The Department of Truth explores the nature of conspiracy theories and the occult, updating elements of Vertigo’s The Invisibles for the 21st Century.
Image’s The Department of Truth is a profoundly harrowing exploration of the occult, paranormal phenomena and the real-world consequences of online conspiracies. Created by writer James Tynion IV and artist Martin Simmons, the Eisner-nominated comic is one of the most politically relevant comics on the stands, even if its’ filled with stories about aliens and the Satanic Panic.
In the ’90s, many of those same ideas were explored through one of the era’s most subversive classics, Grant Morrison, Steve Yeowell, Jill Thompson, Phil Jimenez, Sean Phillips and Chris Weston’s Vertigo classic The Invisibles.
Both comics explore supernatural subjects ranging from ceremonial magic to UFOs, while each is ultimately a political story of espionage and intrigue. That said, DoT has incorporated these themes in a unique way that speaks to the experiences and paranoias of today.
First and foremost, The Department of Truth is interested in conspiracy theories. In its first issue, its protagonist, FBI agent Cole Turner, infiltrates a flat earth conference. The group’s Koch-esque billionaire funders approach Cole and welcome him. They show him a film that reveals the moon landing was faked, then fly him to Antarctica so he can personally see proof that the Earth really is flat. Suddenly, a woman appears and guns down everyone except Cole. She takes him back to Washington, DC. While an extremely confused Cole expects to be killed, he is recruited to join a different government agency, the Department of Truth.
The Department is run by none other than Lee Harvey Oswald, whose death was apparently faked following the Kennedy Assassination. Lee explains to Cole that reality can be altered by enough humans believing in something. While the world is and always has been round, the rise of online flat earth conspiracies led to enough people believing otherwise that the shape of the earth had actually begun to change. The Department works to preserve objective reality. However, a shady organization is funding the spread of wild conspiracies.
The first story concerns Cole beginning his work with the agency. He is partnered with the woman from Antarctica, Ruby. They investigate and confront a wide array of conspiracy theories, ranging from the belief that school shooting victims are crisis actors to tales of shapeshifting reptilians. As the story progresses, weirder phenomena like UFO sightings and the history of occult magic become central to the story, while Cole is driven by his childhood traumas from the Satanic Panic of the ’80s. On top of this, Cole and others regularly point out the bigoted assumptions behind these conspiracies, whether dealing with the racism of birtherism or antisemitic tropes being reskinned into beliefs about reptilians.
By crafting a story about investigating supernatural political events and making all wild conspiracies into something supernatural, DoT is echoing the technique that Grant Morrison used in The Invisibles, a comic about a cell of freedom fighters who use chaos magic to fight the fascist entities preying on society. Stories within The Invisibles address such as disparate topics as corporations exploiting the drug epidemic, weaponizing memes in pop culture and a shamanistic journey through the works of Marquis de Sade. The Invisibles and The Department of Truth have notable differences, but they are structured similarly in their approach to a breadth of topics.
Both follow characters dedicated to a nebulous cause who undertake a wide variety of different missions against supernatural/political enemies. Because these stories can address a wide swath of issues from the distant past and present and effectively serve as vectors for the creators to communicate their own personal philosophies on politics, history, magic and religion. The biggest difference between the two is that Morrison is more interested in showcasing countercultures that push back against the predations of “the establishment,” while Tynion tries to explore the nature of that establishment through the eyes of FBI agent Cole Turner, a man who is simultaneously an insider and an outsider within the Department. The 21st Century’s conspiracy-fueled climate has blurred the divisions between insiders and outsiders, between fact and fiction. By exploring the truth behind popular falsehoods, The Department of Truth helps clarify the very nature of objective reality that The Invisibles questioned.
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