Written by Ed Brubaker
Illustrated by Butch Guice– Winter Soldier and Black Widow are the super-spies of the Marvel U!
– Ex-Russian Sleeper Agents awaken, but under who’s control?
– Is that Dr. Doom? Uh oh.
Finally. The book we’ve all always wanted is here at last, and it’s only the second ongoing #1 from Marvel this year! Off to a good start, all things considered, now aren’t we?
Take a hop after the cut for a look at the brand new book starring everyone’s favorite domino mask wearing dead kid, Bucky.
When Ed Brubaker brought Bucky Barnes back from the dead in 2004, it was met not so much as an incredibly hated and controversial move, but instead a rather celebrated and effortlessly “cool” one. Bucky was one of those characters, who died at a time where death was largely considered the end in comic books, and in a fashion so important to comic history that there was no sense in digging up his grave. Yet Brubaker, Epting and Marvel found a reason to, and doggone it, they made it work.
Of course, since his return Bucky’s history as the Winter Soldier was only ever lightly touched upon; an arc here (“Time’s Arrow”, for example), or a reference there, but no time really spent digging up the past with Bucky as the Winter Soldier, due to his prior obligations as Captain America. Yet, with his “death” in Fear Itself, an opportunity was exploited to finally give Bucky his own spin-off series. Then came all the teases, positing that Bucky wasn’t the only assassin produced from Department X, and with that you have the book you are (hopefully) holding in your hands.
If you are in fact holding the book in your hands (or, more realistically, looking at it at the top of your comic pile near your computer), then read no further. You already know everything I’m going to tell you, and there’s no need to further convince you of something you’ve already found out.
However, if you aren’t yet in ownership of a copy of Winter Soldier, a new question arises: why not?
Winter Soldier is, in so many words, the cool, sexy spy book that Marvel should have been putting out any number of years ago. With the look and feel of some of my favorite Steranko Fury books, Brubaker, Guice and Breitweiser blast onto the pages of the book with a fast-paced energy rush of a comic book, which finds itself a perfect place amongst the stoic and beautifully reverent take Brubaker has brought to the Captain America franchise in the past ten years. This isn’t just a spin-off book, but rather a book that quickly forges its own niche within the comic market and demands your unbridled attention within the first few panels. That’s a lot of praise being thrown out at you, but it is all completely warranted.
What makes this incredible, though, is that theoretically the odds are against the title. In the grand spectrum of things, everything that does work for the book probably shouldn’t. This is the Captain America 2004 relaunch done today in 2012, just without Captain America. It’s a grand example of thematic transference; this is Bucky (once again) “returning from the dead”, and it is (once again) a story that is knee deep in the wide open world of Bucky’s unexplored past, which has been explored quite a bit (if a tad bit lightly) in Brubaker’s Captain America run. It’s Bucky and Natasha tearing it up, as they have been, for quite some time in multiple books. It is even, to a smaller extent, a recycle idea; we’ve already explored the idea of “other versions” of Captain America, so why not explore a “different version” of Bucky?
Continued belowYet the title still feels like a new stone, just discovered, being turned over. The revitalization of Bucky as a character has always felt like Brubaker’s pet project, bringing him back into our world in 2004 and nurturing him into even more of a staple than he already was. Bucky was a character that many seemed to keep their distance with, only lightly refining elements of the boy soldier, yet Brubaker completely redefined the character and his purpose within a shared universe rather quickly. It’s hard not to look back at Bucky’s return in the pages of the 2004 Captain America relaunch in tandem with this first issue and get the same positive feeling, though; both from the perspective of a fan excited about a new direction for an established character and that of a nostalgic fan of the entire run.
The combination of Guice and Breitweiser are the final clincher in the wonderful package that is Winter Soldier. While this isn’t the first time Guice or Breitweiser have worked together with Brubaker on his epic run, this is very much the book that finds the duo making it entirely their own. With an eye towards classic spy/noir films like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold or (my personal favorite) Le Samourai, the book very much breathes cool with a spattering of more modern pacing and action thrown in. The book certainly has an active penchant of 60’s throwback often prevalent in Brubaker’s books (see: Criminal, Incognito, Marvels Projects), but Guice and Breitweiser put a very beautiful spin on what Brubaker became famous for with Phillips.
On top of that, while the book is name after its male lead, it is very much Guice’s Black Widow that is ultimately the true show stealer of the book. Black Widow has never felt like more of the true star, even over the books with her name on the cover, as she is the rock that ties it all together in a very real way. While we follow alongside Bucky and his eye of the world, it is Natasha who holds us there in the same way that Anna Karina used to. She is a vibrant and visceral mixture of sex and violence, and Guice’s lines bring her to life with kinetic fury while Breitweiser’s colors breathe life throughout.
(Of course, I am entirely biased, I suppose. Brubaker, Epting and D’Armata’s Captain America #1 is perhaps my favorite thing to come out of Avengers: Disassembled, so it shouldn’t ostensibly be a surprise that Brubaker, Guice and Breitweiser’s Winter Soldier #1 is my favorite thing to come out of Fear Itself.)
As time goes on, I think you’ll find the success of Winter Soldier is less “Joey off of Friends” but more “Fraiser off of Cheers” — a smartly written book that exists properly in tandem with its original source material that is just as entertaining, if not better. It’s been a long wait, but Winter Soldier feels as fresh and exciting as Brubaker’s first Captain America story in 2004 that introduced the concept behind the character, and this is easily Marvel’s first Can’t Miss New Series of the year.
Final Verdict: 9.0 – How’s that for some hyperbole? But seriously, though. The comic’s great.
And, on a random tangent: maybe its just me — but could you imagine a film where Anna Karina played the Black Widow? I’d kill for that. Forget Scarlett Johansson!
Oh well. At least I have Made in U.S.A. on DVD for endless re-watching.
