The thing about being obsessed with someone or something is that you can’t run out of things to say about the thing. Your mind is constantly turning the subject over and finding new angles. From time to time, this is actually beneficial.
I was going to write a longer post and go more in-depth about the upcoming DisneyPlus series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. The thing was, the draft came to about thirteen typed pages. At least forty-five percent of it was me going off about Endgame and my fears for the upcoming series. This new version is eight pages, but I hope it’s more readable.
Bucky Barnes has already been featured in two blog posts of mine this year already. But, in honor of Sebastian Stan’s birthday (Aug. 13), and the upcoming series, I want to say a little bit more. To reiterate, I don’t even know if I will be able to subscribe to DisneyPlus to watch the series properly. I have a little over a year to figure that out.
For now, I do have thoughts about Bucky’s character and where he goes in the future. And instead of going off about every instance that Bucky has been shortchanged in the MCU to date, as well as little thing that could go wrong in Falcon & Winter Soldier, I want to tone down the angst and focus on my hopes. (I swear this will be my last Marvel post for the year—but I can’t promise this will be the last time I mention Bucky.)
Steve Rogers says Goodbye
As far as we know, Bucky Barnes is not and cannot be forgiven for the blasphemous crime of murdering (while brainwashed) Tony Stark’s parents. If anything, Bucky went to the funeral to mourn the loss of any (unrealistic) hope of forgiveness for at least one of his crimes.
If Bucky looks “sad” when he says goodbye to Steve, I am thinking, in-universe, that the moment was kind of like saying goodbye to your best friend at their wedding: they’re starting on a different path in life, and chances are you won’t be part of it anymore. Even if they are still around, it won’t be the same.
Here are some of my conclusions about Steve and Bucky in the MCU:
- Steve’s main goal for Bucky was to make sure he could be safe and happy.
- Bucky’s life goal post-Hydra was not to “end up” with Steve, but to find his own identity and have a peaceful life.
- Steve and Bucky could probably have never had the same level or quality of a relationship like what they had before.
All three of those statements contradict the fantasies of thousands, but they’re based on what little explicit evidence I have from watching the films, or the lack of anything that could mean otherwise. I’m not saying that Steve didn’t privately hope that he and Bucky could get an apartment together or something to that end. However, between Steve leading the Avengers and Bucky needing to heal on his own, it wasn’t practical for them to be reunited before Age of Ultron or Civil War. After SHIELD fell, Steve felt it was important to take out the remnants of Hydra, and Bucky didn’t want to be found, so Steve figured it would be worth the wait. Steve still put Bucky’s needs before his own.
Yes, it was sad that Bucky voluntarily went on cryo at the end of Civil War. The thing is, true love—in any form—means being willing to let the other person go. It is as true for Steve and Bucky as it was for Maria Rambeau and Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel earlier this year.
Steve did save Bucky from Hydra, and he’s been supportive of Bucky since then, so I think Bucky hugged him goodbye in gratitude for that. Not to mention, in a world full of people that hate Bucky, Steve still loves him. “Bittersweet” is the best word to describe it. That is the most positive spin I can give that scene.
I like that they had that goodbye—I just HATE where Steve ended up.
If Marvel went to such great lengths in all three Captain America films to show that Sam and Bucky really meant a lot to Steve Rogers, then they deserved better closure than Cap leaving them to be with someone who already died, only to return when he’s old enough to die himself and leave them forever. It makes no sense—unless, to them, Sam was a useless supporting character and Bucky was a plot device. That’s my two cents.
I think the Russos and also Markus & McFeely actually did care about Steve and Bucky’s relationship in earlier films, but for Endgame they cared more about giving Steve and Peggy their dance when there was no point in doing so except fan service.
Also, fun fact, in the original promo material for Endgame, Bucky was teased as the person that Steve was “avenging.”
Exhibit A: Who of the fallen were we supposed to pair Steve with? Aside from Sam?
Exhibit B: (second from right)
I’m going to pretend that Steve wasn’t going back in time to Peggy. Just going away for some “me time” but still in the present. They’ll talk again soon.
A Lone White Wolf
The ending of what should have been a film about the other Avengers was a forced setup for Falcon & Winter Soldier. We know that Sam and Bucky hated each other’s guts in Civil War, they did have a brief moment together in Infinity War, but beyond that we have zero context for their relationship. Why were they standing together at the funeral? Apart from Steve standing beside the other surviving original Avengers (but still by himself), it makes no sense.
