Cue ominous "he's ba-ack."

Following a second issue which will see the return (at least in flashback) of The Lone Gunmen, IDW Publishing's The X-Files: Season Ten comic book series will bring back the Cigarette-Smoking Man in August's #3.

"All is not what it seems… but that doesn’t mean it isn’t much, much more than that," said series writer Joe Harris on his personal blog.

The anonymous villain, who served as the central antagonist for most of the series and who may or may not be the father of series lead Fox Mulder, is an iconic part of the show's mythology and would have been hard to miss without completely alienating the fan base. Still, the rest of the issue shows that it's more than that: they're not hesitating to mine the history of the series for IDW's next chapter.

Check out the solicitation text below.