Tales of Suspense #100

by Olivier Roth on December 21, 2017

Writer: Matthew Rosenberg

Artist: Travel Foreman

Color Artist: Rachelle Rosenberg

Published by: Marvel Comics

 

After nearly 50 years, Tales of Suspense is back, and who better to be the leads in this series than the Avenger’s not so great spy Hawkeye (he said it, not me) and the incredible super-spy, the Winter-Soldier, Bucky Barnes?

 

We start off this issue roughly three weeks after the events of the Marvel summer event Secret Empire as Hawkeye is looking into the recent string of murders of high level Hydra agents that took part in Steve Rogers’ takeover of America.The one thing these murders all have in common? They have the fingerprints of Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, all over them.

 

After some pretty sloppy field work by Hawkeye, he gets a lead that brings him to the made-up nation of Chernaya (the same Chernaya where a certain War Machine clad Punisher is also wreaking havoc in his solo-title). Once there, Hawkeye is immediately tailed - as one would be in a foreign nation in turmoil - but easily loses them after a crowd mysteriously appears where he needs to be. All this leads to him confronting the Hydra agent he met in the beginning of the issue - as well as a certain Winter Soldier.

 

For a first issue, or hundreth if you want to get into semantics, this was a lot of fun, but also indicative of Marvel’s longstanding issue with decompressed storytelling. What we get is good, but as I was trying to write up a recap, it was difficult to not include the whole plot - because the plot could easily be summarized in three sentences.

 

All in all though, I enjoyed the issue and enjoyed the premise of this new take of Tales of Suspense. Rosenberg does a great job at summarizing the events of Secret Empire that have led to this point as well introducing each character in a fun, aka filled way. My favorite part? The letters page at the end. Make sure not to miss it.

Our Score:

7/10

A Look Inside