I miss The X-Files, I really do. So, with news on the horizon of an upcoming second film based on the long-defunct TV series, perhaps it's time to give the comic-book series from Checker Publishing a look.

I wish I hadn't.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the book is out there. Some fans will probably love it, if for no other reason than it continues the paranormal adventures of FBI agents Mulder and Scully. But the stories here are simplistic, resolved far too quickly, and in most cases Mulder guesses the solution mere moments into the story.

He figures out that an antique camera is stealing souls on the lone clue that there was a camera in the room. He correctly deduces that a man is killing people while comatose by conjuring a tulpa (a Tibetan ghost image) simply because the suspect once taught a class on Eastern mysticism. He expects to find a kanashibari (Hawaiian choking ghost) at the heart of a Hawaiian murder-mystery and Bigfoot at the root of a disappearance in Washington, and he does.

It makes you wonder why Mulder even bothers to leave his office. Couldn't he just phone in his deductions without all those pesky travel expenses?

Art is pretty bad, too, to the point you wonder if the artists even knew who David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were when they drew these.

This isn't the clever and imaginative X-Files I remember. To make this series work, Checker needs to find a writer and artist who loves the series as much as I do.