X-Files

Membership: formerly Arthur Dales, Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Alex Krycek, John Doggett, Leyla Harrison, Monica Reyes, Jeffrey Spender, Diana Fowley

Purpose: To investigate inexplicable crimes

Affiliations: Assistant Director Walter Skinner, the Lone Gunmen (Melvin Frohike, Ringo Langley, John Byers);
informants Deep Throat, X, Marita Covarrubias, Well-Manicured Man

Enemies: Cigarette-Smoking Man, the Conspiracy, Alex Krycek, Diana Fowley; Eugene Tooms, Robert Patrick Modell, Knowle Rohrer

Base of Operations: Basement of F.B.I. Headquarters, Washington D.C.

First Appearance: The X-Files (Fox, 10th September 1993)

History: The F.B.I. have had a long history of investigating more baffling crimes. But some crimes have stumped even them. In their files these cases were located under "U" for unsolved, but that soon filled up. So the unexplained cases were shifted, to be filed under "X", where there was plenty of space. And the X-Files soon became the dumping ground, not for the difficult but standard cases, but for the truly bizarre cases which no agent with a long-term career in mind would want to touch.

In the 1950's agent Arthur Dales became one of the first agents to try and tackle these X-Files. While he had some success, there were some cases the FBI and their masters didn't want solved, and Arthur eventually retired in obscurity. It wasn't until the 1990's that another agent decided to take a look. Agent Fox Mulder had been a successful profiler in the Serial Killer unit, until a case in 1989 had woken latent memories of an encounter with aliens as a child, aliens who had abducted his sister. Mulder took on the X-Files as a personal crusade, soon drawing unwanted attention from a powerful, hidden conspiracy which had been collaborating with a race of aliens for several decades, ever since the Roswell Crash. Seeking to discredit Mulder, Dana Scully, a field agent and medical doctor, was assigned to work with him, and to secretly evaluate the validity of his work - the conspirators hoped that the cynical scientific eye of Scully would decide Mulder was unhinged. Instead, she slowly came to realise and accept that Mulder was correct - the truth was out there.

Over the years many obstacles were placed in their way - both agents were at different points kidnapped and experimented on by aliens or the conspiracy. They learned the truth behind the conspiracy, who feigned collaboration while actually trying to learn how to fight the aliens, but only so they could rule the world instead. The duo was split up and other agents assigned to work with them on the X-Files. However each changing of the guard only led to an inevitable increase in the number of converts to Mulder's cause (except when the agent assigned was already in on the conspiracy, and a traitor to the FBI). Mulder managed to learn the fate of his missing sister, but gained a new goal: he has broken the conspiracy, but the true collaborators remain active, and the X-Files have been closed down. And in less than ten years, the full scale invasion is scheduled to begin...

Comments: Created by Chris Carter. The X-Files ran for nine seasons, plus two cinema movies. Another Chris Carter show, Millennium, starring Frank Black, was shown to be set in the same world when X-Files character Jose Chung turned up in the latter show, and the Lone Gunmen spun off into their own short-lived series.

Topps did a licensed comic which lasted for 41 issues, and two mini-series, Ground Zero (4 issues) and Season One (8 issues). In 2008 WildStorm released a new one-shot comic to tie in with the second movie, and in 2010 IDW and Wildstorm published a crossover comic, X-Files/30 Days of Night. IDW have begun publishing a new comic, X-Files Season 10, as of 2013.

There were also several novels: 11 Junior Novels adapting episodes; 16 Young Adult Novels, again adapting episodes; 2 movie novelisations (each movie novelisation was released under more than one title, so be careful if you decide to buy them that you don't buy the same one twice); and 6 original novels:

  1. Goblins

  2. Whirlwind

  3. Ground Zero

  4. Ruins

  5. Antibodies

  6. Skin

CLARIFICATIONS: None.

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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