Unless someone at Marvel read my fanfic about Sam and Bucky and a few others going to Arizona after Civil War (if they did I wish they’d tell me) and guessing they would have become better friends in that arc, then the only thing on Marvel’s mind is teasing future products—and also keeping them away from Steve to make him going back in time to Peggy more realistic. The truth is, I AM bitter. The only kind way to put it is that I am concerned about how carelessly things were set up in Endgame.
Sam being left behind with Bucky AND the shield feels forced in the sense that Sam and Buck just barely returned from the Snap and there hadn’t been anything (in the MCU) to build up to sell Sam getting the shield when I saw Endgame in theaters. If it had been done differently, I could have taken it better.
The one contradiction? Probably a deleted sequence in the Civil War airport fight where the shield gets passed between Sam, Bucky, and Steve.
It is too soon for the fans to say that Sam will be “looking after” Bucky now that Steve is “gone.” Considering Bucky’s history before the Snap it makes more sense that Bucky would go straight back to Wakanda. It will be interesting to see how and why Bucky and Sam end up working together in Falcon & Winter Soldier.
However, I take issue with fans who say that Bucky is “happy” in Wakanda, or who claim that the only thing Bucky wants or needs for the rest of his life is to hang out on his farm in Wakanda and eat plums. It’s not just annoying to me, it is an insult to who I think Bucky is and who he can become.
(Not to mention, I am irritated that people think that plums are the only thing Bucky loves when he only was shown shopping for them once in Civil War. ONCE.)
It’s just that to me, Bucky staying in Wakanda for the rest of his life is just him staying in a place that amounts to a dead end for him.
There is a good argument to be made that he is better off in Wakanda than he was on the run or would have been if he’d gone with Steve after Civil War—and I agree with that. And like I said, where else does he really have to go after Endgame if he’s still an international criminal?
So what happens to Bucky at the end of whatever adventure he and Sam go on for their mini-series? Steve is gone, all of the family and friends he left in Brooklyn when he went to war are dead. If Sam is Captain America, will he be able to hold on to whatever relationship he and Bucky form in Falcon & Winter Soldier? CAN Bucky follow him wherever he goes the way he once followed Steve? Will he even want to?
To a point, it would really be a disappointment if the series ends and Bucky is still a wanted terrorist. Or if Bucky does get vindicated but decides it doesn’t matter, and he goes back to Wakanda because the only place he ‘belongs’ is in a country where he is a stranger that came from an enemy people. In my mind, neither outcome amounts to character progression. Do you see what I mean by a ‘dead end’?
All things considered, the Wakandans treated Bucky well. However, you can argue that Bucky wasn’t living his best life there. In the comics, the White Wolf is an actual white person adopted by the Wakandan royal family. Yet in the MCU Bucky is living on a farm on the edge of an isolated country that is barely opening up to the outside world and most likely still suspicious of outsiders. I have a feeling that he may have chosen that voluntarily That’s just what we’ve seen so far. Doesn’t mean things could be different down the road.
(Not gonna lie: ‘white wolf’ is a pretty dope codename and it fits Bucky way too well. I was so excited after seeing the post-credit scene in Black Panther that I ordered a wolf necklace from Etsy).
The thing about Bucky being in Wakanda is that we don’t know how long he was on cryo after Civil War, or how long he was on the farm before Thanos came knocking. We don’t know exactly what he was doing there besides manual labor, or how close he really was to T’challa and Shuri. There is evidence that Marvel is hiding extra Bucky scenes set in Wakanda that could give more context. Falcon & Winter Soldier will give us more answers on this matter—or at least I expect that it will.
Also, it’s interesting that Bucky didn’t have his metal arm replaced right after waking up. Farming with just one arm must not have been easy even for someone of his strength. It could have taken Shuri some time to design the new arm, or it may have been rushed as soon as she learned that the Avengers were coming and bringing an army of alien invaders on their heels.
Just because Bucky is impressed with Wakanda’s advanced technology doesn’t mean that he wants to stay there forever, so don’t read too much into the “I love this place” line. And just because Bucky was at least somewhat happy there doesn’t mean he can’t find happiness in another location.
On giving the matter some more reflection, maybe Bucky being the White Wolf protector of Wakanda and friend of the king would not be so bad—it might be cool, in a way. I could be cool with it…as long as he’s not a full-time goat farmer.
I think it is unlikely, however, that Bucky will appear in future Black Panther films as the White Wolf. Director Ryan Coogler comes across as someone who would want to keep the focus on the Wakandan characters, and he should.
Above all, Bucky needs to follow his own path.
