REVIEW: The X-Files Season 10 (comic) - 'Monica & John'

Tony Black reviews issue #18 of The X-Files: Season 10 comic run, 'Monica & John'...

Written by Joe Harris

Art by Matthew Dow Smith

Joe Harris addresses a very open, dangling thread in The X-Files Season 10 with 'Monica & John', a one-shot which calls back to the opening story, 'Believers', and serves to answer the question: what happened to Agents John Doggett & Monica Reyes, of course the mainstays of the last two seasons of the show before the revival. Much like they were sidelined for the actual season 10, Harris understandably chose to do the same in the comic to place the focus on Mulder & Scully, but it feels at the expense of two key characters in the latter half of the show's mythos. It's very likely Harris planned it this way all along, but it's at the same time a long time coming.

With only a few pages to spare, Harris spins a story which brings Doggett & Reyes back into the fold in unusual circumstances, with at the outset the twist that Doggett appears to have been Reyes' captor for eighteen long months. In the end, the revelations concern the strange Deacons from 'Believers', the alien hooded beings who seemed to be involved in the new conspiracy, and this just serves to deepen the enigma of the new mytharc and in time-honored X-Files fashion, pose more questions than it answers.

Why were Doggett & Reyes being held? What connection does it have to the Deacon monitoring star patterns & presaging his own death? This merely establishes the complication and gets the Agents back in the FBI radar by the end, and thanks to some grimy panels and good drawing of the captured, harried Doggett & Reyes by Matthew Dow Smith, you do feel that sense of atmosphere to an otherwise brief piece which doesn't have time to do much but catch us up.

Oddly it also lacks any presence of Mulder, but that's perhaps a conscious choice so the focus can zero in more on the missing Agents, and the way Scully nicely reacts to seeing Doggett reminds us she was always the one with the bond with him, and Reyes, not really Mulder. It's just a shame 'Monica & John' just seems to come out of nowhere, with no reminders since the opening story that anyone at the FBI was concerned they've been gone, and it's all too brief to really feel much more like a minisode filling in gaps.

Rating: 6/10

You can follow Tony on Twitter @ajblackwriter.

REVIEW: The X-Files Season 10 (comic) - 'Immaculate'

Tony Black reviews issues #16-17 of The X-Files: Season 10 comic run, 'Immaculate'...

Written by Joe Harris

Art by Colin Lorimer

Following the huge dose of mythology, it makes a lot of sense for Joe Harris to switch gears for Season 10 and tell a story covering the other large scale mythology that was prevalent in The X-Files universe: demonology. 'Immaculate', in both parts, is a close as an episode of Millennium, The X-Files spin-off series, as Harris can realistically get away with in the prism of Mulder & Scully, and that's regardless of the fact Millennium's protagonist Frank Black himself crops up in the story to provide a specific tether to that show. It's a dark and sinister tale which connects the thorny subject of abortion, and militant-right-to-lifers, with the Devil's continued corruption of the innocent. Even without much time in which to tell his story, Harris paints a creepy tapestry alongside artist Colin Lorimer to strong effect.

Joanie Cartwright is a young girl who, in a great opening hook, walks pregnant into an abortion clinic which promptly blows up while she walks away without so much as a scratch. It's enough to have A.D. Morales (who by the way we know now is in the Syndicate's pocket, so keep that in your minds eye) assign Mulder & Scully to look deeper as a strange presence appears on video footage - and while Harris oddly doesn't tap into the maternal aspect around Joanie's connection to a demonic force from Scully's perspective (given her angst as a mother), he does capture that element whenever the duo faced a case with religious overtones, i.e. Scully being the one taking a leap on theories while Mulder quickly tries to rationalise everything out and move on. That's present in Harris' writing and while it's subtle, as is Scully priming her own religious convictions, it's definitely there.

Lorimer gives us some striking and scary imagery in his panels too across the story, which helps illuminate the sense of enigma in Harris' writing about just what is happening to Joanie, and in truth 'Immaculate' is a story more about mood and atmosphere than everything tying up at the end. Frank's inclusion is perhaps a little forced and out of the blue, as are mentions of the Millennium Group and suggestions of a connection, but they're welcome and he's captured well, even if he doesn't particularly provide much in terms of story except someone for Mulder to bounce off; a little more understanding and motivation as to why Frank was there might have been welcome, but these are the restraints of just having two parts, and Harris is wisely more concerned with keeping the plot moving and allowing for the demonic, Satanic imagery to leap off the page.

