KMC Forums - Winter Soldier

The storyarc Winter Soldier has just begun, but to recap Captain America v5 thusfar, see below.

Cap kicks some terrorist ass hardcore, the Red Skull gets a lead salad in the back of the head, and Jack Monroe (Nomad, Scourge II) gets shot coming out of a bar. By tracking an old SHIELD implant, Sharon Carter finds Jack Monroe's body, and see's a person, resembling an elder Bucky, the original one.

Meanwhile, when the Red Skull was killed his fragmented cosmic cube was taken by General Lukin, a former USSR soldier. He's managed to recharge the cube, and he's Bucky's boss. While fighting in the rubble of Philadelphia (which Lukin blew up to charge the cube), Cap sees someone, whom he thinks is Bucky.

Back in World War II, Cap met some Russian general he didn't like very much when he was with the Invaders. They stop the Red Skull, and the General thinks that the Russians need some more oomph if they are to survive the future. That general is commanding a submarine which finds a half-dead, frozen body missing one arm. That body is James Buchannan Barnes. He is the Winter Soldier.

Seemingly, they give him a cyborg arm, and I don't know if they brainwash him or not--but he ends up working for the KGB and the USSR, they kept him on ice, and would thaw him out for big assignments during the Cold War. As such, he's only aged about 7-8 years or so, and is physically in his late-twenties.

Not sure, but I think Lukin might be in charge of AIM now, or at least in an alliance with them. Also, Crossbones and some of the Red Skull's old crew lurk in the background. There's a lot more that has gone on, but you really should read it. Even if you've never enjoyed a previous Cap story, Brubaker has made the character interesting, human and has taken him back to his soldier roots.