Captain America #8-9 and 11-14* (2005-2006): Winter Soldier

*Note: Issue #10 is a House of M crossover and is not included in this post.

This is the big one.  The “bring back Bucky” story that could have gone horribly wrong but instead became the basis for a reinvention of one of Marvel’s oldest characters.

Captain America predated the 616 Universe, so appropriately this story begins during World War II, with the Russians hearing about his death.  What happened next unravels over the course of these issues, but you know the story: USSR captures Bucky and brainwashes him, programming him to be an assassin during the Cold War.  The retrieval scene is a parallel to the classic retrieval of Captain America from the frozen arctic

Bucky lost his arm in the crash that people believed had killed him, and has been cryogenically frozen between missions—so that he remained young.  Part of the details of this story are told via dossiers read by Steve Rogers, an interesting storytelling device that enables writer Ed Brubaker to provide a significant amount of exposition in this very, very complicated tale.

Present day, Nick Fury breaks the news to Cap that not only is Bucky alive but he’s working for the Soviet Union.  Cap refuses to accept the information at first.

Also, the leader of the Soviet forces, , Aleksander Lukin, has the Cosmic Cube and is working with Red Skull.

Meanwhile, Crossbones rescues Red Skull’s daughter from a containment facility.

Sharon Carter teams up with Steve Rogers to track down and capture Bucky, who recently murdered Sharon’s boyfriend—leading Cap to worry that she will kill Bucky for revenge and making for an uneasy alliance.  Others join with Steve along the way, including Falcon and Iron Man, as they pursue the Cosmic Cube and Bucky. 

The big finale has Cap and Winter Soldier facing off.

Cap weakens the brainwashing by appealing to Bucky’s heart, but that’s not quite enough. The next sequence is a little confusing. Winter Soldier takes the shot but…Misses? Not sure what happens here.

But it does force Bucky to drop the Cosmic Cube, which Cap uses Cube to undo Bucky’s brainwashing…

After remembering his true past and all the evil he’s been forced to do, Bucky snatches the Cube back and disappears. 

But of course he’s not dead.  He went back to the (now abandoned) camp where he first met Steve.

This short write up doesn’t do justice to the wonderful brilliance of this story.  It’s incredibly well done.

On the letters page, we find Bill Mumy, star of the old sci fi classic, “Lost in Space” and the TV series, “Babylon Five” (and also a member of both Shaun Cassidy and Rick Springfield’s touring bands!).

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