Though not the strongest 'episode' of Season 10, 'Immaculate' is a welcome change of gear from the long-form mythology, tells a creeping and unnerving story which does touch upon a thorny issue in abortion rights, and weaves an enjoyable connection to Millennium in the bargain. It's certainly an X-File you can imagine the show having made and it may well leave you slightly chilled, come the open-ended and devilish denouement.

Rating: 7/10

You can follow Tony on Twitter @ajblackwriter.

REVIEW: The X-Files Season 10 (comic) - 'Pilgrims'

Tony Black reviews issues #11-15 of The X-Files: Season 10 comic run, 'Pilgrims'...

Written by Joe Harris

Art by Matthew Dow Smith

For the second major five-part story in the Season 10 comic run of The X-Files, Joe Harris is joined by his most frequent collaborating Matthew Dow Smith to craft, with 'Pilgrims', a sprawling mythology tale in the best traditions of Chris Carter's show - globe-trotting, expansive, action-packed and filled with surprises, recurring character appearances and at times maddeningly unresolved plot points. If ever you could throw that 'fan service' claim out there at Harris, this is the story you would point to as proof, but those who have levelled that accusation seem to miss the fact Season 10 has been all about reconstructing the show as we remember it in the Nineties; nebulous, labyrinth, and filled with the kind of anticipatory stories you couldn't wait for because your favourite characters would be popping back up. Even more than 'Believers', this felt like The X-Files of old.

Perhaps because it has so many reference points and call backs, many of them intentionally as Harris is deliberately using an in-story enigma to play on and reconstruct classic characters and situations; bringing back Alex Krycek serves to deepen the ongoing mystery of how presumed dead nemeses of Mulder & Scully are reappearing seemingly as alien clones of some kind, and here it becomes clearer they're in some kind of waking dream state as they recall past moments in their lives. It gives Dow Smith the excuse to draw Krycek coughing up black oil from the silo in 'Apocrypha', while Harris plays out a nearly identical scene as in 'Tunguska', only with Scully delivering a captive Krycek to a shirtless Skinner's apartment. 

Crucially, the characters are aware of how events seem to almost be replaying in a sense, while from an audience point of view Harris is touching back on elements and beats that people loved from the original mythology; you only have to see Krycek, captive, in the same orange boiler suit Jeremiah Smith wore in 'Talitha Cumi' being interrogated viciously by the Cigarette-Smoking Man to feel these are the glory days on a loop.

It gives Dow Smith the excuse to draw Krycek coughing up black oil from the silo in 'Apocrypha', while Harris plays out a nearly identical scene as in 'Tunguska', only with Scully delivering a captive Krycek to a shirtless Skinner's apartment. Crucially, the characters are aware of how events seem to almost be replaying in a sense, while from an audience point of view Harris is touching back on elements and beats that people loved from the original mythology; you only have to see Krycek, captive, in the same orange boiler suit Jeremiah Smith wore in 'Talitha Cumi' being interrogated viciously by the Cigarette-Smoking Man to feel these are the glory days on a loop.

Not that Harris immediately launches us into old ground complexity, as the tale does begin with a classic mytharc mystery as the black oil reappears, appropriately, in the deserts of Saudi Arabia and Harris spends a good couple of issues with Mulder & Scully involved in military conspiracy & espionage in the locked down state, struggling with ritual & custom (there are a few nice moments of Scully struggling with the rampant sexism) as well as figuring out what's happening with what they know to be a sentient alien virus. It's when we come to know more about the oil do events take a surprising turn, with Mulder possessed by 'Sheltem', a being who seems to be the intelligence behind the oil, or at least part of it.

This is a major development for the mythology, giving the black oil a character beyond Purity & being the essence of the colonizing force, and Harris manages to retain the mystery among blinding UFO lights, alien rebels burning abductees with fire, and terms like 'cradles' and 'forsaken ones'. It's exciting given he's unafraid to push the mythology forward by expanding on elements the show left out there for twenty years or more, and while we don't have all the answers yet, you feel as though he's building to revelation. Certainly by the end, with a reconstituted Syndicate under the control of the mysterious new leader, the show is now operating in the way we always remember.

