The U.S. Government holds a very secretive department that only happens to be responsible for the nature of what is and isn’t real. At present: being run by man the world thinks is dead. The story of how he got to be where he is, gets a bit of light cast on it by writer/co-creator James Tynion IV and new artist Elsa Charretier in the sixth issue of The Department of Truth. The sudden lurching in a completely different direction with the art accompanies a story set in the ancient past of Tynion’s world. It’s not as compelling as previous chapters, but it does provide a bit of backstory that further expands the world that’s being explored. 

Lee Harvey Oswald was shot, but he wasn’t exactly killed. His apparent death was caught on T.V. He should know: he was watching it at the time. The man he was watching it with explained to Lee that he was one of the most recognizable people in the world at the time. His death needed to be seen on T.V. to be believable. The man shows Lee a book detailing a story of 1,000 A.D. when a holy man visited an old woman and found out a little bit about the world.

The strength of Tynion’s concept to this point has come from the fact that it’s been illustrating a shadowy world in the margins of the mass media and popular consciousness. Pulling the narrative into the 1960s and then 1,000 A.D. is going to rob it of its greatest power. There’s no getting around that. Though an issue immersed in backstory and pre-existing conflict is doubtlessly the weakest in the series thus far, it’s kind of enjoyable to see the deep background of the serial woven into the present with some fun, little revelations. 

Charretier’s art is moody and gloopy, with careful attention to all the detail that isn’t actually being presented. The style is not without its appeal, but it is such a traumatically jarring contrast to the dazzling darkness that Martin Simmonds has been conjuring for the page to this point. What’s more: much of the story in issue #6 comes in a dramatic exchange between a holy man and an old woman that really needs more of a sense of subtlety and suspicion that Charretier is bringing to the page. It’s good art; it’s just not perfectly matched with the story.

As poor a fit as Chartier’s work seems it’s not actually bad. And if there’s going to be an issue that isn’t rendered by Simmonds, it really NEEDS to be an issue that isn’t set in the same time and space as the rest of the series has been thus far. Tynion and company have done a fairly good job of lowering a less-than-satisfying issue into an otherwise breathtaking series that’s been rolling along with a lot of appeal to this point. With this brief, little flashback finished, it will be interesting to see where things go in the future.

Grade: C+