Department of Truth #19 // Review
Lee Harvey Oswald is shaken. (At least...that’s what he tells Cole. The world still thinks that he’s dead...and he might as well be.) Lee’s having a conversation with Cole while watching a movie that doesn’t technically exist. It’s kind of a weird situation, but Cole has gotten used to it over the course of the past several months. Things aren’t likely to get any less surreal as the two men make it into The Department of Truth #19. Writer James Tynion IV continues to wind his way around the shadows of pop-cultural politics and the history of the 20th century in another issue brought to the page by the thick, atmospheric art of Martin Simmonds. The story might be beginning to feel a bit repetitious, but the repetition works in the favor of a story about the revision of reality in the rear view of history.
Lee Harvey Oswald sits in a darkened theater with Cole Turner. It’s not something that’s happening right now, but it might as well be. The film playing is old footage from the soundstage where they faked the moon landing...but only if enough people believe they faked the moon landing. It’s all a matter of sight lines and perspectives...stages and belief (and stages of belief.) Lee wants to know if he can trust Cole. Cole doesn’t know how to answer that. (He’s seen a hell of a lot over the course of the past 18 issues. He’ll see a hell of a lot more before the final panel of the 19th.)
While the surface tensions at Cole’s job continue to be echoes of plot elements that Tynion has been exploring since the beginning of the series, the author IS moving into new territory with tensions between Cole and his husband. The shadows moving around in the background come to the center of the panel in the 19th issue. Cole’s personal life jangles a bit as Tynion begins to focus on the plight of the people in the lives of those who look for truth in the shadows. Tynion seems to be on the right track looking into the emotional toll on everyone in the margins of the big lies that keep everything moving.
Simmonds once again finds ways of making casually conspiratorial conversation feel interesting visually. It’s not an easy task, as so much of the story that Tynion is delivering exists solely in the dialogue. The stained shadowy darkness of people discussing strange matters continues to feel stylishly fused to the page in an interesting way. Simmonds hasn’t always been able to do sharp things with the visuals, but the conversation between Cole’s husband and mysterious strangers at a bar seems to push things in a slightly different direction visually...and Simmonds makes it look visually appealing enough to keep the pages turning.
It’s an interesting angle, but Tynion is going to have to do something a bit more fresh and interesting soon if the series is to maintain the kind of appeal it’s managed to largely hold on to over the course of its first year-and-a-half or so. It’s interesting stuff, but it’s difficult to tell quite exactly where all of the pieces are moving as the story of the D o T continues to wind its way across the page. For the time being, Tynion and Simmonds continue to work in the rich atmosphere of a very appealingly paranoid mood.
