Bucky
Encyclopedia : B : BU : BUC : Bucky
- For other uses, see Bucky (disambiguation)}}}.
History
Origin and World War II
Barnes (named after James Buchanan, the 15th President of the United States) was an orphan, the son of a soldier killed in training at Camp Lehigh just before the United States' entry into World War II. As a result, he was unofficially adopted by the camp as a mascot. Nicknamed "Bucky", he took to wearing a uniform and becoming savvy with the ins and outs of military life even though he was a teenager. It was at Lehigh that he met and befriended Private Steven Rogers, who by all appearances was the clumsiest soldier in the camp. This was at the same time that reports of the then-mysterious Captain America began to appear in news magazines, and Barnes eagerly devoured the accounts of this new hero.One night, however, he looked into Rogers's tent and saw that his friend was changing into the uniform of Captain America. Barnes made a deal to keep the secret of Rogers' dual identity if he could become his sidekick. Rogers agreed, and trained Barnes appropriately. Together, Captain America and Bucky fought Nazis both at home and abroad, as a duo and as part of the superhero team known as the Invaders. Barnes also teamed up with the sidekicks of other heroes in a group called the Young Allies. Additionally, Bucky was retconned in 1976 as the organizer of the flashback World War II superteam the Liberty Legion, set between the formations of the Invaders and the post-war All-Winners Squad.
In the closing days of World War II in 1945, Captain America and Bucky tried to stop the villainous Baron Zemo from destroying an experimental drone plane. Zemo launched the plane with an armed explosive device on it, with Rogers and Barnes in hot pursuit. They reached the plane just before it took off. Bucky unsuccessfully tried to defuse the bomb, and it exploded in mid-air. The young man was apparently killed, and Rogers was hurled into the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. Rogers' body, preserved in suspended animation in a block of ice, would only be found decades later by The Avengers (The Avengers #4, March 1964).
Legacy
Late-WWII and post-war Bucky
Fearing that the deaths of Captain America and Bucky, if revealed, would be a blow to morale, President Truman asked William Naslund, the hero known as the Spirit of '76 (a member of the Crusaders), to assume the identity of Captain America. Assisting him was Fred Davis, a former bat-boy for the New York Yankees, who had posed as Bucky in 1942. The new Captain America and Bucky finished the rest of the war and continued to fight crime with the All-Winners Squad. Naslund was killed in 1946 fighting the android Adam II, and Captain America's identity passed to Jeff Mace, the Patriot (What If #4, August 1977).Davis assisted Mace until 1948, when he was shot and wounded, forcing him to retire and leaving him with a permanent limp. In 1951, Davis joined the V-Battalion, a secret organization that hunted war criminals, and eventually became one of its leaders on the Penance Council. He served the V-Battalion in both a leadership role in the Penance Council, and as an engineer. (Captain America Comics #66, 1948; Citizen V and the V-Battalion #1-#4, 2001).
1950s Bucky
In 1953, an orphan named Jack Monroe, who idolized Captain America and Bucky, discovered that his history teacher also had a similar passion, to the extent of undergoing plastic surgery to make him look like Steve Rogers and assuming his name as well. In addition, "Rogers" had discovered, in some old Nazi files stored in a warehouse in Germany, the lost formula for the Super-Soldier serum that had given Captain America his abilities. The two used the serum and began to fight Communists as Captain America and Bucky (Young Men #24, Dec. 1953).Unfortunately, "Rogers" and Monroe were unaware of the stabilizing "Vita-Ray" process used on the original Captain America. As a result, despite their bodies being enhanced to peak human efficiency, they slowly grew paranoid and dangerously insane. By the middle of 1954 they were irrationally attacking anyone they perceived to be a Communist. In 1955 the Federal Bureau of Investigation managed to hunt them down and placed them in suspended animation. The 1950s Captain America and Bucky would be revived years later after the return of Steve Rogers, going on another rampage, and would be defeated by the man they had modeled themselves after (Captain America #153, September 1972).
