Bucky Barnes

James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes is the protégé and childhood friend of Captain America. He is a supporting character in Captain America: The First Avenger and the secondary antagonist in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He is a member of an elite special unit of Allied soldiers formed in World War II known as the Howling Commandos. He was assumed dead after falling off of Zola's Train, but somehow survived to return as The Winter Soldier.

Marvel Cinematic Universe
The Avengers Bucky Barnes' files is among the ones studied by Steve Rogers, awakened at the present days. Oddly enough, he's reported as "Missing in action", implying that S.H.I.E.L.D. thinks he may still be alive.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
In the episode "Seeds," he was mentioned by Skye when she reads "The Wall of Valor" memorial wall at the S.H.I.E.L.D Science and Technology Academy.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists. The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier. He's a ghost, you'll never find him..."

- Natasha describing the Winter Soldier to Steve Rogers.

Steve Rogers’ best friend Bucky Barnes was thought to have died in World War II. However, he resurfaces decades later as the Winter Soldier, a brainwashed, mega-enhanced Super-Soldier doing dirty work for a mysterious organization. The hardened Winter Soldier has no memories of his former identity and that suits him just fine — he is simply a killing machine. The Winter Soldier is first seen in the film leading a herd of police cars to chase after Nick Fury. Eventually, the Winter Soldier shoots a bomb that attaches itself to Fury's vehicle, which explodes and flips the car over. The Winter Soldier walks over to Fury, but he escapes in time by burning a hole out with his laser weapon, and limps over to Steve Rogers' apartment to attempt to tell him what happened. However, the Winter Soldier manages to find where Fury is hiding and shoots Fury three times in the stomach, seemingly killing him. Steve chases after the Winter Soldier and attempts to throw his shield at him, but is shocked when the Winter Soldier catches it in one swift movement, and throws the shield back at Steve before disappearing. Later, Natasha reveals to Steve that the Winter Soldier has been responsible for many assassinations for 50 years. After managing to figure out that Alexander Pierce is a follower for HYDRA and is intending to use Fury's delayed project to destroy Washington, Steve, Natasha and Sam Wilson attempt to drive to the Triskelton, but are confronted by the Winter Soldier and his army. After defeating his army, the heroes battle the Winter Soldier. Sam and Natasha are no match, and the Winter Soldier attempts to shoot Natasha, but Steve saves her. Steve fights the Winter Soldier, but the Winter Soldier is stronger and faster than Steve. Steve manages to remove his mask, and much to his horror, finds out the Winter Soldier is Bucky Barnes, his friend from the past and whom he thought to have died. Steve says Bucky's name, but the Winter Soldier responds, "Who the hell is Bucky?", before disappearing. The Winter Soldier returns to HYDRA's lair to get his mechanical arm fixed up after being damaged during the battle. Suddenly, he has brief flashbacks to his old life, from the fall he took to the moment he was recovered by Zola and the HYDRA agents, his left arm being amputated and replaced with the metal arm. Alexander Pierce comes in interrupting the flashbacks, praising the Winter Soldier's work and asking him to come back to do it again. Bucky, slowly beginning to regain his memories, asks about Steve, the one he fought earlier, claiming to know him. Pierce, realizing Bucky is remembering, orders the agents to get Bucky's memory erased again, and the agents succeed in doing so, returning the Winter Soldier to his original killing machine mindset. Later, as Steve, Falcon, Natasha, Maria Hill and Fury, who survived his injuries, attempt to stop Alexander Pierce's plot by sending three Helicarriers to destroy Washington, Steve and Falcon manage to put overriding chips into two of the Helicarriers, but when attempting to override the third Helicarrier, the Winter Soldier suddenly appears on the third and stops them. After destroying the Falcon's wings and throwing him off of the Helicarrier, the Winter Soldier fights Steve again, with Steve vainly trying to revive Bucky's memories. The two fight over the third chip, but Steve manages to wound both of the Winter Soldier's arms, then puts him in a sleeper-hold until he releases the chip. Steve rushes to place the chip into the Helicarrier's system, but the Winter Soldier manages to shoot him three times. However, Steve still succeeds in placing the chip, calling Hill to override the Helicarriers, causing them to open fire upon each other.

