Review by Frank Plowright
The Haunting completes Stefan Petrucha’s run as writer of the regular X-Files comics, although he subsequently issued Afterflight, a standalone graphic novel, while artist Charlie Adlard would continue with the series. It’s the point where the original graphic novel presentations of The X-Files in the 1990s separates UK and US editions, as unlike Project Aquarius there was no American equivalent until a decade later and The X-Files Volume One from Checker Books.
As per his exemplary track record, Petrucha mixes his topics over five stories, the longest being the opener and title story investigating ghosts and the possibility of the first recognised human skeleton being discovered. It’s slightly too long, although Petrucha ties everything together neatly and Adlard produces his best series work to date in recreating opulent surroundings.
He’s still being credited as “Charles”, but The X-Files was the making of Adlard as a comic artist. Monthly deadlines on a conversation-heavy series forced him to give greater consideration to page layouts, and the improvements in cast likenesses can be seen. Earlier in the series Adlard had trouble producing portraits of Dana Scully more than superficially resembling actor Gillian Anderson, but he’s now approximating her. There’s nevertheless been a great distance between the approaches of Adlard and cover artist Miran Kim’s digital realism.
Her cover portraits haven’t dated as badly as much early digital art, and she also contributes to story pages here (sample art right) depicting what’s an early airing for AI, cutting edge in the 1990s. As technology in that area has progressed so greatly ‘One Player Only’ now has primitive aspects, but the general thrust and emotional heart carry it.
‘Falling’ has a the horrific start of a bunch of kids obsessed with aliens believing they’ve trapped one disguised as a human. Ignorant suggestions such as poking a stick through the eye to the brain being a method of revealing the truth send a shiver of fear down the spine even before their victim is revealed as Mulder. It’s a creepy story, all the more horrific for the threats being human rather than something unknown.
It’s perhaps not the best planning to follow a story of Mulder captured and powerless with a longer one of both Mulder and Scully captured and powerless, but the circumstances are vastly different as ‘Home of the Brave’ concerns right wing survivalists. Petrucha injects some surprisingly dark humour, and instead of the narrative captions being the thoughts of Mulder and Scully they feature a survivalist and his wife, which makes for an interesting change. Adlard also shines on a story requiring frequent stark contrast between dark and light, in what’s a distressing comment on some forms of humanity.
This material is the best of Petrucha and Adlard’s X-Files, and best experienced in this edition. Volume One from Checker and The X-Files Classics Volume 2 from IDW both omit the title story, and include work from other creators.
