The Department of Truth #16

From Image Comics' compelling conspiracy series comes issue #16 of The Department of Truth, with a cover by Martin Simmonds that stops you cold — four figures rendered in stark grayscale, their faces contorted in anguish or ecstasy, as an eruption of psychedelic color swirls and stars bursts from their heads in vivid contrast. The juxtaposition of monochrome humanity against that riot of rainbow chaos perfectly captures the series' central tension between grounded reality and mind-bending unreality. With James Tynion IV writing, Alison Sampson on interior art, and Jordie Bellaire's colors inside, "Deviation 5: Free Love" looks like another unsettling, visually arresting chapter in one of 2022's most thought-provoking ongoing series.