'Pilgrims' still does manage to cram in, despite all the aliens and mythology and story elements, character work for Mulder and specifically Scully, who is still grappling with her own level of belief after what happened at Yellowstone in 'Believers'. She also remains haunted by William, and his absence, as is Mulder, so Harris touching on these elements keeps our leads moving forward while a ton of other plot points are going on. While it may be enormous fan service, 'Pilgrims' without doubt gives the people what they want - a big, sprawling, international conspiracy thriller which makes the mythology as slick and fun as it was in The X-Files heyday. 

The finale is, no question, going to be off the hook!

Rating: 8/10

You can follow Tony on Twitter @ajblackwriter.

REVIEW: The X-Files Season 10 (comic) - 'More Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man'

Tony Black reviews issue #10 of The X-Files: Season 10 comic run, 'More Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man'...

Written by Joe Harris

Art by Menton J. Matthews III & Tony Moy

If you're a fan of The X-Files, you must surely remember 'Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man' from Season Four. Quite a format-breaking episode, from the re-telling perspective of Melvin Frohike, it gave a possible legend and backstory to the show's most iconic villain, as a young man who became a military officer in the early 60's, later assassinated JFK and Martin Luther King, and went on to be a failed pulp novelist. 'More Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man' takes a leap off Glen Morgan & James Wong's original story to provide another myriad amount of possible memories from the shadowy government figure himself, allowing Joe Harris to zip across 20th century time periods with abandon.

What's important to note is that the issue is unfocused for a reason, as it hangs on the tether of the reconstituted Smoking Man in the present day trying to figure out why he's back from the dead, by accessing his latent memories. It's not as good a hook as Frohike in a rifle sight telling Mulder arcane history (indeed there's no sign of Mulder or Scully anywhere in this story, well almost), but it works as a construct allowing Harris to go everywhere from the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, to darkened shadowy conspiracy rooms where the original Syndicate gather, top secret facilities, and to even shine a light on relationships with the two women in his life - a pregnant, unhinged Cassandra Spender and a young, reluctant Teena Mulder, wanting out of the affair she's been having with the man. All through all of these interactions, Harris keeps one relationship central: CGB Spender & Bill Mulder.

In every memory the Smoking Man accesses, Mulder is there, usually as his partner whether it's in the military or destroying a vicious EBE for the government. There's no bromance involved but Harris makes the point that the lives and fates of these two men, the 'two fathers' (we even see the photo from that S6 episode), are inextricably intertwined. There's not always a central narrative through line to these memories, but Mulder is that constant. Harris does manage to create the same kind of retro stylistic look at secret 20th century history, but the real standout is the stunning artwork here by Menton J Matthews III & Tony Foy which is spellbinding; dreamlike, washed out, smoky and shadowy, it gives the issue a spectral, mysterious hue that perfectly befits the Smoking Man as a character. You couldn't do every issue this way but man does it look gorgeous in a dark, twisted way.

Come the end of 'More Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man', we also have a few fascinating insights into the ongoing mythology, and the shadowy figure pulling the strings behind Smoking Man's resurrection. I know who this is but for fresh readers I won't spoil; suffice to say it suggests even more that Smoking Man, and perhaps other revived figures, are reappearing for a key myth arc reason. As a hook to allow more fascinating insights into our villain's enigmatic past, this works as an off-kilter, vibrant and different X-Files issue.

Rating: 8/10

You can follow Tony on Twitter @ajblackwriter.

REVIEW: The X-Files Season 10 (comic) - 'Chitter'

Tony Black reviews issue #9 of The X-Files: Season 10 comic run, 'Chitter'...

Written by Joe Harris

Art by Greg Scott

We have a new face of horror in The X-Files, and it is called 'the Chittering God'. After the mythology-heavy opening issues and sequel monster of the week story, Joe Harris delivers a creeping one-shot in 'Chitter', which you can almost imagine as a mid-season chiller during the height of the show's run. From a deeply unnerving opening series of panels through to a conclusive but equally open-ended climax, Harris' story delivers in terms of low-fi, old school frights. The cht cht cht cht sound is the kind that would have burrowed into the mind and not let go, had you heard it on screen, and even on the page in its dark, weird form it's unsettling.

From a narrative standpoint, it's good to see Mulder & Scully back in their old groove in the FBI, swapping banter as they assist on the case of missing children in Millersburg, Pennsylvania; Harris writes Mulder particularly well, really has an ear for his dialogue, and it was good to see here a call back to his Violent Crimes days as new AD Anna Morales pops up, briefly, to remind us she's still there & get Mulder in on the basis of his profiling skills. It's a nice touch, and connects the story as much to the dark Millennium vein as The X-Files (no bad thing). If it lacks anything it's much exploration of the scarab as a presence, briefly Mulder rolling off some folklore but that's about it. Perhaps that's the point.

