X-Files Conspiracy #2: Review

Hailed as IDW’s event of the year ends, X-Files Conspiracy #2 delivers a “meh” ending to what’s been an ultimately unsatisfying crossover.

Here’s the official word from IDW:

The event of the year concludes here! The Lone Gunmen have finished investigating several urban legends—a group of ghost-hunters, mutant turtles that live in the sewers, shape-changing alien robots, and a vengeful spirit from beyond the grave—after receiving Internet files from future that foretell a plague that wipes out most of humanity. Now it’s a race against the clock as the Gunmen, with Agents Mulder and Scully, attempt to save the world!

If you break the individual components of IDW’s “Conspiracy” crossover apart, you can see the framework for what must have seemed like a good idea back in the writer’s room several months ago — after all, geeks like the Lone Gunmen, right? And so the idea of pairing the Gunmen up with the Transformers, TMNT, Ghostbusters and the Crow must have seemed both novel and brilliant. But with different writers tackling different issues, and each issue trying its damnedest to showcase the spirit of each rotating franchise, there was never enough time to really develop the meta-plot (which was ambitious to say the least, as it included time-travel and a world-destroying virus). So anyway — now we have the final issue, and its up to writer Paul Crilley to try and put a closing bow on this hot mess. And he tried. He really did. But in the end, the conclusion to this crossover felt rushed, and strained — dangling plot threads got shoved haphazardly into place and the conclusion to the time-travel feature (which was the most compelling element to begin with) got jammed into the last two unsatisfying pages. Sigh.

I wish I could say the art was the best part here, but even John Stanisci delivers a product that’s nowhere near what he’s generally capable of. The art felt rushed, and facial features seemed crammed.

While I went into the X-Files Conspiracy series with a lot of excitement, it didn’t deliver nearly what I hoped it would. Good thing the year is still young.