Publication date: January 15, 2014
Story: Paul Crilley
Art: John Stanisci
Colors: Steven Downer
Letters: Chris Mowry
Edits: Denton J. Tipton
Summary:
When conspiracy theorists and not-so-super sleuths the
Lone Gunmen (Langley, Frohike and Byers) receive an encrypted file from
C.E.R.N. (the large hadron collider) containing nothing but tabloid headlines,
they decide to investigate the mystery.
The articles include supposed ghost-exterminators from New York City,
reports of “manphibians” lurking about in the night, photos of robotic aliens
that can change shape, and something called Skylogic Systems which doesn’t come
up on any Google searches. Even weirder,
each paper is post dated from the future.
The Lone Gunmen take their findings to FBI Agents Mulder
and Scully, who reveal that some of the articles about a killer virus tie into a
murder scene they’ve been investigating.
Not long afterward, the Gunmen are attacked by ACTUAL
gunmen (wearing business suits), who don’t like them poking around. The Lone Gunmen go on the run, deciding to
dig deeper into the conspiracy.
Turtle Tips:
*For the Turtles, the story continues in The X-Files/TMNT: Conspiracy #1.
*The X-Files: Conspiracy is a 6-issue crossover event linking
together several of IDW’s licensed comic books with the X-Files. Titles involved include Ghostbusters, TMNT,
Transformers and The Crow (to be read in that order). The one-shot tie-ins are bookended by a
2-issue miniseries, but the one-shots can never-the-less be read as
standalones.
*This issue was originally published with 7 variant
covers: Standard Cover by Miran Kim, RI Cover by Joe Corroney, Brian Miller and
Hi-Fi Studios, RE Cover Hastings Exclusive by Carlos Valenzuela, and 4
glow-in-the-dark covers by Andrew Currie and Downer each featuring one of the
four tie-in properties.
Review:
The annual IDW licensed property crossover is upon
us! Though the Ninja Turtles
participated in 2012’s “Infestation 2” event, they skipped 2013’s “Mars Attacks”
get-together (but that’s okay, because they'd already met the Martians in a “Mars Attacks” miniseries from the ‘90s). For the sake
of reminding everyone, IDW doesn’t handle its crossover/tie-in events the same
way Marvel and DC does. Each tie-in is
wholly standalone and collecting the other titles to get the “bigger picture”
is strictly optional. I appreciate their
consideration for my budget.
So far as this first issue in the bookending “Conspiracy”
miniseries is concerned, Leonardo only appears in the splash page as a photo
on one of the tabloids. Unless you’re
out to snag every last one-panel appearance of the Ninja Turtles, you can skip
this comic without any fuss.
Grade: N/A (as in, “Now, I probably quit watching the
X-Files somewhere around the first movie, but I thought the Lone Gunmen were
dead? I guess this looks like a job for
Wikipedia…”)
