5 Marvel Resurrections Done Right And 5 That Sucked
2. Bucky Barnes
For decades, Bucky Barnes, Captain Americas sidekick and best buddy during World War II, was as dead as it gets in comics. His death in an airplane explosion that Cap only managed to survive by being frozen in ice, would go on to haunt Captain America for the entirety of his time in the modern Marvel Universe. Through the eyes of Cap, various creative teams would go on to give us Bucky-centric flashback stories and hallucinations. But Bucky was dead. Dead like Uncle Ben. And then the creative team of Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting went ahead and did it: they resurrected Bucky as part of the 2005-2006 Captain America arc, The Winter Soldier. Considering how previous generations of comic book creators wouldnt touch a Bucky resurrection arc with a 10-foot-pole, how did Brubaker and Epting manage to generate such a successful story from this idea? For one, they brought him back in a way that was totally logical: readers learned that, like Cap, Buckys body was frozen when his plane exploded during World War II. His body missing an arm is discovered shortly after World War II by Russian scientists and they revive him. Bucky has amnesia, so after attaching a bionic arm, the Russians brainwash him into thinking he is a KGB assassin. Bucky is only rolled out for high priority missions and is cryogenically frozen in-between. As a result, he has only aged a few years over the past 50 and the Winter Soldier nickname is born. The storyline is a master class in pacing and suspense, courtesy of Brubaker and Epting. Throughout the arc, it becomes more and more clear to everyone but Captain America that this mysterious KGB assassin dubbed The Winter Soldier is really Bucky. Caps allies dont have the nerve to tell him the truth about his former best friend. Then, after Bucky leads a terrorist attack in Philadelphia, Cap is forced to confront his old ally. The two fight to a standstill but, via the power of the Cosmic Cube, Cap is able to convince Bucky to look within himself and find his inner good. Bucky disappears afterwards, but returns in a major way when he takes on the mantel of Captain America after Cap is killed during Civil War.
Mark is a professional writer living in Brooklyn and is the founder of the Chasing Amazing Blog, which documents his quest to collect every issue of Amazing Spider-Man, and the Superior Spider-Talk podcast. He also pens the "Gimmick or Good?" column at Comics Should Be Good blog.
