It’s increasingly hard to write fiction centered on conspiracies these days. I swear to Christ, they used to be fun. Back in the ’90s it was a blast to watch “Spooky” Fox Mulder pontificate on the secret masters of the world, alien infiltration, government cover ups, UFOs, reptoids, and lord knows what else. In these hyper-connected times, though, when malevolent misinformation can spread around the globe in a nanosecond and thousands of like-minded loons can act in worrying concert, ol’ Spooky is a sinister figure. We know what unchecked conspiratorial woolgathering gets us: unhinged dudes marching into pizza joints with AR-15s. Maybe that’s why the X-Files reboot sucked.
But now here comes writer James Tynion IV (A ton of Batman)and artist Martin Simmonds (Dying is Easy) to take this particular bull by the horns. The Department of Truth is ambitious, provocative, and gutsy, spinning a conspiratorial narrative that is right-up-to-the-second in tune with todays dynamic, fractious, and increasingly tribal culture of fake news and different truths.
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