The Department of Truth #32 // Review
There is a kind of stillness about the Myers house. Shadows and darkness and silence dominate the home. Frank is there looking to investigate the disappearance of her friend Bobbie. Her brother is lost in a video game. Her mother just worked two night shifts in a row. Everything is a bit hazy. Frank will learn a little bit more about why in The Department of Truth #32. Writer James Tynion IV continues to breathe fresh life into the series with a whole new character in the second part of a story drawn to the page by Letizia Cadonici. Color comes to the page courtesy of Jordie Bellaire.
Frank asks for Bobbie’s laptop. Makes-up some story about school and an assignment, but it’s not like she has to. Her mother scarcely notices given her overall mental state. The laptop is easy enough for Frank to get into. What she’s going to find there is going to be a bit of a challenge for her to understand. There’s something about “The Big Idea.” that she’s going to need to investigate. It sounds crazy. It sounds like something out of horror science fiction or a creepypasta or something. Frank needs to investigate it, though.
Once again, Frank comes across as a really, really interesting character. There’s the overall feeling that Tynion just might be carving out an origin story for a new lead character in the series. It would be really appealing if it did as Frank is remarkably appealing. A young hacker looking for the truth would be a remarkably cool fit for a dark horror series about government manipulations of the truth on an existential level. Given her juxtaposition against the agents in the story line, she seems to be getting guided into the center of it, which is exciting.
Cadonici has a deft mastery of still, silent moments. Colorist Jordie Bellaire lends mood to the moments in an issue that carves a great deal of intensity from the page in spite of the fact that there’s almost no physical action in the story at all. Cadonici maintains a remarkably stylish gravity on the page that serves as an appealing visual stage for the more abstract verbally-driven elements of the story’s central conflict. Cadonici also pans around the perspective of the drama with an appealing sense of progression. Rather than focus the drama entirely on the faces of the people talking, there’s a willingness to frame shots in ways that lend extra weight to the moodiness of the script.
In addition to developing the story of an appealing character, Tynion is working with matters at the heart of the deeper implications resting at the center of the entire premise for the series. As the initial survey in urban legends and popular conspiracy theories begins to draw to a close, it’s clear that Tynion has an idea of precisely where to go next with the series. It’s reassuring that nothing seems to be drawing to a close with the Department just yet.