To Cap or Not To Cap
I am going to be honest and tell you that I was initially surprised and kind of disappointed that Bucky didn’t get the shield. It seemed for a number of reasons that that was the direction that Marvel was going—and that’s where we need to admit that we may have read too much into Bucky picking up the shield at least once in each of the Captain America films. However, I’ve put some thought into why it happened that way, and I’ve come to agree that it was for the best. Bucky is not in a good place to be Captain America.
Hot take: the shield shouldn’t have been passed in Endgame at all. It was too soon for either Sam or Bucky. It could have waited until the end of Falcon & Winter Soldier. However, I feel that it was appropriate to close that part of Steve’s arc in the MCU, since it was Chris Evans’ final time playing the character.
Captain America’s shield is not a “trophy” for being a great person or being Steve Rogers’ best friend. It is not Mjolnir. Being Captain America is a serious responsibility, and not one that should be transferred lightly. Sebastian Stan described it at a convention he visited as a burden that it wouldn’t have benefited Bucky to carry.
Bucky may never fully recover from the seventy years he was the Winter Soldier. Not counting the “Blip”, Bucky has only had around four to five years to start healing. If he is still trying to find himself, then don’t force him to take on something so difficult, or something that will have to make him re-define himself again. Sam is understandably a better candidate because he doesn’t have Bucky’s criminal record or traumatic history, and people are more likely to trust him as Cap. I get that.
The most persuasive argument for Bucky not being Cap is that if I were in Bucky’s place, I would not accept the shield if it was offered to me right now.
A Skilled Survivor
I haven’t read the comics and I don’t know much about what Bucky has been up to in that medium. And the cinematic universe has proven multiple times that it isn’t directly following events in the comics. So if you ask me, where his character goes in the series and possibly after is up in the air. The real question is, what is going to make him happy? What can he do to help himself be better off? And what will his future be?
Consider the following: emotional and other non-physical needs aside, Bucky Barnes is not a helpless waif. People like to think he is, but that is not the case. Hydra didn’t pick an idiot to be the Winter Soldier in the first place. And Hydra didn’t just train him to kill: they trained him to not get caught killing people or be found while leaving the scene of the crime. He was credited with over twenty-four assassinations by the time S.H.I.E.L.D. fell—that’s just the ones Natasha knew about. He was a “ghost story” for a reason.
After he ditched Hydra, Bucky was in hiding for two years and no one found him until Zemo flushed him out—not Sam, not Steve, not S.H.I.E.L.D., not even the police or other intelligence organizations. He smuggled himself through several countries to get to Eastern Europe.
When Steve caught up with Bucky in Romania, Bucky had his own apartment, he had furniture and cooking utensils and food. This tells me that Bucky may have been doing odd jobs for people, anonymously, to earn money to support himself. He could at least cook his own meals and do his own laundry. And he had extra money to buy notebooks to write down his memories—if he didn’t dig them out of the garbage.
(I wonder who reported to the authorities that Bucky was in Romania? Was there a neighbor who didn’t like him who thought he looked like the man accused of the UN bombing? Someone he had a quarrel with? Or was it an anonymous bystander that recognized him as a wanted man?)
The point of that little tangent is, Bucky Barnes is a capable and self-sufficient person, he doesn’t need other people to take care of him. Having his legal status cleared would be great but he could strike out on his own again if he wanted and I think he’d be just fine.
Bucky the Brave
Those of you who have been following me as a blogger for the last few years know that I adore Bucky Barnes. But let me tell you in more detail why. I’ve told you about his goodness—now let me tell you about his courage.
I have already spoken of this but let me reiterate it from a different angle: after years of having his own free will taken away, Bucky made a choice to be human again. He chose to not be the monster that Hydra turned him into. He focused on figuring out his past and his identity. He wasn’t a hero who went out to fight bad guys or rescue other people—but he did save himself. He did it to keep other people safe. And against incredible odds. Self-preservation is its own victory.
In the words of the late and great Thomas S. Monson, “Courage becomes a living and an attractive virtue when it is regarded not only as a willingness to die manfully, but also as a determination to live decently (emphasis added).”
Leaving Hydra took a toll on Bucky. In addition to being at risk due to his programming, Bucky dealt with so much emotional and psychological baggage from his seventy years as the Winter Soldier: guilt, sadnes, PTSD, nightmares. Fear of harming others, or being recaptured by Hydra. The pressure of pretending that he was a normal person when he was anything but, not to mention hiding the metal arm that showed everyone what he was. Even after just two years, he was tired and overwhelmed from having to carry it all every single day.
Fans know all this from watching him in Captain America: Civil War, and from educated guesses about how he would pick up his life after leaving Hydra. Sebastian Stan, of course, has shared his approach to the character on a number of occasions, and given the fans plenty to chew on.
