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(PART
TWO)
continued
from part one
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Following the
discovery by Bucky Barnes (a.k.a.
the Winter Soldier) and Natasha
Romanova (a.k.a. the Black Widow)
that a number of elite Soviet
killers from the KGB's
"Project Zephyr", kept
in stasis tubes for decades and
basically forgotten about, have
been released, the two SHIELD
black ops agents neutralize the
threat and prevent the Latverian
nuclear missile launch codes from
falling into the wrong hands.
The irony is
that these KGB killers were once
trained by none other than the
Winter Soldier, at a time when he
was still under control of his
KGB handlers. When Bucky and
Natasha find out that the third
stasis tube killer, Leo Novokov,
is still at large, things thus
not only start to go nastily
wrong, but they also take on a
decidedly personal touch as
Nabokov kills former Bucky
stand-in Fred Davis in order to
throw down the gauntlet and flush
the Winter Soldier out into the
open, ready for a final
confrontation with Barnes whom
Nabokov considers a traitor to
what used to be their common
cause.
Right off the
bat in Winter Soldier
#1, the Winter Soldier and the
Black Widow were shown as being a
team both on the job and in
private - for good reason.
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“One of the
reasons I thought [Black Widow] and Bucky made sense
together was that they both have that brainwashed
aspect, and I also thought it was a clever way to
integrate her preexisting continuity as the femme
fatale/fake ballerina. I really wanted to touch on
that stuff. (...) This was a place where I knew the
second and third arcs would end up being more about
Black Widow because she’s somebody Bucky cares
about. And if you read my ‘Daredevil’ run,
you know that basically anything Matt Murdock cared
about was ripped from his hands. I only have one
speed, and it’s ‘Destroy’!” (Ed Brubaker in Phegley,
2012)
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WINTER
SOLDIER #6
(August 2012)
"Broken Arrow" (Prologue)
20 pages
Story - Ed Brubaker
Art - Michael Lark
Inks - Stefano
Gaudiano,
Brian Thies
Colours - Bettie Breitweiser
Cover - Steve Epting
On-sale date: 2012-06-06
Copies sold: 30,800
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WINTER
SOLDIER #7
(August 2012)
"Broken Arrow" (pt 1)
20 pages
Story - Ed Brubaker
Art - Michael Lark
Inks - Stefano
Gaudiano,
Brian Thies
Colours - Bettie Breitweiser
Cover - Steve Epting
On-sale date: 2012-06-20
Copies sold: 29,300
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WINTER
SOLDIER #8
(September 2012)
"Broken Arrow" (pt 2)
20 pages
Story - Ed Brubaker
Art - Michael Lark
Inks - Stefano
Gaudiano,
Brian Thies
Colours - Bettie Breitweiser, Mitch Breitweiser
Cover - Steve Epting
On-sale date: 2012-07-25
Copies sold: 27,800
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WINTER
SOLDIER #9
(October 2012)
"Broken Arrow" (pt 3)
20 pages
Story - Ed Brubaker
Art - Michael Lark
Inks - Stefano
Gaudiano,
Brian Thies
Colours - Bettie Breitweiser
Cover - Steve Epting
On-sale date: 2012-08-29
Copies sold: 26,255
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| Brubaker's reference to his
outstanding and critically acclaimed streak on Daredevil
between 2006 and 2009 also makes sense because artist
Michael Lark - who worked with Brubaker on that DD run -
did the pencils for the second arc (issues #6 through
#9). Lark started out
in the comic book business in 1990, pencilling and inking
various titles for Caliber Press, before putting in his
first work for DC's Vertigo line in 1995 for Shade
#56. The following year he started pencilling and inking
the highly acclaimed Terminal City (1996-1999)
whilst also providing the artwork for other titles, e.g.
several issues of Sandman Mystery Theatre in
1998. His first work for the general line of DC Comics
was published in May 1999 in All-Star Comics #1,
but more importantly the same month saw publication of
Vertigo's Scene of the the Crime #1 which
featured the first joint effort of Ed Brubaker and
Michael Lark.
