Who the hell is Bucky?

[Note: occasionally I indulge myself and rant about my current obsessions. This is one such occasion. The following contains spoilers from all 3 Captain America movies.]

Warning: this post contains a LOT of gifs. And pictures. Screenshots. Everything. I couldn’t help myself!

So I am a huge Marvel fan. And my favourite characters are always morally ambiguous, dark, and broken. Bucky Barnes is the perfect example. He is one of my three favourites in the superheroes franchise (the other two being Loki and Magneto), and with the recent amazing debut of Civil War, my love for him is at an all-time high. But it wasn’t always this way…

The first time I watched Captain America: The First Avenger was such a long time ago that I don’t even remember what I thought of it. At that point I was more interested in cute little Steve (or cute big Steve) to pay much attention to his BFF. By the time The Winter Soldier rolled around, I had completely forgotten that there was more than one character in The First Avenger.

So when the internet went a bit crazy over Bucky, I was left thinking “Who the hell is Bucky?” Which, turns out, was exactly the right reaction.

When I watched The Winter Soldier at long last, and this terrifying assassin with a metal arm took off his mask, my first thought was ‘Wow, he’s actually pretty cute’ followed by ‘Is this the Bucky?’

The point is, I should have auditioned for the Winter Soldier. My memory was about as good as his.

Even though Sebastian Stan had about 3 lines the entire movie, he didn’t need to talk at all for the emotion to shine through. Several brutal brainwashing sessions and agonising screams was all it took for my heart to break. And those red-rimmed eyes will haunt me in my dreams. Sebastian has more emotion in his eyes than most people have in their entire body.

By the time we reached the climax, I was already cheering for Steve to rescue Bucky even though that guaranteed certain death – I didn’t really think this through, and clearly neither did Steve. I left the cinema with a crushed heart but on a euphoric high. The Winter Soldier became my favourite Marvel movie to date, and Bucky Barnes a close contender with my original favourite Loki.

So despite having walked into The Winter Soldier with no idea what it was about, I went into Civil War with sky-high expectations. I had all these scenarios in my mind about how Steve was going to find Bucky, how Bucky was going to react, how exactly the civil war was going to get started.

For some reason, none of those scenarios included Sebastian Stan speaking Romanian. Or buying plums, for that matter.

So in some senses Civil War blew my expectations out of the water. The fight scenes were superb (as always), everyone’s acting on point (of course), and the Steve-meets-Bucky scene absolutely stunning. The climax was the absolute standout – I could have cut the tension with a shard of ice. And Bucky’s scream of fury as he tries to tear the arc reactor out of Tony’s chest is out of this world amazing.

There were also some parts which weren’t up to my ridiculously high standard. The bromance between Steve and Bucky (such as actual ‘talking’) was lacking, there were too many characters that shifted the spotlight away from my Bucky, and for most of the movie Bucky did nothing but run away. Which is the sensible thing to do, I applaud him, but it could have been managed better. Oh well. A movie can’t be perfect, after all.

Civil War not only divided the Avengers, but also the fandom. I’ve had plenty of arguments over #TeamCap or #TeamIronMan with some of my closest friends. Most importantly, it divided my values. I value accountability from powerful groups such as the Avengers (or our government), and I believe the United Nations – so theoretically I should be on Tony’s team.

It takes a powerful character for me to abandon my values for him. At the moment, I would abandon everything for him. #TeamCap forever!

(On a slight sidetrack, #SayNoToHYDRACap is on twitter at the moment, and without going on a long rant about this as well, I’ll just add this: NO NO NO NO NO NO NEVER)

I look forward to… whatever movie Bucky is in when he unfreezes again, dammit. In the meantime, I will content myself with watching dorky Sebastian Stan interviews.