The manner in how the Chittering God affects Scully is also interesting, given she seems to taste the same bile in the back of her throat and be marked as a victim; indeed by the end, you get the distinct impression that Harris intends to revisit the strangeness that our agents investigate here - there's just something in the ending which suggests he's not quite done. That could be reading too much into it, but if 'Chitter' was revisited that would be no bad thing - thanks to Harris' writing and some dark, colour washed and grimy panels from Greg Scott, the whole piece has a really eerie and creepy feel to it which rests in the vein of the kind of creature-feature, icky episodes of The X-Files that would employ bugs or wildlife to good effect.

Let's hope we see more of the Chittering God in the future.

Rating: 8/10

You can follow Tony on Twitter @ajblackwriter.

REVIEW: The X-Files Season 10 (comic) - 'Being for the Benefit of Mr X'

Tony Black reviews issue #8 of The X-Files: Season 10 comic run, 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. X'...

Written by Joe Harris

Art by Michael Walsh

Some have accused Joe Harris' Season 10 as being very prone to fan-service, and issues like 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. X' do admittedly help you see that argument. On the face of it, the whole piece is constructed as a blatant attempt to bring Mr. X back into the picture, many years after his death in Season 4 premiere 'Herrenvolk'. This isn't the first time, of course - on the show he reappeared in Season 5's 'Unusual Suspects' in not too dissimilar fashion to this story actually, and later appeared as either a ghost or figment of Mulder's subconscious in Season 9 finale 'The Truth'. We all know X was a classic character in The X-Files, so you can't blame Harris for wanting to use him, and here he just about gets away with it.

Mainly because he mostly utilises X in flashbacks to the year 1987, where we see an experiment taking place in a small-town school where children have been intentionally infected with Purity, the extra-terrestrial substance that makes up the Black Oil virus intended to unleash a viral apocalypse on Earth come colonisation. It's a grim opening with X essentially witness to children blowing their own heads off, before covering up the crime, but it provides an essential window into his rationale and reasons for later helping Mulder on the X-Files.

The scenes flesh out an X so appalled by what the Syndicate is prepared to do, as so callously depicted in scenes with the Cigarette-Smoking Man drawn in washed out, almost sepia tones well by Michael Walsh, that he's on the verge of going to the Washington Post with what he knows. It's ironically Deep Throat who saves him from his own certain execution, quite brilliantly written by Harris (you can hear Jerry Hardin in your head as you read) as Deep Throat essentially places X on the road to succeeding him as Mulder's informant. These are the kind of flashbacks that wouldn't organically fit in the show, and while they are admittedly fan service to bring back iconic supporting players, they also add some flesh on the backstories of these people without eroding their sense of mystery.

It's not all flashbacks, however, as in the present day Mulder begins looking into a tether to this 1987 case and we do get a few new connections to Harris' new mythology. It allows Mulder and Scully to revisit Mulder's old apartment in Virginia, a major set during the course of the show, and it's a neat reversal of old tropes he used during Seasons 2 & 3 to contact X and seek out information. Scully discovers a new strain of Purity being developed while Mulder encounters X once more, but in a most unusual way which ties back to the strange manner he met the Smoking Man in 'Believers' - are these supposedly dead men now alien replacements or shapeshifters of some kind? There's clearly more to it but X's ultimate fate here certainly compounds the mystery.

Though an episode very much designed to please the legion of X-Philes past more than future, 'Being for the Benefit of Mr X' is both a fascinating curio and important little solitary mytharc episode all in one, and indicative of how Joe Harris--like The X-Files show itself--is unafraid to mix up the formula and try and wrong-foot us as readers. Come the end, you'll be left happy to see some old, long lost faces, and fascinated to what the mythology implications may be.

Rating: 7/10

You can follow Tony on Twitter @ajblackwriter.

REVIEW: The X-Files Season 10 (comic) - 'Hosts'

Tony Black reviews issues #6-7 of The X-Files: Season 10 comic run, 'Hosts'...

