Such characters were a useful invention for an array of reasons. To make it big, Cap would need something that was all the rage: a kid sidekick. But triumph in war was one thing triumph in the marketplace was another. He was intended to be an expression of national wish-fulfillment: In a time of American dread about the possibility of entering the morass in Europe, he would leap into the fray and clobber Hitler before the madman could threaten our shores. In 1941, three years after the first superhero comic was published, two pioneers of the nascent medium, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, were cooking up a new crime-fighter: Captain America. Ironically, Bucky’s creation three-quarters of a century ago was all about orthodoxy. The tale of Bucky and the comics story that changed him is one that shows superhero fiction’s unique power to play around with characters created far in the past, and demonstrates how gratifying - and profitable - it can be to come up with one little idea that takes a hard left turn away from orthodoxy. The Winter Soldier has resonated with people because his archetype is a heady brew of mental-health struggles, classic espionage tropes, America’s poor treatment of veterans, an attempt to reckon with the violence of superhero comics, and male bonding so powerful that it’s regularly read as homoerotic. Given that Civil War’s other stars are all characters that ossified soon after their own births, Bucky’s reinvention is no small feat. In a world where film has usurped comics as the medium of record for superhero fiction, Bucky’s reinterpretation has not only succeeded - it has become gospel. The story was a surprise hit, and this new vision of Bucky became the one seen in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and now Captain America: Civil War. Then, in 2004, he was brought back in a thrilling comics story line and given the nom de guerre “Winter Soldier.” The resurrected version of the character abandoned his boyish roots, instead taking on a tragic narrative cooked up by a tiny cabal of nervous creators and editors. First, he was killed off in 1964 and actually stayed dead - for four decades, at least. Since that time he’s undergone not one but two enormous changes, both of which fundamentally altered the Marvel universe’s status quo. Bucky Barnes, now known in print and onscreen as the Winter Soldier, was first introduced in 1941 as Captain America’s plucky teen sidekick. There’s an old saying in the comics industry, often attributed to former Marvel chief Stan Lee: Readers don’t want change they only want the illusion of change.īut one character, by his very existence, reveals the folly of that mind-set. Bruce Wayne was replaced as Batman in 2008, only to take up the cape and cowl again in a few years. Superman may have “died” in 1992, but he soared up from the grave within a few months. Spider-Man is always wise-cracking and angst-filled Peter Parker, Wolverine is always a grizzled brawler with a tragic past, and so on. A character gets introduced, a little bit of tweaking might occur in early stories, and once it’s a hit, it gets frozen in amber. Superheroes are generally a static bunch.
We are republishing it on the occasion of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ’s premiere on Disney+. This piece originally ran in May of 2016 when Captain America: Civil War hit theaters.
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