Review by Frank Plowright

With IDW having settled on a format of nine original issues per hardback collection, this is a slightly awkward collection in finishing Stefan Petrucha’s collaborations with Charlie Adlard, here still Charles Adlard, and beginning John Rozum’s even longer run as writer.

Petrucha and Adlard combine for four stories, the longest being their opener, which provided the title story for UK reprint Project Aquarius. It’s clever in pulling together multiple threads from stories featured in Volume 1, not all of which appeared connected. Scully suddenly remembering someone’s name is a little too convenient, but over three chapters it takes some strange turns, offers an unusual foe and good discussions between Mulder and Scully over the nature of unreality. Is it all the mind?

The following story is unusual for mixing the digitally created art of cover artist Miram Kim with that of Adlard. It deals with what in the 1990s was cutting edge research involving AI, a field that’s moved on immensely since, leaving a story with dated elements in its wake. Unfortunate scheduling sees that followed first by a tale with Mulder captured and helpless, then by one where both agents are captive. They’re very different beyond that in exploring two forms of human frailty in the face of possible alien sightings. Children are the focus of one while the other mixes in white supremacists, unusually told partly from the viewpoint of a married couple. It’s a distressing comment on humanity, but a good example of the type of story seen on the TV show where Mulder sees something inexplicable, but Scully is absent, so sceptical.

Adlard’s art continues to improve, and this collection features his strongest series work. Background detail now features more regularly and he’s finally nearing a likeness for Gillian Anderson as Scully. In the one story he draws, Gordon Purcell achieves better likenesses for both characters, but as Adlard discovers on the following story, scripts from Rozum are greatly more verbose than those of Petrucha, and it’s a struggle to accommodate all the dialogue.

His first plot concerns the missing Flight 19, long a favourite discussion topic among Forteans. What would happen if one of the pilots returned forty years later? Rozum follows up with an investigation into ball lightning that takes a strange turn. Both are viable plots featuring mystery and uncertainty, but Rozum differs from Petrucha in providing more definitive answers. Scully witnesses confirmation of one of Mulder’s unconventional theories, and that breaks with form.

Petrucha and Adlard’s work alone can also be found in UK edition The Haunting, desirable for nice production featuring a dust jacket and also including the title story, which is absent from any volume in X-Files Classics series.