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Written by Joe Harris

Art by Elena Casagrande & Silvia Califano

For many years, people wondered what became of the Flukeman, arguably one of The X-Files' most iconic 'monsters of the week', who appeared in 'The Host' early on in Season 2 (which we covered on the podcast just last week). Apart from a blink & you'll miss it appearance on a National Enquirer tabloid headline in one of Darin Morgan's Season 3 comedy episodes, the Flukeman's on screen return never happened, despite how the end of 'The Host' showed he'd survived being sliced in two by Mulder in the New Jersey sewers. 'Hosts', the first 'monster of the week' episode by Joe Harris in the Season 10 revival comics, delivers that sequel and does it well.

The very nature of the Flukeman was its biological imperative to reproduce its fluke larvae inside human hosts, using them as incubators to bear more man-made flukes, just like their parasitic counterparts would - therefore it makes complete sense that Harris here would give us more than one fluke, if indeed the Flukeman has been down in the sewers (this time of Martha's Vineyard) for over ten years potentially reproducing. That's the nature of the sequel template - take what worked before and expand on it. 'The Host', while being a horror episode, always felt one slight step away from parody, so oddly enough the Flukeman is almost scarier on the comic book page, and 'Hosts' arguably is a darker episode than its predecessor.

What Harris also does is tackle the greater underlying mythology behind the Flukeman's origin, only really hinted at in 'The Host' by Scully toward the end, and gives us an origin story by using the classic 'two-parter' trick The X-Files did by starting part two with a context setting flashback or alternate place to complicate the story; here its the city of Pripyat in 1986, a few miles away from Chernobyl, the site of course of the Soviet nuclear disaster which remains the worst ever on record. I talk more about that here, but Harris actually uses this disaster as his jumping off point to give the Flukeman an identity essentially, an original identity, and makes him the victim of administrative and military callousness in the face of disaster.

This serves to not just further make the Flukeman more of a victim than true monster, but also tackles the question of whether the Flukeman had or has intelligence in his actions, with Harris using the immigrant local Sheriff character, Michael Simmons, as a conduit to explore whether or not the Flukeman is seeking a kind of vengeance for his fate at Pripyat. It's an open question, and provides the final stinger for Mulder to ponder at the climax primarily, but it adds extra dimensions and shades to the Flukeman as not just a monster but a character which 'The Host' didn't have time to explore. It's just a shame only on the page do we get to see Mulder fighting off a 'host' (pardon the pun) of Flukemen or being infected by larvae, as they would all carry off even better on screen.

Beyond the horror of the main plot, this story sees Mulder & Scully fully returning to their empty office in the basement of the FBI as they return to the X-Files, and Harris continues capturing both characters well as they have to adjust to a new boss, Assistant Director Anna Morales (now Skinner is Deputy Director, he now becomes the boss of their boss). She's interesting in that she genuinely appears interested in the X-Files as a department and how to expand their reach, which is refreshing and new after years of bosses reluctantly indulging Mulder or doing what they can to shut him down. While we only see Morales briefly before we're carried off into the plot, we see enough to be intrigued where she may go as their new superior.

On the whole, 'Hosts' is a solid follow up to the reach of 'Believers'; an in-and-out story re-introducing the classic 'monster of the week' formula to The X-Files with a sequel the majority of people would have wanted for quite some time. It's not as good a story as 'The Host', lacking that iconic concoction the TV episode brought, but it adds new shades and dimensions to the creature, and ends with an excellent, thought-provoking and bloody stinger.

Rating: 7/10

You can follow Tony on Twitter @ajblackwriter.

REVIEW: The X-Files Season 10 (comic) - 'Believers'

Tony reviews issues #1-5 of The X-Files: Season 10 comic run, 'Believers'...

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Written by Joe Harris from a story with Chris Carter

Art by Michael Walsh

For a time, 'Believers' was what X-Philes had spent over five years wanting to believe in.

Considered ever so briefly 'canon' by Chris Carter, unsure he would ever get to make the long-gestated third X-Files movie, this collaboration with writer and X-Phile, Joe Harris, was designed to continue the journey of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully following the events of I Want to Believe, and following in the footsteps of the successful Dark Horse launches of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 and Angel Season 6, to name drop a couple, cash in on the trend of beloved series continuing in comics form not just as addendums to canon or fun asides, but rather the genuine next phase of the story.