Nomad
Monroe was eventually cured of his insanity and took up the superhero identity of Nomad, an identity that Rogers himself had once taken, even teaming up with the original Captain America on a number of occasions. At one point during his solo career, Monroe was injured severely enough to need to be placed in stasis once again. He was revived and brainwashed by Henry Peter Gyrich (who was in turn being manipulated by Baron Strucker). Monroe was then forced to become the new Scourge of the Underworld and sent to kill the reformed supervillain team known as the Thunderbolts. Monroe eventually broke free of the conditioning, helped the Thunderbolts to defeat Gyrich, and then disappeared (Thunderbolts #35-#50, 1999-2001). When last seen, he had been shot by the Winter Soldier and dumped in the trunk of a car (Captain America Vol. 5, #3, April 2005).
Rick Jones
For a brief time after Rogers awakened in the modern age, perennial Marvel sidekick Rick Jones also donned the Bucky costume in an attempt to make himself Captain America's partner. However, Rogers was still wracked with guilt over the original Bucky's death, and refused to make this a permanent arrangement although Jones was insistent that Rogers should finally put the tragedy behind him.Others
When the role of Captain America was taken over by John Walker, he formed the Bold Urban Commandos (BUCkies) as a backup team. Walker's main partner was African-American Lemar Hoskins, who used the name "Bucky" until he realized the racist connotations of the alias when applied to him. Other persons who have used the Bucky alias include an unnamed baby that Nomad looked after for a period and Rikki Barnes, who was from the alternate Earth created by Franklin Richards in the wake of the Onslaught incident. Rikki Barnes is still a member of the Young Allies on Counter-Earth. In the Young Avengers, team leader Patriot wears a Bucky costume.Winter Soldier
In 2005 issues of Captain America, series writer Ed Brubaker returned Bucky from his seeming death near the end of World War II. He additionally revealed that Barnes' official status as Captain America's sidekick was a cover-up. In reality, Barnes began as a 16-year-old operative trained to do things regular soldiers and the 20- to 21-year-old Captain America normally would not do, such as conduct covert assassinations. The night before the infamous incident with Zemo, the villain and his troops tortured Barnes while Captain America was forced to watch. During the drone-plane explosion that had apparently killed Barnes, the young man's arm was pinned to the plane — at odds with Captain America's memory of Bucky choosing to stay with the drone and attempt to defuse it. This is presented as a rationale for the Winter Soldier's biomechanical arm.
According to the file on the Winter Soldier, after the plane exploded, a cold-preserved body (minus an arm) was found by General Vasily Karpov and the crew of a Russian patrol sub. The recovered young man was revived in Moscow, though as a result of the explosion, he suffered brain damage and amnesia.
Programmed to be a Soviet assassin, he was given the code name the Winter Soldier and sent on covert missions through the years, becoming increasingly ruthless and efficient as he killed in the name of the state. The Winter Soldier's only sign of reluctance was in America in the 1970s; after killing his target, he suffered a breakdown and went missing for days.
The Winter Soldier was kept in stasis when not on missions, and as a result has aged only a few years since the closing days of World War II.
In the present day, the Winter Soldier caught the attention of Captain America when the Soldier killed the Red Skull and Jack Monroe (Nomad) under orders from former Soviet general Alexander Lukin (Karpov's former protege). The Soldier's objectives were to retrieve the Cosmic Cube for Lukin and to play mind games with Captain America. He followed both orders, launching a terrorist attack on Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The attack killed hundreds of people, charged the Cosmic Cube, and gave Captain America his first visual of the Winter Soldier.
The Winter Soldier kidnapped Sharon Carter, and when Captain America rescued her, she told him she caught a glimpse of the Soldier and that he looked like Bucky. Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. confirmed the Winter Soldier's existence, but could not ascertain his identity.
When Lukin grew paranoid over the power of the Cosmic Cube, the Winter Soldier was ordered to bury the Cube in an underground facility in West Virginia. With help from Iron Man and the Falcon, Captain America tracked down both the Soldier and the Cube and prepared for a confrontation.
