Department of Truth #28 // Review
1972. There’s a kid...a young man sitting more or less alone in a movie theater. He’s not wearing any shoes. He’s wearing a baseball cap and smoking. Not exactly the most inconspicuous place to meet with someone in a suit and tie who is with some shadowy organization, but the kid might have earned a chance to take things on his own terms in Department of Truth #28. Writer James Tynion IV continues an intermittently captivating serial with artist Martin Simmonds and letterer Aditya Bidikar. Tynion begins to tie a few things into the story from the edges of contemporary headlines. It’s interesting stuff.
The kid doesn’t have any social security number. No records of any kind or anything like that. Kind of difficult to keep control of someone like that, but then...there wouldn’t be a whole lot of paperwork to do if the guy had to disappear. Meanwhile, Matt is looking to possibly tell his story to a journalist. Maybe he’d get the story out and maybe the world would be better for it, but it’s difficult to tell. Elsewhere a man in a tinfoil hat is being consulted about the lights in the sky above various places on the east coast.
Tynion enough momentum with the series to be able to occasionally tie in aspects of contemporary culture that might fit in with everything else. Politics in Washington DC are happening a little bit too quickly for him to be able to tie into a serial like this. However, there's quite a lot going on in and around the edges of everything. And it was inevitable that there would be a serious question of exactly what woul journalists were able to tell what was going on with the department. It'll be interesting to see where this heads in future issues. Overall, Tyion continues to manage a fun drama between shadowy characters speaking in the strange poetry of government conspiracy.
Simmonds once again channels some very interesting energy with respect to the artwork. The script allows the artist plenty of room for developing the right kind of mood as characters speak to each other. The atmosphere is absolutely essential in making sure that everything rules along in a way that will be able to grab the reader properly. It's really difficult to maintain visual appeal in a bunch of dialogues like this. Simmons does a really good job of developing the atmosphere on the page with hazy shadows and faces glancing around into the shadows. One wouldn't think that it would work this far into the series. But it still has a quite an appeal and quite a poll moving forward. Bidikar’s lettering is also really impressive. The overall expression and drama comes across and very crisp lettering that has quite range between narration and text messages and shadowy conversations.
It's not just the visuals. It's not just the repeated conversations between shadowy people and Chataway places. It's the whole thing. It all should be a hell of a lot more repetitious and tedious than it is. Tynion, Simmonds and Bidikar have done a remarkable job of keeping it fresh and interesting even as everything continues to spiral into a constant repetition as the series approaches its 30th issue.
