith (artist) are being given the chance to wrap up this alternate timeline (?) before starting a new series that spins directly out of the new TV series (!). And for the most part, it starts off pretty well.
Both the opening and closing of the issue are deliciously bleak and creepy. The end was a bit confusing, but Gibson’s messed up entrance more than made up for it. Unfortunately, the middle of the issue was filled with lots of static/exposition-y dialogue…which is great when it’s coming from the Lone Gunman. Not so much when it comes from two characters who we’ve never met and who seem a bit too perfectly convenient to the plot.
But even with that misstep, the opening chapter of Endgame has me excited to see what Harris and Smith have up their sleeves for Season 11’s grand finale. I’m also excited to see Smith get to draw more Gibson-possessed people and/or post-apocalyptic landscapes. While his sense of motion has improved dramatically over the course of the series, his ability whip up a creepy panel has been and continues to be one of his best attributes.
…along with drawing a disheveled, unwashed Fox Mulder.
Now that we know this team will get a new X-Files book with basically a fresh start, let’s see what type of crazy finish they can whip up for the current series.
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