There is something to be said for Bucky wanting a peaceful life away from the psychological and emotional horrors of his existence. One of the things that has drawn me to Bucky over the years was the fact that I identified myself with his emotional struggles. So what I am going to say next does not make those struggles invalid:
Bucky is more than his pain and his weakness. He doesn’t need to let them weigh him down. He is more than wanting to get away from it all. He CAN be.
Deep down, Bucky Barnes is one of the strongest characters in the MCU.
Sometimes I think about or read commentary on the fight on the train in Captain America: The First Avenger, the last fight before Bucky fell. Bucky had already been captured by Hydra once. He had every right to go home and not be in the war anymore. But he chose to stay in Europe at Steve’s side and take out Hydra. Getting on that train to capture Zola must not have been easy for him, considering that Zola experimented on him.
You could argue that Bucky has been an Avenger all along.
During the fight, Steve and Bucky are separated, and Bucky is terrified because he knows there is a strong likelihood that he will not survive, but he keeps on fighting until he can’t shoot back. Steve gets to him, then the Hydra soldier with the double blasters appears and blows a hole in the train car. Steve loses his shield—and then Bucky picks it up. He shoots back at their attacker while holding the shield. In that moment he has so much fear but also so much courage, it shines through even in movie stills—then Bucky gets blasted aside, and he falls off the train into hell.
Another scene that I’ve thought about recently is the part in Captain America: Civil War when Tony is trying to kill him. As Bucky attempts to escape, Steve is fighting Tony, and his shield gets knocked away. Bucky sees the shield lying on the ground. He has a moment where he’s just looking at it.
And then he picks it up and uses it to attack Iron Man and he helps Steve in the fight. Then Bucky goes for the arc reactor in Tony’s suit…and his metal arm gets blasted off.
Up until this point in the movie, Bucky was trying to get away. He’s been a victim absolutely struggling with immense guilt. Bucky didn’t ask for the authorities to come looking for him or for Steve to try and save him, or the Avengers to start that brawl at the airport over him. He was terrified to go back to the place where Hydra had kept him prisoner.
But in that moment at that bunker in Siberia, he saw Steve fighting to protect him. This fight was his fault. Bucky saw the shield, and he realized that had a chance to save Steve from possibly getting killed. He had a chance, he thought, of doing something good for once and changing the outcome. He chose to go to Steve’s side at his moment of need.
So, here we have two moments where Bucky picks up the shield in moments of desperate courage, only to pay a horrible price. You can’t blame Bucky for not wanting to be Cap because bad things happen when he even touches the shield. And I can’t blame people for thinking that he never wants to fight another battle for as long as he lives.
But people forget that Bucky Barnes is a person of great courage, in spite of everything horrible he’s been through. It has been proven in both him choosing to fight in moments of need, as well as in him choosing every day after he left Hydra to not be the Winter Soldier. And even before then, in his youth in Brooklyn, Bucky stood beside the scrawny, unpopular Steve Rogers when no one else would.
Bucky kind of reminds me of Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter series: he’s a “loser,” in a sense, but he has this quiet courage that sometimes comes roaring awake. Yes, I do headcanon Bucky as Gryffindor.
I find a pure heart with that much courage insanely attractive. And it would be criminal if Marvel neglected or even wrote out those sides of Bucky in Falcon & Winter Soldier. I don’t want him to be a ruthless killer, violent as his means may be when he gets around to stopping bad guys. That inner courage and goodness needs to be what guides him.
Call me a heartless monster, but I want to see Bucky fight. I want to see Bucky get over being a victim and take an active role in the battle of good versus evil—that is the bare minimum of the destiny that I think he deserves.
I want him to progress past the stage of needing to hide and become someone who actually confronts his demons.
I want him to be able to accept himself and to realize that he is a good person and that he does deserve love and happiness in his life.
I want people in MCU!Earth to realize that they were wrong about the Winter Soldier, and to see that James Buchanan Barnes is a good person.
And I want Bucky to WIN his literal and spiritual battles. No more getting kicked in the face. No more getting cut down. This time I want him to walk away with his head held high. If he still gets called the Winter Soldier, then I want to see him change the title from that of a villain to a hero, once and for all.
If you are wondering that if these wants that I have for my favorite Avenger are based on the desires I have for myself, or on a cultural background that asks people to become more than what they are, then you are absolutely right. Objectively speaking, though, why shouldn’t Bucky get the chance to show what he’s really made of?
