A new image has appeared online of Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, which is our first look at this version of the classic Captain America sidekick. Stan plays the 20 year old ill-fated hero, who director Joe Johnston describes as “slightly on the darker side,” which is a reflection of who he turns out to be in the comics as opposed to who he was when he was originally created (which was a bad ass young kid who was still generally in a good mood about the war – but then again, at the time these comics were written, angst wasn’t exactly a huge element of storytelling). The Bucky seen above isn’t in any kind of costume to go up against Evans’ Cap, but it’s safe to assume that he will probably have some kind of uniform in the film at some point. Bucky also won’t be so much younger than Cap and neither will he sneak into the army to work with Cap, but rather Bucky will be another soldier that Cap is put with when he is eventually sent overseas.
We also learned last night on an appearance on the Jimmy Fallon show that Samuel L Jackson will in fact be in every Avengers fim. His roles in Thor and Captain America will be small (requiring one day of shooting each), but his role in the Avengers film will be significantly larger. He’ll also have a female partner in the film, although there is no confirmation as to who that character is, with obvious assumptions being either Janet Van Dyne, the woman who named the Avengers and is somehow not on the team, or Maria Hill, everyone’s favorite SHIELD personality. It’s also slightly possible that it could be Carol Danvers, who is the woman who runs SHIELD in the Ultimate universe which would add symmetry to Jackson’s character as he is also the Ultimate version of the character, but there is no greater evidence anywhere to support that idea beyond this sentence.
