THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH #4: Victims of the Truth

This comic continues to deal in exceptionally relevant topics as Tynion brings in conspiracy ideas from every decade going back to the sixties in this issue touching on current things like Jeffrey Epstein, Trump, QAnon, and weaving it together with past presidential administrations from Obama back to the Bushes, Clinton’s and even touches on Kennedy’s. Again the thing that makes this comic so shockingly powerful is how it touches on real-life events and shapes them into something far darker through a fictional lens. This isn’t new as Tynion has managed this successfully every issue so far but it’s the fact that he makes the narrative so incredibly compelling using these ideas every time which leads to a point toward the end of this chapter and a shocking conclusion.

This issue is really, despite all the very interesting storytelling Tynion lays out in front of us, about one simple thing. It’s a test for the main character. Our protagonist Cole has so far been not much more than a newbie participant dragged into this world by events in previous chapters but the end of this issue sees him placed in a position by Lee who is his superior that forces him to make a very hard decision that commits him to the Department of Truth through an act of violence that demonstrates the level that this organization will go to protect the prevailing truth and clearly signals that the Department Of Truth is not anywhere near being some sort of benevolent organization protecting society at large but rather one that will do ANYTHING it has to including taking on innocent collateral damage to protect its secret existence. It’s the first time that Tynion raises the idea of just how moral and ethical the organization is and it adds the extra element of doubt as you realize that there really are no “good guys” here as the lines blur which up until this point hasn’t really been examined.

Simmonds is on top form again with brilliant distorted walls of video camera backgrounds and dark backrooms punctuated by splashes of hot red and yellow across the pages of the issue in a blended mix of real-life recognizable imagery and made up fictional imagery that rivets you to every single page. Just a note there are multiple double splashes here that are exceptionally powerful when seen as whole images but lose some of their impact when split apart as they are in the review copy, this may also happen with digital copies which is worth noting. I really think having a physical copy of this issue in hand when reading it would add to the experience.

Regarding the lettering, the idea of the shape of the speech bubbles not fitting the bubbles themselves is a brilliant way of subtly showing that there is a disparity in what is being said and what is being meant in my opinion and it’s worth noting that Bidikar as a letterer has done a superb job as the on the series so far. Once again the cover is an assault on the subconscious and then later the conscious when you tie it back to things in the issue.