Comic Book Resources has a news item about the ” Death of Captain America ” storyline featuring an interview with writer Ed Brubaker, and while this is already old news, what I find interesting in this interview is Brubaker’s take on The Winter Soldier aka Bucky Barnes.
The following is a small piece of the interview…
“With the Winter Soldier, Cap wanted to save him and bring him back to who he used to be so he used the Cosmic Cube to give him his memories back. Bucky then crushed the Cosmic Cube and disappeared,” Brubaker continued. “Cap wants him to accept who he is and try and save himself but because Bucky’s got his memories of everything he did as the Winter Soldier he’s this really tortured on edge character; a sort of modern twist on the classic Marvel character. That’s why I think the Winter Soldier works as a way to bring Bucky back. If he was to team up with Cap and immediately go fight crime and got over everything I think it would be wrong. He’s a conflicted, weird, modern Marvel character that fits right into the Marvel U.”
I highlighted the last part in the above excerpt, to show the writers take on Bucky, and to just say that for myself, I see Bucky quite differently.
First, I don’t think Bucky is conflicted , but rather confused as to his place in the Marvel Universe.
There is no real difference between the two terms. In my mind, it is just semantics between the two words…at least for my use here.
But, I use the term confused, because in my perception of Bucky, he has to deal with the realization that after so many years of living a lie, remembering who he was again, after a botched attempt to murder Cap, and thru Cap’s repeated contact and never say die attitude when it came to getting thru to his friend…Bucky Barnes finds himself alone, without his friend, in a world he is still not familiar with…and working with ( supposedly anyway ) the unseen Nick Fury.
Bucky is still looked upon as the mysterious Winter Soldier by most of the Marvel Universe.
Witness Sam Wilson’s ( the Falcon, for the un-informed ) reaction to the Winter Soldier’s presence in the same room where a sniper, just moments earlier had shot his friend Captain America.
I am also pretty sure that Bucky never really took a stance in the ” Civil War ” that just ended, and maybe, just maybe… he was a little confused about Cap’s position in the conflict. I mean, Cap always stood for everything great about America.
This had to be a confusing situation for Bucky to try to deal with also.
The end result, for me anyway, is a confused Bucky Barnes, still considered the Winter Soldier, confused about the feelings he has to deal with, and finding himself still living in the immense shadow of a living legend, some thirty years after his own supposed death.
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