IDW The X-Files: Conspiracy #1 Review

Coming in to have a say on the new IDW Publishing inter-franchise event, a fan of the X-Files Season 10 comics series so far, and fellow staff member: Burn!

(Beware, some spoilers below.)

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As someone who was a fan of The X-Files from the first episode, I was a little wary of the new comic series from IDW. What with the mess of The X-Files: I Want To Believe movie, and the fact as a staunch "Noromo" I had to accept that the "Shippers" had gotten their way and Mulder and Scully were an item.

Oh and The Lone Gunmen were dead, assassinated by Fox.

But that was then, and this is now. Seven issues in and IDW have acknowledged and moved on from the blunder of I Want To Believe, The Lone Gunmen are now working out of a cemetery, and overall they've crafted a series continuation that carries on the core principles of the TV series. Monsters, and of course, conspiracies.

Which brings us to "The X-Files: Conspiracy", the first part in IDW Publishing's latest company-wide crossover. I'm not a fan of crossovers, more-so when it comes to IDW after the Infestation mess. But this issue sets the series up well.

While Mulder and Scully are off investigating their latest X-File, the Gunmen are continuing their mission of uncovering secrets and devising ways to open the eyes of the masses. A mysterious heavily encrypted file lands in their inbox which sets off the conspiracy. As they slowly decrypt the file they soon discover it to be a series of news reports... from the future! News reports which include references to man-sized amphibians, ghost catchers, and of course, alien robots that are apparently hiding in plain sight as every day objects.



Eager to pass the information onto Mulder and Scully, the Gunmen meet up with them at their latest crime scene involving a number of deaths from a strange virus. The very same crime scene that the Gunmen have just decrypted from their mystery file.

Mulder and Scully have a new case that intersects with The Lone Gunmen's newest conspiracy, and in typical X-Files fashion, there's someone out to make sure the secrets stay secret as The Lone Gunmen set off to New York to meet up with the resident Ghostbusters.



It's a classic X-Files story and a great introduction to the latest IDW company cross-over. Here's hoping the standard continues, if it does, it will be a mini-series well worth picking up.