Upon making it to the facility, Captain America fought the Winter Soldier, but urgently tried to make him remember his past as Bucky. Eventually, Captain America was able to gain the Cosmic Cube and told him to "remember who you are". Regaining all his memories, the Soldier became overcome with guilt over his actions, took back the Cosmic Cube, and teleported himself to his and Steve Rogers' old Army base, where he broke down and cried.
After the concluding issue was released, Brubaker confirmed in an interview that he intended no loophole involving Captain America using the Cosmic Cube to restore the Winter Soldier's memories.
- Newsarama: But playing devil’s advocate — asking the Cosmic Cube to help you is very "monkey's paw" at best ... the Winter Soldier could have been, in reality, someone named Comrade Pitor Nikoli, created just to demoralize Cap, but with him wishing it to be so with the Cube, couldn't Cap just have willed the Winter Soldier to be Bucky, and so he was?
- Brubaker: That wasn't how I looked at it. Look at what he said — "Remember who you are". He didn't say, "Become who I think you are". Or, "Be Bucky". It was very straightforward. Which is more the tragedy, since Bucky immediately has this immense guilt for everything he did as the Winter Soldier. [link]
In issue #18, the Winter Soldier is seen in London, knocking out a mugger who stole a woman's purse, and reading a newspaper that mentions the arrival of Lukin in one week. Captain America later says he's convinced The Winter Soldier is out to kill Lukin.
Powers and abilities
The original Bucky Barnes was trained by Captain America in hand-to-hand fighting techniques as well as being skilled in the use of military weapons such as firearms and grenades. He also used throwing knives on occasion and was a gifted advance scout.As the Winter Soldier, Barnes has superhuman strength and reaction time in his cybernetic left arm. In issue #16, he used the arm to take down a spider machine that was terrorizing Pilsburg, Iowa.
Of the various Buckys, only Monroe and Hoskins had augmented strength and reflexes. Fred Davis, Rick Jones and Rikki Barnes were merely highly skilled in acrobatic fighting techniques. The baby Bucky obviously had no training.
Alternate Continuity
In the Marvel MAX series U.S. War Machine, Bucky was serving in the present as Captain America, as the Captain had died in his stead in World War II. Bucky was accompanied here by two assistants, Hawkeye and Falcon, neither wearing a costume and both addressed by their real names.In the Ultimate Marvel universe, Captain America had a sidekick, Bucky Barnes. This Bucky was a childhood friend of Steve Rogers who accompanied him on his missions as an Army press photographer. Surviving the war and believing Rogers had died during his last mission, Bucky eventually married Rogers's fiancée Gail. Barnes and Gail both lived long enough to see Rogers's revival in the 21st century and renewed their friendship with him.
For the 2005 What If? event, the Captain America story featured Steve Rogers's commanding officer, Major Buchanan, who the men called "Bucky". His mercenary tendencies led to Roger's desertion, and when he later intervened in Roger's transformation into Captain America, his face was destroyed, turning him into an undead being known as the White Skull.
Notability
Bucky used to be notable as one of the few comic book deaths that stuck. A frequent aphorism among comic book fans, known as the Bucky Clause, was that "No one in comics stays dead except Bucky, Jason Todd, and Uncle Ben." Ironically, both Bucky and Todd have recently been brought back to life in their respective universes.Bucky's death has also been used to explain why the Marvel Universe has very few kid sidekicks, as no responsible hero wanted to endanger a minor in similar fashion. Stan Lee also harboured a well-known dislike for boy sidekicks in general. So, it could be posited that when Captain America was revived in the Silver Age, Stan Lee chose not to bring back Bucky.
Roger Stern and John Byrne also considered bringing Bucky back, before deciding against it.[link]
During Peter David's run of The Incredible Hulk, he created a group of immortals called the Pantheon. Their leader, Agamemnon, was supposed to be Bucky.
References
- [Newsarama: Bucky Barnes, Badass]
- [Newsarama: "Did He, or Didn't He? Ed Brubaker on Captain America #6"]
- [Newsarama: "SPOILER SPORT: Ed Brubaker on the Winter Solider"] and Captain America #14
- [Pretty Fakes: "The Trouble With Bucky"]. Article on what some perceive as problems with the Winter Soldier plotline.
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