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"I [Ed
Brubaker] pitched a bunch of things to [editor
Shelley Roeberg (now Bond)] for a while, and nothing
stuck.Then I pitched Scene of the Crime to her,
thinking it was so un-Vertigo that she’d just
give up on me, and [Vertigo Executive Editor] Karen
Berger approved it the next day (...) Through Shelly,
I got hooked up with Michael Lark (...) [DC Executive
Editor] Mike Carlin had been reading the flats of
Scene of the Crime when they were coming in because
he was a fan of Michael’s - my whole career is
based on editors being fans of artists that I’ve
worked with. So Mike Carlin came to me and said 'Why
don’t you try and write something for the
DCU?'” (Ed Brubaker in Sims, 2014)
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| As Brubaker moved into the
DCU writing Batman, so did Lark, by way of Legends of
the Hawkman (2000) and Batman: Nine Lives
(2002), until they both teamed up again for the fan and
critics favourite Gotham Central in 2003. The
rest, as they say, is history, and when the creative team
of Brubaker and Lark moved on to Marvel they put out
their by now classic runs on Captain America
(2005) and Daredevil (2006-2009). Lark's artwork
has this special narrative quality which, like a good
movie, keeps you drawn in all the time, no matter whether
it's an action scene full of pace or two people having a
very personal discussion - it always clicks, and it suits
Brubaker's style of driving forward a story with a strong
focus on characterization. |
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Winter Soldier #7
(August 2012), page 9 - original artwork by
Michael Lark (left, personal collection) and
published page (right)
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| But in spite of all the
artistic quality put into Winter Soldier the
title just didn't do too well, and sales figures were
disappointing. For a short moment the number of copies
sold to retailers (i.e. the total orders by comic shops)
seemed to settle at just over 30,000 but then these
numbers dipped below that mark and just kept on sliding.
When Winter Soldier #9 sold 26.255 copies in
August 2012 that figure only just placed it within the
top 100 selling comic books of that month, ranking 99th (comichron.com). And so Brubaker was told to wrap it
all up by issue #14 or #15 (Phegley, 2012). |
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WINTER
SOLDIER #10
(November 2012)
"Black Widow Hunt"
20 pages
Story - Ed Brubaker
Art - Jackson "Butch" Guice
Inks - Jackson "Butch" Guice
Colours - Bettie Breitweiser
Cover - Steve Epting
On-sale date: 2012-09-12
Copies sold: 25,811
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WINTER
SOLDIER #11
(November 2012)
"Black Widow
Hunt" (pt 2)
20 pages
Story - Ed Brubaker
Art - Jackson "Butch" Guice
Inks - Brian Thies
Colours - Bettie Breitweiser
Cover - Steve Epting
On-sale date: 2012-09-26
Copies sold: 25,310
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WINTER
SOLDIER #12
(December 2012)
["Black Widow
Hunt"] (pt 3)
20 pages
Story - Ed Brubaker
Art - Jackson "Butch" Guice
Inks - Brian Thies
Colours - Bettie Breitweiser
Cover - Steve Epting
On-sale date: 2012-10-31
Copies sold: 24,807
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WINTER
SOLDIER #13
(January 2013)
["Black Widow
Hunt"] (pt 4)
20 pages
Story - Ed Brubaker
Art - Jackson "Butch" Guice
Inks - Brian Thies
Colours - Jordie Bellaire
Cover - Steve Epting
On-sale date: 2012-12-12
Copies sold: 23,951
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| The second arc
("Broken Arrow") seamlessly flows into the
third arc, "Black Widow Hunt". Leo Novokov has
lashed out even more at his former instructor, the Winter
Soldier, by having set up a trap and abducted the Black
Widow, and the personal hurt just keeps piling up for
Bucky Barnes as he, Captain America, Hawkeye and
Wolverine along with their SHIELD backup supports are
forced to face the realization that Novokov has
brainwashed Natasha Romanova and "turned" her,
back into the coldblooded KGB special operative she had
originally been. Jackson Guice returned for this third
arc, and just like the plot and story, the transition
from Lark's pencils was perfect as their indivdiual
styles matched up very well. The title continued to ooze
a quality feel of "classic comics" from every
page, and Guice came up with some vignettes which harked
back at the very best of 1960s Marvel Comics visuals -
such as this scene with the heroes stepping out with
unwavering, almost grim resolve to turn things around and
set it all right again.
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"It worked out
really well, because Butch has always wanted to do a
Steranko-like ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’ book anyway.
That’s why he does all those crazy montage
things in the series. You go ‘That could have
totally stepped out of a 1968 comic.’"
(Ed
Brubaker in Phegley, 2012)
The hunt for the Black Widow
came to an end in Winter Soldier #14,
accompanied by a "quick note" as Brubaker left
not just the title but also his own creation, the Winter
Soldier: "I can't believe I got to be the one to
bring Bucky back."