As the third Helicarrier begins to fall, Steve rescues the Winter Soldier, who is pinned underneath a rail, but the Winter Soldier responds by mercilessly beating Steve up. Steve again tries to revive Bucky's memories, but the Winter Soldier still continues to beat Steve up while yelling at him to shut up and that he must complete his mission. Steve chooses not to fight back against his friend, dropping his shield out of the Helicarrier. Before he can deliver the fatal blow, the Winter Soldier looks at Steve and hesitates, starting to remember Steve. The Helicarrier crashes, throwing Steve out and sending him into the water below. Slowly remembering Steve, the Winter Soldier jumps after his friend, and drags Steve to the shore. He doubled checked to make sure Steve was breathing before limping away, without a word.

Later, Bucky, his Winter Soldier personality gone, visits the Smithsonian and comes across the Captain America exhibit, where he finds a display of himself. Bucky stares at it pensively, intending to rediscover his past and regain his memory of his old life.

World War II
In 1943, Bucky helped Captain America to get inside the Red Skull's fortress in Norway. After the two American allies defeated the HYDRA goons, Bucky and Captain America pursued the Red Skull in his rocket ship, but the Red Skull got away and set the rocket to blow in 30 seconds. As Bucky got his leg stuck to the ladder, Rogers tried to free him from the bars, but when Bucky said the world needs Captain America more than Bucky, he knocked him off the rocket and into the frozen water to save him before he died in the explosion in tragedy.

Change of reality
When Captain America and Baron Strucker touched the Cosmic Cube in the 21st century, Captain America changed reality to make it so Bucky survived the explosion.

Bucky ended up frozen somewhere in the Arctic ocean.

Change into the Winter Soldier
"Captain America has abandoned you, little one. You have a new teacher now."

- Red Skull to Bucky

He lost an arm in the explosion, and was later found by the Red Skull and HYDRA. He was brainwashed and given a robotic arm. The Skull trained him and sent him on many missions. One such mission was to infiltrate Nick Fury's group when they blew up a HYDRA base. He took out the team except for Fury, and got out of there before the explosion that took Fury's left eye. Between missions, they put him into hibernation so he wouldn't age.

Creation of the Red Hulk
He sneaks onto the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, and steals the sample of the Hulk's blood. Then he injects it into the willing Thunderbolt Ross, who changes into the Red Hulk. Later, he went to Washington, D.C. where he meets up with Secretary of Defense Dell Rusk, along with Falcon, Doc Samson, and the Red Hulk.

Code Red
When a virus affected people outside of Avengers Mansion, Winter Soldier, along with Doc Samson and Falcon, attacked the Avengers. Doc Samson and Falcon were defeated, but Winter Soldier managed to capture Captain America and take him to Dell Rusk, who was revealed to have been the Red Skull. Bucky cured Captain America of the virus and later fled.

Cap defeated the Skull and took him into custody.

Winter Soldier
When Red Skull escape prison as a result of his Sleeper robots, Roger's seeks the aid of Nick fury to help him track down The Winter Soldier as he believes it's Bucky. When Rogers and Fury do locate Winter Soldier they find him attempting to disarmed one of the sleepers bots. Afterwards theirs a little confrontation in which Bucky remembers who he is and is furious at Rogers for abandoning him to be reprogrammed as the assassin he has become. Fury is also enraged by Bucky having caused his eye sight failure. Cap reason with both of them to put aside there difference and work together to stop the Red Skull who has launched a full-scale attack on Washington DC using his sleeper robot, The Avengers attempt to thwart his plans. While Captain America and Bucky go directly to face-off with Red Skull. Together Cap and Bucky defeat him and Bucky decides to go off solo to redeem himself of all the past wrongs he had committed as The Winter Solider.

Character traits
Bucky Barnes is a loyal and brave man, a honest person and a good soldier. He firmly believes in the duty of protecting his Country, and is eager to test his own value. He's a very close friend of Steve Rogers, who he has always protected from bullies.

Barnes is a highly trained soldier, an expert fighter and a talented marksman. In battle, he uses canonical firearms.