'Believers' therefore sets out its stall boldly, with Harris almost immediately introducing his own elements of fresh mythology into the byzantine alien mytharc and, while reviving elements Carter and his writing team had attempted to veer away from in Seasons 8 and 9 of the show as they tried, and failed, to make The X-Files a show about the concept as opposed to Agents Mulder & Scully. Harris is acutely aware they are more than just characters, they are iconic pop-culture figures within the zeitgeist of the now retro-1990's, and none more so was this proved than the subsequent 2016 revival series where, despite the quality not being on a par with earlier seasons, ratings went atmospheric for just a glimpse of David Duchovny & Gillian Anderson back in the roles that made them famous.

Harris' comic doesn't have the luxury of their innate charisma in the roles however, so much comes down to the writing, and almost immediately he *nails* Mulder - introducing himself with the pseudonym Anthony Blake, a reference to his favourite childhood show The Magician, he is awash with pithy one-liners, geeky charm and the kind of laconic humour even in the face of danger the character became so loved for. Scully takes a little longer to settle, for Harris to find her voice, primarily because the nature of the storyline separates her almost entirely from Mulder for the duration and places her in the role of the experiencer, and that's perhaps 'Believers' most startling statement - the believer is Scully here, without a shadow of a doubt, and Harris builds on the final few seasons of the show where Scully, by the nature of her experiences, had to become much more of the open-minded agent rather than die-hard sceptic.

It's Scully here who, primarily, meets the Acolytes, the newest additions to the mytharc of the series; shadowy, hooded beings possessed with the power of healing, of magnetic attraction, shapeshifting, and the manipulation of intense heat; they are, in some respects, every alien creation within Carter's mythology the show ever devised, and that's perhaps the point - the Acolytes, whoever they are or serve which remains a mystery even by the end, are a culmination of a myriad group of plot points the show left dangling, and Harris picks up on here - the importance and fate of baby William, the rare substance magnetite, the preponderance of 'infected' oil, alien-killing weaponry, and the shadowy elements of government who here linger only on the fringes but certainly still exist. Harris also adds in a level of occult symbology to the Acolytes, from their translated alien language to the protection symbols Deacon creates to seemingly keep he and Scully safe, later writ large by the magnetite oil pipeline. It feels like we're amidst an occult level of prophecy and meaning beyond our understanding.

The biggest moment of revelation for Scully nonetheless comes from seeing an alien spacecraft with her own eyes, in a glorious reversal of the end of Fight the Future (and half a dozen other episodes to be fair) in which Mulder experiences an alien visage, but Scully just misses out. Here, truth is undeniable. She has to believe. Consequently, her encouragement of Mulder for them to return to the FBI when the opportunity arrives makes complete sense, especially in the context of understanding William may no longer be anonymous, safe or protected by the end. In a more fluid and organic way than the revival series, Mulder & Scully return to their joint quest.

Where perhaps 'Believers' strains its credibility and good will is the level of fan service involved, as Harris takes every opportunity to place pieces back on the board the show considered off the table. The Lone Gunmen is the most welcome, given their ill-advised 'heroes death' in S9's 'Jump the Shark' following the cancellation of their short-lived TV show, which ranks among one of the worst decisions Carter & co ever made; the mechanism of their return is witty, clever and bizarre enough to work in its context, and Harris barely dwells on their past, allowing them to function in the manner they always did best - as Mulder's three wise men. Some of the rest are questionable - Skinner's function is logical and serves as a necessary function, but including John Doggett & Monica Reyes as briefly as Harris does, only to seemingly kill them off, smacks of appeasing the few fans those erstwhile intended replacements had.

It's the return of the Cigarette-Smoking Man which perhaps pushes this to extremes. Much has been written and discussed about his reappearance in the revival series, and while from a pop culture sensibility The X-Files doesn't really feel the same without him, in terms of narrative it cheapens the already cheapened death CGB Spender experienced at the end of 'The Truth'. Now there's some suggestion here that Harris has a long-game in mind, and the Smoking Man as we see him may not quite be as revived or alive as he appears, but nonetheless the series skirts the edges of credibility by throwing him back into the story so arbitrarily. It almost feels too much, too soon.

On the whole, though, 'Believers' is an impressive five-issue return for The X-Files and mission statement of intent by Joe Harris that this is going to forward the mytharc and advance the story of Mulder & Scully in a way I Want to Believe left us, frankly, wanting. It's nebulous to the point of frustration in places, with one or two creative choices that are questionable, but more often than not it's thrilling, tonally in step with the show, and written with these characters voices captured superbly. Immediately, Season 10 in comic form becomes the season you wished Chris Carter had made.

RATING: 8/10