Includes brief discussion of suicidal ideation.
In a new reveal, villainous organization known as the Outer Circle, replacing the former Revolution, Gavrilo Princip. Bucky has used the name while taking on some of Marvel's biggest villains, leading his Thunderbolts against the Red Skull and Doctor Doom. Now, he's making a change... and it's a terrible idea.
Full name James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes Jr., Bucky debuted in 1940 as the 'aw shucks' teen sidekick of Captain America. The 2000s retconned Bucky's role in this era as a combination of wartime propaganda and black ops - a child soldier who worked in the shadows, slitting throats while Captain America gave rousing speeches. He was later captured and brainwashed into a Soviet assassin, but has since become a hero - albeit one who has retained his lethal edge.
Like many heroes, Bucky's journey can be charted through the names he's used, going from 'Bucky' to the Winter Soldier to the new Captain America to the oft-forgotten 'Man on the Wall' to the Revolution (and even the White Wolf, over in the MCU.) That's why it's such a shame to see him moving backwards.
The name change confirms that Marvel's worst habit is alive and well.
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Bucky Barnes Is the Winter Soldier Again
Bucky Is Retiring His 'Revolution' Name Too Early
In a preview for The New Avengers #1 - from Sam Humphries, Ton Lima and Rain Beredo - Bucky makes with the Black Widow. As the two engage in pillow talk, Bucky mentions that he's no longer going by 'The Revolution,' stating that the name "belongs to everyone. It doesn't need me anymore. I'm just the Winter Soldier now." It's a quick reversion after a couple of years under another name, and one that comic fans aren't likely to celebrate.
That's for several reasons - because the Winter Soldier is a terrible ongoing name for Bucky (even though it's an undeniably cool title), because the Revolution represented his growth as a character, and because it reminds fans that one of Marvel's worst habits is alive and well.
Winter Soldier Is an Insult That Ruined Bucky's Life
Fans Love It, But It's Beyond Believability That Bucky Would Embrace It Again
Bucky returning to the Winter Soldier name is a wild decision, since it was a name that was forced on his during a traumatic period of his life. In the closing days of WWII, Bucky was seemingly blown up by Baron Zemo, losing his arm. In actuality, he was captured by the Russian state and sent to the Red Room - a torturous training program used to create living weapons. Bucky was repeatedly brainwashed and kept in stasis, only released to kill high-value targets and becoming a special ops legend in the process.
This is what it means to be the 'Winter Soldier' - a murderous legacy so traumatic that when Captain America used a Cosmic Cube to end Bucky's brainwashing, he considered killing himself over the guilt of the lives he's taken. As the Winter Soldier, Bucky was dehumanized, traumatized and used to kill countless innocents, his name becoming synonymous with merciless, cold-hearted death. Of course, there's an argument that Bucky might want to reclaim the name that was forced on him and change its meaning, however he's not the only one the Winter Soldier traumatized.
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Many people whose lives were ruined by the Winter Soldier are still alive. Characters as diverse as Wolverine and the villainous Electric Ghost lost loved ones to the Winter Soldier, and now have to see the name used in a heroic context. All of this could be solved by the right argument - the Marvel Universe is a world of fiction, after all - but Marvel has yet to provide an emotionally convincing reason why Bucky would return to the Winter Soldier as default - especially when doing so means abandoning an equally significant name...
The Revolution Is the Hero Name Bucky Has Earned
He JUST Got Done Explaining Why It's Great
In the pages of Collin Kelly, Jackson Lanzing and Carmen Carnero's Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty, Bucky and Steve Rogers uncovered the Outer Circle - an Illuminati-esque group who had been controlling world events for the last century. Bucky infiltrated the group and brought them down from the inside, then went on to form the Thunderbolts as a potent strikeforce providing permanent solutions to large-scale problems, including killing the Red Skull.
16 Strongest of the Thunderbolts in Marvel Lore, Ranked by Power Level
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In May 21's Thunderbolts: Doomstrike #5 (Kelly, Lanzing and Tommaso Bianchi), Bucky laid out exactly what the name 'Revolution' means to him, stating:
It's standing for one thing you know is right, when everyone else decides it's wrong. It's how principles survive. Fighting to keep them. Every day. You think I'm hiding from my time as the soldier. You're just telling on yourself. Revolution's not a name I took after I left the soldier behind. It's what I was the whole damn time. That's why I use the name. So other people know it's never too late.
For Bucky to all-but-instantly turn around and abandon the name makes no sense for the character, either in of his larger journey from sidekick to assassin to hero, or in his immediate headspace of what 'Revolution' means to him. It's near-inexplicable that Bucky would voluntarily return to the name he used when he killed innocent people's parents, children, siblings and lovers rather than a name which he explicitly believes inspires others to better themselves. Of course, worse than any in-world logic is what Bucky's codename reversion says to fans in the real world.
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Marvel Is Falling Into an Old, Bad Pattern
Marvel Is Making It Pointless for Fans to Check Out Bold New Ideas
While the Revolution was a good, meaningful codename for Bucky, the real problem isn't that Winter Soldier is worse - it's that Marvel places so little priority on continuity between creative teams. Bucky essentially only had the Revolution codename while being written by Kelly and Lanzing, with the arrival of a new creative team taking him back to where he started. It makes Bucky seem disconnected from his own story as he drops a name that meant so much to him one month ago, but it also denigrates past stories in the real world.
In this light, Kelly and Lanzing's compelling run with Bucky Barnes goes from an essential chapter in his story to that time he tried out a new identity that didn't stick. It would be one thing if there was a big, meaningful story about why Bucky went from the Revolution back to the Winter Soldier. Instead, apparently it never meant that much to him in the first place, whatever he said a month ago.
Marvel is sending the message that any deviation from the norm will be temporary and that growth will be ignored when the next creative team comes along, making it no surprise that readers aren't showing up for new titles...
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With decades of rich history, there is a lot to learn about both Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier, from his weaknesses to his various teammates.
This Problem Isn't Unique to the Winter Soldier
Making new series and creative runs new-reader-friendly is a creative and economic good, but Marvel's biggest selling point is its interconnected universe with characters whose stories stretch back decades. If each run instantly dismisses what just happened to the character, why should fans care about a shared universe or ongoing narratives? This problem plagues Marvel's modern comics - Bruce Banner and the Hulk spend 50 issues becoming a new, unified partnership, only for them to start their next series more at odds than ever. The Guardians of the Galaxy become the Avengers of space, only to start their next series as broken outlaws.
Bucky Barnes' Winter Soldier is effectively immune to character growth, and it's starting to feel like he knows it.
Marvel is continuously sending the message to fans that any deviation from the norm will be temporary and that growth will be ignored when the next creative team comes along, making it no surprise that readers aren't showing up for titles like Weapon X-Men and Avengers Inc, both reportedly canceled due to low initial readership.
The Winter Soldier codename is a great superhero name and one that fans have come to know - it's probably unavoidable that Bucky is stuck with it for good. But if that's the case, Marvel needs to write a satisfying arc where Bucky comes to that conclusion, or even just avoid making seemingly ambitious changes only to instantly about-turn on their consequences. Brick by brick, Marvel spent decades building a seemingly connected universe where characters' histories informed their newest adventures, encouraging fans to stay current and journey back over Marvel history for even more of the story. Today, Bucky Barnes' Winter Soldier is effectively immune to character growth, and it's starting to feel like even he knows it.