Behind the scenes

 * Sebastian Stan was considered for the role of Captain America, but got the role of Bucky instead.
 * Bucky's uniform is based on his original and his codename The Winter Soilder.
 * About the role, Stan stated, "Steve Rogers and Bucky are both orphans and kind of like brothers. They kind of grow up together and look after each other. It's a very human, relatable thing.... I also wanted to look out for how their relationship changes once Steve Rogers becomes Captain America. There's always a competition and they're always one-upping each other. I paid attention to how Bucky is affected by Steve's change and suddenly Steve is this leader".
 * When Steve finds Bucky hooked up to machines in Arnim Zola's HYDRA Lab and Bucky is in a sort of trance, many fans assume Zola was experimenting on Bucky and brainwashing him with dormant Winter Soldier programming, thus possibly allowing him to survive the fall and appear in a a sequel (as Stan is contracted for more Marvel films).

Powers and Abilities
"He's fast... strong... and had a metal arm."

- Steve Roger describing the Winter soldier

Powers

 * Bionic Arm:: It was used to replace Bucky's missing arm.
 * Superhuman Strength: Has some degree of superhuman strength in his bionic arm.
 * Enhanced Reaction Time: His arm's reaction time is greater than that of any Olympic athlete who has and will ever compete.
 * Sensory Array: The arm houses different sensors which allow him to pass through security such as metal detectors without setting them off. It can also shield other metallic objects from detection such as firearms and knives.
 * Extended Reach: He can apparently either control his bionic arm even if it has been removed from his body (possibly by cybernetic implants), or his arm can be programmed to perform certain actions on its own while removed from his body.
 * Electrical Discharge: He can discharge bolts of electrical energy from his arm's palm.

Abilities

 * Expert Marksman: He is an extremely accurate marksman. Skilled in sharpshooting and knife throwing.


 * Skilled Shield Fighter: Barnes is becoming rapidly proficient with his former partner's shield. He is able to throw it with near perfect aim striking multiple targets in a single throw and achieving a boomerang-like return after throwing it at single person or object.


 * Skilled Acrobat: He is an Olympic level athlete and acrobat capable of many difficult acrobatic feats.


 * Peak Human Conditioning: Has shown Olympic to possible near peak human level strength, agility, endurance, dexterity, etc.


 * Advanced Scout: Barnes is a very gifted scout and adept at stealth and concealment.


 * Expert Spy: He is an expert in the field of espionage thanks largely to World War Two hand-to-hand combat luminaries William Essart Fairbairn and Colonel Rex Applegate, his former partner, Steve Rogers, the United States military, British SAS regiment, and the Russian Government. He is skilled in stealth, demolitions, survival, deducing other persons ways of thinking and other fields.

Strength level
Olympic to peak human strength and some level of superhuman strength in bionic arm.

Weaknesses
Electromagnetic pulse could possibly render bionic arm useless. Although this could be questionable due to the fact his arm is capable of emitting an EMP.

Trivia

 * In the comics, Bucky is younger than Steve Rogers. In the initial stories by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Bucky was a teenage mascot for Captain America's regiment. He was later adapted to having been older. In the Ultimate Universe, Bucky was a paratrooper/war photographer who was a childhood friend of Steve Rogers, often having defended him from bullies. Fifty seven years after Steve Rogers fell into the ocean and shortly after Rogers was revived, Bucky had become an aging, cancer-ridden veteran, who he married Rogers' wartime girlfriend.
 * Bucky's codename is Winter Soldier, much like his older self in the comics.
 * Notice that Bucky does not wear a mask like in the comics, and his identity isn't a secret.
 * Bucky used Captain America's shield, in the comics Bucky becomes Captain America when Steve was supposedly dead.
 * In the comics, Bucky was a trainer and lover of Black Widow, and the two have rekindled their relationship anandd remained steady since Bucky's resurrection.
 * The Winter Soldier is very similar to Rinzler/Tron from TRON: Legacy  in that they were once best friends with a protagonist (Steve Rogers for Bucky, Kevin Flynn for Tron) and were seemingly killed in a batle (Bucky fell off Red Skull's train, whereas Tron was supposedly derezzed during CLU 2's coup), but later revealed to be still alive and brainwashed into a masked assassin. Later in Tron Legacy, Rinzler breaks free of his brainwashing and becomes Tron again, much like Winter Soldier is supposed to break free of his brainwashing, and become Bucky again.