2005 was sort of a year of coincidences for Marvel and DC, as both publishers elected to resurrect long lost sidekicks as violent, gun-toting figures to come back and haunt their former partners. For DC this was Jason Todd, who was resurrected as the Red Hood in the wake of Infinite Crisis. As for Marvel - who arguably had the more successful resurrection of the two - that figure ended up being Bucky Barnes, Captain America's long lost sidekick thought lost as World War II neared its climax.
Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting's run on Captain America proved to be highly influential as it progressed, but by far its most important arc revolved around Bucky's return. Together, the creative duo fashioned a new legacy for the character that revealed how Bucky had been recovered by the Soviet Union, brainwashed, and turned into an assassin.
It thusly falls to Steve Rogers to bring him back, with Bucky's turn being the catalyst that inspired the definitive image of the pair's enduring friendship.
While Bucky would eventually turn good again, his past as a brainwashed assassin has gone on to inspire dozens of fascinating stories, set both in the past and the present Marvel continuity.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
