WINTER SOLDIER & BLACK WIDOW
Okay, finally, one that has nothing to do with Jason Aaron. Instead, this was Ed Brubaker’s swan song on Winter Soldier, probably fulfilling some Marvel mandate to free Black Widow up to date Movie Avengers and not be tied down to the weird half-cyborg assassin.
The story of James Buchanan Barnes and Natalia Alianova Romanova is a long and complicated one. Barnes was once Bucky, the teenage partner of Captain America during World War II, who was long thought dead in the same Baron Zemo-related tragic explosion that left Steve Rogers frozen for decades in suspended animation. Turns out, Bucky survived, and was found by the Russians, who proceeded to indoctrinate him into their Winter Soldier program. They brainwashed him into being a strategic killer for them, and then kept him on ice whenever they didn’t need him, as a way to prolong his life artificially. It seems those nasty Russkies did the same thing to young Natalia, training her in the infamous Red Room of their Black Widow Ops program, technologically prolonging her life as well as she became superspy Natasha Romanoff. Barnes was actually one of her trainers during that time, and the two had a thing.
Much later, Natasha defected and became and Avenger and a SHIELD agent, and much later still, the Winter Soldier emerged from stasis once again to kill both the Red skull and one of Cap’s former partners, Nomad. It’s not until Cap got control of a Cosmic Cube that he was able to break the Russian programming, and at long last, Bucky Barnes remembered who he really was. Not long after that, Steve Rogers was assassinated, forcing the long-delayed line of natural succession to kick in, and Bucky stepped up to become the new Captain America – and he and Natasha found themselves together once more – this time, free of brainwashing and free to be their true selves. And they were nuts about each other. Could anyone possibly understand either of them more than the other could?
Cripes, it’s like they were made for each other. Good luck living up to that, Hawkeye. You dick.
However, they are both assassins with extremely shady pasts, and it stands to reason that a shared ghost from that past would emerge to threaten their happiness. Leo Novokov, the deadliest part of the Winter Soldier program – a man Barnes had a hand in training – was traumatically re-activated without direction, and thus formed a rather virulent hatred for Barnes and devised a nasty plan to get back at him, especially now that Rogers was back and Barnes had faked his own demise during Fear Itself to go undercover and defuse the remaining WS operatives he could find. Novokov knew much about Barnes, and knew the only way to really get at him was through Natasha, whom he abducted and re-brainwashed back to her Red Room days. A frustrating, maddening hunt for her ensued, with Novokov outthinking Barnes at every turn – even fooling Barnes into thinking he’d won once, before yanking it all out from under him again. Finally, with the help of Cap and friends, he finally managed to beat Novokov and get Natasha back, but even in defeat, Leo claimed victory, as the only memory of hers they could not restore was that of her relationship with Barnes.
Thus, Bucky is left to soldier on with an intense heartache of a love lost, while Natasha is free to go on about Avengering without any of that angst weighing her down (although, admittedly, she has plenty of other angst to go around). Will she start hooking up with Hawkeye again and be kind of like the big movie? Where will Bucky go from here? Questions yet to be answered. However, Brubaker went out on a strong note, and the folks filling his shoes better have some big feet.
Dammit, Brubaker. Hell of a knife twist on your way out the door.
