‘The Department of Truth #1’ (review)

Written by James Tynion IV 
Art by Martin Simmonds
Published by Image Comics

Maybe James Tynion IV should stick with writing horror comics. His independent book Something is Killing the Children is pretty damn good. Now, we have this title which is pretty damn good as well. This title has a great concept behind it that makes this issue intriguing from start to finish.

This book deals with conspiracy theories.

Things like the assassination of John F. Kennedy for example. In this book, those conspiracy theories are real. That’s right, these theories actually exist. It is a nice set up and a nice backdrop to stage this series in.

We see one of the most debates conspiracy theories talked about right on the first page of the book.

We then meet our main character Cole Turner.

He is an FBI investigator who is pretty set in his way. He is also about to have his entire worldview rocked to the core.

Cole comes across something that should not exist in his reality. Yet, this thing somehow does. I don’t want to give too much away, but it opens up a huge rabbit hole that Cole starts to go down.

There is also a huge twist at the end of the issue that made me want the next issue pretty much immediately.

The story is excellent. This may be Tynion’s best work.

The art is the real disappointment though. I am not a Martin Simmonds fan. He doesn’t have an appealing style of his own. It took me put of the story often.

Overall, though, this is an enjoyable book and much better than I was expecting.

RATING: B+