Bucky Barnes in the MCU vs. 616
Jun. 15th, 2022 07:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
loran_arameriNo best friends since childhood and no angst about who goes to war and who doesn’t. They’ve both already been on missions when they meet.
As pointed out in the facts post, Bucky at that time is sixteen and an orphan. Steve is twenty. There is an age difference between them that is either three or four years. (I would assume it to be four years, but it’s not explicitly stated.) Their dynamic in Brubaker’s run isn’t quite that hero and kid-sidekick thing from golden age comics, but their ages do play a role in their friendship.
They’re on much more equal footing due to their age in current comics though, and that is reflected in their friendship.
So, no one had experimented on Bucky prior to finding him after the accident. It was a chance encounter. They made use of his amnesia but did not suppress his memories.
There is a mental reimplementation procedure that makes him controllable and loyal. No control words, though. (See facts post)
Karpov seems to be in charge of everything that happens to him until he dies in 1988. After the end of the USSR, the Winter Soldier gets into the hands of Lukin (as was Karpov’s will) and is not part of an official organization.
The closest there is to Pierce from the movie is Lukin in his role as the person who controls the Winter Soldier and uses him for his evil purposes. He also has a public persona as the CEO of a global corporation and uses the power of that role to make himself untouchable. He’s not in any way as charismatic as Pierce is, and it’s very obvious that he’s a shady figure for anyone who cares to look.
He is not the quiet asset that we see in the MCU. He’s a very skilled assassin, competent in various forms of fighting, but he’s more autonomous. He seems more like an actual agent on the outside than the tightly controlled MCU Winter Soldier. It’s not easy to see that there has been any mental manipulation outside of the breaks he experiences. He’s also surprisingly snarky for a brainwashed assassin.
So good actually that Karpov thought he’d also received some version of the super soldier serum when he saw him fight during that joint mission. That’s why he brought him back to Russia after finding him in the Channel. There the doctors found that he never received the serum.
(Later in the comics he does receive something called the infinity formula that does change his body to some degree. So enhancement or no depends on the point in canon.)
Bucky’s reaction to Steve appealing to him to remember his old life is murder.
There are some signs that Bucky does remember something in the Winter Soldier Project files that Steve reads at one point as well as in his confrontation with Steve, and there is exactly one panel where we see him hesitating for a moment before trying to shoot Steve. Apart from that, there is no second-guessing when it comes to killing Steve. He does try several times, and even Sharon is not convinced that Steve won’t just stand there like an idiot appealing to Bucky’s memories while getting shot.
Whatever memories are there seem to not be available to him on a conscious level though, rather they seem to cause agony that he can’t place and is unable to resolve. For instance, he couldn’t explain why he went to New York when he disappeared, and he shakes off the short moment of not wanting to shoot Steve without external influence.
We do get the “Who the hell is Bucky?” moment, and it’s sooooo good.
While searching and rescuing survivors, Steve encounters an AIM unit and fights them. One of their androids manages to stab him, giving another one an opening to shoot Steve in the back. It gets shot down by the Winter Soldier, and it comes to the scene above.
(Technically Bucky saved Steve, but there is some plausible deniability as a) the Winter Soldier has been acting against AIM for the whole run and b) Lukin told him that Steve was not supposed to die that day, so he wasn’t going rogue. It’s a very pleasant bit of ambiguity there.)
Afterward, Steve manages to convince himself that he was mistaken as he has had hallucinations for some time now, and they usually involved Bucky, and also the reality seems too terrifying to accept. Only Sharon’s and Fury’s insistence that it was Bucky and further proof they have gathered lead to him accepting what he saw.
The Bucky described here is based on what we learn from the Brubaker run (which started in 2005 and ended in 2009, covering Bucky’s return, as well as Civil War and Secret Invasion). Bucky had 63 years of comic history before that (of which he was dead 40 years) and 13 years since then. He has been written by many different people who all bring their own ideas and interpretations to the table. Also, the expectations of readers and authors towards characters have changed through the decades.
So any of the points above might be different in different runs. Retcons are a thing. People might prefer the kid sidekick from the golden age comics because it was the characterization that was referenced for forty years, and it’s what they grew up with.
So take all this with a grain of salt, and if you’re really interested in what is going on with Bucky in the comics, start reading. It’s fun (and you will have soooo much more canon to lose your mind over.)
If you have any questions, please comment or reach out to me by other means. I love to talk comics.
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Date: 2022-08-10 03:24 am (UTC)This is fascinating. It's strange to see that comics!Winter Soldier didn't receive a serum during his time as a villain, while comics!Black Widow did - the opposite of the MCU. The amnesia differences are interesting, too.