Department of Truth #33 // Review
Frank’s coming home. She’s got groceries un her arms. Her mother is planted in front of the television, but she can smell the cigarettes on her daughter. There’s a little bit that Frank has to tell her mom about, but she doesn’t want to be specific about it. She’s got an arm full of groceries and she’s hunting a man in a hat. It’s all going to happen before anyone has a chance to do anything about it in Department of Truth #33. Writer James Tynion IV marks a big turning point in his series. The story is brought to page and panel by artist Letizia Cadonici and colorist Jordie Bellaire.
Frank calls her best friend and asks him about dosage. Exactly how much Robatussin is it going to take to be able to see this demonic hat figure? He lets her know, but she’s already dosed. Five bottles. Natural he is really upset with her. No one in the right mind would drink that much. Of course, she's overcome with grief, and she really needs to find some way of dealing with it. And if she can confront that thing, then maybe she has a chance.
Tynion does a remarkable job of delivering the whole new story that has a kind of media that goes well beyond the dagger, supernatural conspiracy that animate so much of the rest of the series. It's a remarkably sharp or fantasy premise that dives really deeply into the nature of the female lead. And she comes across as a very powerful character. Fearless and at the same time, totally vulnerable. It's really appealing stuff that moves across the page quite quickly. And it finds a whole new dynamic for the series. Just as the series was starting to fall through a bit and feel kind of repetitious and he found a way to place something new.
Cadonici does a very sharp job of making sure that everything fits on the page. The real challenge is with Frank herself. She's a very compelling hero, but part of what makes her so compelling is the fact that she's not in any way heroic. She doesn't look mesomorphic. She doesn't look particularly haunted either. Just exhausted. Exhausted and truly uniquely herself. The artist finds the power and the heroism in that exhaustion. And that's kind of hard to do. She's aided in this with some very impressive and moody coloring by one of the best artists in the business. Bellaire does a brilliant job of rendering mood and resonance in a small suburb in the middle of the night.
Thankfully, Tynion has apparently decided to make Frank a part of the DOT for reasons which feel relatively obvious. As she is clearly one of the more interesting characters to grace the pages of the series, allowing her to become a member of the ensemble does a lot of interesting things to the overall dynamic of the series. Really breathing a lot of new life into it. It's nice to know that Tynion has a solid idea of how this series is going to progress. It’s one of the more exciting developments in the series since it started a couple of years back.