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WINTER
SOLDIER #14
(March
2013)
["Black
Widow Hunt"] (pt
5)
20
pages
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Story
- Ed Brubaker
Art - Jackson
"Butch" Guice
Inks - Brian Thies
Colours - Jordie
Bellaire, Bettie
Breitweiser
Cover - Daniel Acuņa
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Winter Soldier #14
went on sale on 23 January 2013, and by this time, sales
figures would drop to 22,873. However, Marvel had
nonetheless decided to continue the title.
"'The book was
going to end around #14 or #15, because sales
weren’t as good as we’d hoped they’d
be (...) I’d been planning for that end for
about three or four months. Then (...) the Cap movie
[sequel] was announced, and everyone really liked the
book and liked the character, so they wanted to keep
it going.'" (Ed Brubaker in Phegley, 2012)
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| The ending provided by
Brubaker was in many ways typical and carries shades of
his run on Daredevil: things may go back to normal and
even take on a happy ending for most if not all people
involved, yet the main protagonist will still be excluded
from all of this and remain a lonesome figure in a wolrd
which will never be able to grasp the full extent of his
continued - and even deepened - suffering. |
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| Stan Lee's "flaw"
of the superhero becomes an almost endless battering of
personal tragedy with Ed Brubaker. In this case, SHIELD
neuroscientists are able to restore the Black Widow's
memory and hence personality - wiped clean and
manipulated by Novokov - with one small exception:
everything to do with Bucky Barnes has been irreversibly
and totally deleted from Natasha Romanova's brain. As the
ultimate sacrifice of his love for her, Bucky refuses to
Natasha be subjected to any further neurological
tampering. He muses about how only he will feel
heartbroken as she simply won't ever know, and he takes
solace in that thought, although we of course know that
in the end this only leaves him even lonelier and more
alone than he has ever been before... |
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Winter Soldier
really ends here, even though Marvel kept the title
afloat for another story arc. Rather unsurprisingly
writer Jason Latour had a hard time picking up things
from Ed Brubaker (who had taken on outside comic work and
was unable to continue even if he had wanted to).
"The end of
issue #14 would have been the end of the book, as it
is. It’s not a cliff-hanger, but it was left
open-ended with the hope that eventually I’d
come back and tell more Bucky tales. And I still do
hope to do that, down the line, when my schedule
clears up more." (Ed Brubaker in Phegley, 2012)
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WINTER SOLDIER
#15
(April 2013)
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WINTER SOLDIER
#16
(May 2013)
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WINTER SOLDIER
#17
(June 2013)
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WINTER SOLDIER
#18
(July 2013)
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WINTER SOLDIER
#19
(August 2013)
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To the
great surprise of probably nobody, the change
from Ed Brubaker and "Butch" Guice to
Jason Latour and Nic Klein didn't work. Sales
figures for Winter Soldier #15 indicate
that most readers follwed Brubaker's heed and
picked it up, at least giving the new creative
team a chance.
But
already by the next issue some had decided to
leave (Winter Soldier #16 sold 20,973
copies, down from 22,191 for the previous issue).
Issue #17 even dipped below the 20,000 mark with
19,395 copies, and the only thing keeping it
alive was, of course, Marvel wanting to end the
arc with a view to putting out a trade paperback
- back in the classic old days, cancellation
would no doubt have come right there and then.
But
like its protagonist, the title soldiered on
until its final issue, Winter Soldier
#19. By that time, the title had dropped to just
over 17,000 copies sold.
Marvel
most certainly had the intention and hope of
having the comic book run up at least until the
release of the second Captain America movie, Captain
America: The Winter Soldier, but the comic
book ran out of steam a long time before the
movie premiered on 4 April 2014. But then most
moviegoers didn't really care much about the
comic book (or comics in general) anyway.
Produced for an estimated budget of $ 170 Mio, it
grossed $ 95 Mio on its opening weekend and
ultimately made $ 260 Mio in the US alone by
August 2014.
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| Marvel decided they wanted
to cash in on the comic book front as well and put out
another Winter Soldier title, Bucky Barnes: The
Winter Soldier, scripted by Ales Kot and pencilled
mostly by Marco Rudy. The first issue went on sale on 1
October 2014, the series lasted for 11 issues, was
cancelled in November 2015, and is best forgotten. |
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| Within the Marcel Comics
Universe, Bucky Barnes returned as the Winter Soldier in
the "Original Sin" crossover event in mid-2014
and ended up being handed the position and duty of
"the Man on the Wall", i.e. the first line of
defense against space invaders as secretly set up by Nick
Fury. Bucky Barnes,
put on hold, once again.
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