Posted in: Comics, IDW | Tagged: agent mulder, agent scully, christ carter, David Duchovny, denton j. tipton, gillian anderson, HRL, idw publishing, menton3, x-files

The X-Files: JFK Disclosure #2 Review: Too Much Summary, Not Enough Story

Sacco continues to explain the truth behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to Agent Fox Mulder. As we've learned, Mulder's father was heavily involved in the conspiracy. We learn the rest of the details here, and it involves aliens, alien weapons, Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs, and communism.

I'm no X-Files expert. I was beginning to gain interest in the show around the time Netflix took it out of their streaming library. That being said, I have watched a fair chunk of the show, and while the conspiratorial nature of the plot was fun, conspiracy theories are not what made X-Files as good as it was. There were many things, not the least of which was the relationship between Scully and Mulder.

Conspiracy theories are kind of fun to read about, mostly because they inject science-fiction and fantasy into our reality as explanations for some of the more dramatic events in world history. This is all predicated on the assumption that you don't actually buy into the nonsense the likes of Alex Jones peddle.

This does bring us to the main issue with this comic, which is that this comic is nothing but conspiracy theories. There is the framework of a plot here, but we just get the beats and exposition of the plot. All tension, stakes, and emotional resonance is absent because we are given this omniscient overview of the series of events without actually becoming engaged in the events. In other words, this is a summary of a story, not the story itself.

It also wants to be the grand unified JFK conspiracy theory. There is a little bit of everything: aliens, government conspiracies, communism. It becomes a little ridiculous as you watch the narrative just throw everything in. It doesn't really add anything pertinent other than the involvement of Mulder's father. That could add some emotional stakes, but none of that emotion is conveyed or focused upon. It doesn't add anything to the story.

Plus, wouldn't you just kind of assume that the JFK assassination was something crazy in the X-Files universe? I know that's a little pedantic, but the point remains that, if you were going to tell that story, it should be something epic, unexpected, and exciting. It should probably be a six-part saga as opposed to a two-part plot summary.

The ending feels really undercooked. It uses the X-Files go-to explanation for everything going wrong. If you're familiar with the show, you know who I'm talking about.

The art is without a doubt the best part of this comic. There is this aged-look to it all. The paper looks ragged and torn. The characters look to be hand-drawn in pencil and pen. It's all really thematic and fitting for this type of comic. Artist Menton3 did some astonishing work here. He also did a very good job of designing Mulder's father to look like David Duchovny.

With a plot framing that barely seems interested in the story it's telling, X-Files: JFK Disclosure is not the explosive epic that it should be. Scully is absent, Mulder is only in the framing, and the story itself is an exposition dump summary of events. The excellent artwork can't save this otherwise boring tale. Give it a pass.

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