In a way, it evokes that beautiful shot from Ascension, the sense that Mulder is looking up into the endless voids of space as a way to avoid the problems that face him down here on his little world. It’s a haunting way to wrap up a sixteen-issue run, but the decision to close the story on a panel of outer space makes for a very effective conclusion.

Home of the Brave pushes this further, pitching the fantasy of one of desperate escape. Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space” closed on the idea that people look to the sky and the paranormal and the inexplicable to fill the emptiness at the centre of their own being. It’s a bold and daring conclusion to the run, one that feels like an even more cynical companion piece to Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space.” Petrucha has been broadly in synch with Darin Morgan’s cynicism towards The X-Files, although he is less likely to couch that cynicism in affectionate mockery. It is interesting to imagine how long Petrucha and Adlard could have continued their collaboration beyond this, but Home of the Brave makes a somewhat appropriate note upon which to end. It certainly marks the end of a very prolific and productive partnership, two collaborators who had done a lot to help the comic reach as broad an audience as possible – including an audience somewhat atypical of nineties comic books. However, in a very real and meaningful sense, Home of the Brave closes out Petrucha and Adlard’s work on The X-Files.

It would become something of a postscript to his work on the comic.

Stefan Petrucha had been collaborating with Jill Thompson on the graphic novel Afterflight difficulties with Ten Thirteen would push the publication of that graphic novel back into August 1997. Charles Adlard would continue to work on the series for a while, albeit in a somewhat reduced capacity – he would become one of a number of artists working on the book, instead of the sole illustrator.

Home of the brave review