Some time after the events of I Want to Believe, Mulder and Scully are contacted by Deputy Director Skinner – someone has been hacking the FBI database regarding the X-Files…

For those who don’t follow comics, IDW ran a very successful line of X-Files comics that picked up in the aftermath of the second movie, bringing Mulder and Scully back to the Bureau. Written by Joe Harris with series creator Chris Carter, it featured plotlines that did what the series did best at its height – mixing the ongoing mythology regarding the Syndicate, the alien invasion and the bounty hunters with standalone cases of the weird and wonderful. It even spawned a return for Millennium’s Frank Black. With the return of the show to television, some of the continuity within it became moot, shall we say, and there’s now a new line of comics that pick up from the TV show.

The line began in 2013 with a five part story that forms the basis of the first audio in the Cold Cases collection from Audible, adapted from Harris and Carter’s script by audio legend Dirk Maggs. Maggs pretty much follows the comic faithfully, although he reworks the stories to retain chronological order. Issue 1 of the comic, for example, begins with the attack on “Dr Blake” in an alley then flashes back to the introduction of the two leads, which is effective in that medium, but perhaps less so in an audio. The story manages to hit every key X-Files point – from Mulder, Scully and Skinner to the Lone Gunmen (and yes, there’s an explanation for their recovery from death), the Cigarette Smoking Man and a moving forward of the conspiracy – while adding new wrinkles to the situation.

As with the TV series last year, it feels as if David Duchovny takes slightly more time to get back in character as Mulder than Gillian Anderson does as Scully but by the time we’re twenty-five or so minutes into the episode, it’s as if neither of them has ever been away. It’s great that Audible have been able to bring many of the original actors back – not just Duchovny and Anderson but a more gravel-voiced Mitch Pileggi, the three Lone Gunmen (Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund, and Bruce Harwood), and William B. Davis – with plenty of touches within the soundscape that give it that X-Files feel.

Verdict: You’ll still want to Believe. 9/10

Paul Simpson