Heart and Soul
And then there’s the Bucky that I have come to know from writing fanfiction. He is a really wonderful person. He’s shy and reclusive around strangers, but warm and open around people he trusts. In my stories he makes some new friends, and once he’s gotten to know them he will risk everything for them. He’s occasionally a dork, but he’s also very sweet, and he knows when to be gentle. He loves deeply, both as a friend and as a lover. He appreciates little things like hoodies, porch swings, bagels, homemade pizza, orange juice, not having to sleep on the ground, hot showers, vodka, coffee, and video games with friends (well, maybe not Call of Duty). In the earlier stories, Bucky was kind of a jerk about reconnecting with Steve—in one installment Steve got THIS close to finding Bucky and Bucky ran away—but that was just because he was scared.
Most importantly, the Bucky that I know wants people to accept him for who he is, and not judge him just for being Steve’s old friend or the Winter Soldier.
Bucky hasn’t actually had time in the MCU to let that kind of personality show, but it’s something to hope for. From what I’ve heard, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is going to be six episodes long, and I guess that each episode will be at least an hour. So there will be plenty of time to show a softer side to Bucky.
You want me to be honest? Some of the stuff in my fanfiction is so real to me that I forget that other people don’t see the MCU the way I do, or that the events in my fanfiction didn’t really happen (in spite of some chilling coincidences). It genuinely confuses me when people say that Bucky’s character hasn’t been developed in the MCU, since I have developed him on my own–and not to mention Sebastian Stan has brought so much to the character with even so little screentime and so much disadvantage. To a point he may not be “developed”, but he is a complex character.
The most important thing is that between action scenes I want Bucky to have time on screen continuing to heal and move forward with his life. Some outward changes may need to happen, like getting his name legally cleared, for instance, but inwardly there is also some growth that needs to happen before he finds what he wants for himself.
Here is what Sebastian Stan said at a convention right after Endgame:
“I think it’s time for Bucky to go out there and have an identity outside of the circumstances that we’ve met him through … So, I don’t know, he might do all kinds of things. He might even go on a date. I don’t know. Scary world out there, you know? Apps, things like that. I don’t know what he’s gonna do. I can’t see him on an iPhone…I think it’s gonna be a lot of dealing with Anthony’s character and Anthony himself which is always another character.” (via The Mary Sue)
Bucky picked up the shield at least once in each of the Captain America movies, in The First Avenger and Civil War it was done while fighting at Cap’s side. One thing I have realized recently is, in a sense, Bucky doesn’t need to be Cap because he is Bucky. He is the hero who fights at Captain America’s side, not a sidekick but an equal and an ally. He uses the shield when he fights with Steve because that’s how they work, and Steve has shared it with the other Avengers in team maneuvers (also Black Widow had a bout with it in Age of Ultron…).
The problem with that line of thinking is that Sam Wilson as Falcon technically filled the same role, so that makes the notion of Sam being Cap just more…absurd.
I am still open to the possibility of Bucky being Captain America at some point, after he’s had some more time to heal. I want it to be a good thing for him. And the more people say that they don’t want or need him to be Cap, the more I want it to happen just to prove them wrong. It’s not about him being Cap just for the sake of ‘it happened in the comics,’ it’s about Bucky moving beyond being the Winter Soldier, and maybe even moving upward.
However, let me be clear that I do not want that to happen if it means that Sam gets injured or killed or it looks like Sam was “weakened” in any way to put Bucky in that situation.
It has always been too easy for me to think that Bucky Barnes is meant for some glorious, heroic destiny, and some of those thoughts were based on just the sheer scale of what he overcomes. If being Cap isn’t it, Marvel better have something just as good or better planned for him.
Have another hot take: I don’t want Sam to be the one to beat Zemo. I want Bucky to do it. Zemo was the last in a long line of evil people to abuse Bucky and it’s time Bucky was the one serving the just desserts. What I gathered from Endgame, though, is that Marvel Studios doesn’t believe in letting characters with trauma get justice. Or lasting happiness. The best we can hope for is that Bucky at least gets in a few punches.
If you take away nothing else from this blog post then remember this: if this is the Falcon and Winter Soldier show then it needs to be about both of them. It shouldn’t be completely about Bucky. It doesn’t need to be completely about Sam either. I do expect great things from Sam Wilson stepping into the role of Captain America (and the good news is Anthony Mackie is taking that transition seriously); however, for me there is a lot more riding on Bucky, both in terms of potential good things happening to him and potential risks of Marvel flushing him down a toilet. I would absolutely hate it if Bucky was weakened in any way to prop up Sam as Cap. It would also be unfair if the reverse were true. The point is, it is time for Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes to both shine. If this means Sam gets the shield, then fine, but the last thing that Bucky needs is to be left behind…again.
The Apprentice Chronicles 
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