Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier, Vol. 1: The Man on the Wall (2015)

Let me get this out of the way first.  I grabbed this book off the shelf, seeing The Winter Soldier, Vol. 1, without realizing that it was a different series than the one I was looking for (can you tell I’m still new to comics?)  I was actually looking for The Winter Soldier series by Ed Brubaker, who wrote the original Winter Soldier story in the Captain America comics.  This, however, is a newer series by Ales Kot, and I have yet to decide whether or not it’s for me.

The Man on the Wall, covering the first five issues of the series, introduces us to Bucky Barnes’s new job as a watchdog for the human race, carrying out top-secret missions to tackle threats from other planets or dimensions.  He recruits Daisy Johnson, formerly of SHIELD (not sure how closely Agents of SHIELD’s Daisy aligns with this one,) to assist him, with the assurance that neither of them will be the “sidekick.”  The new duo takes to the stars and soon finds themselves elbow deep in intergalactic intrigue, all manner of dangerous situations, and multiverse shenanigans.

Don’t get me wrong:  Brubaker’s Captain America:  The Winter Soldier arc has way more comic-book-bonkers stuff going on than the MCU does, so even when I mistakenly thought that this was the first volume of his series, I was expecting a little insanity.  Kot’s series, though, is quite a bit more comic-book sci-fi bonkers, what with all the space travel and aliens and whatnot, which I wasn’t prepared for.  I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but it’s more high-octane comic-book craziness than I’m used to, and it really threw me off (clearly, I should’ve paid more attention to the planets and galaxies drawn inside the red star on the cover – at no point am I claiming I was misled here.)

I do like the dynamic between Bucky and Daisy, though.  They’re both tough, guarded characters who are getting to be close friends and trusted partners, even as they’re still feeling each other out.  They bond over alien cuisine, they bicker over their comms mid-mission, and they’re good at swooping in right when the other needs them.

I also really love a lot of the artwork.  Marco Rudy, who does most of the artwork in this volume, has created a dark, gorgeous, visually-arresting backdrop of worlds for Bucky and Daisy to move through.  He plays around with the arrangement of the panels and just generally creates a really amazing look for the comic.  (Langdon Foss, who draws parts of issues #4 and 5, does clean, crisp work, but to me, his style feels too “happy” for the Winter Soldier.)

Not sure yet.  There are parts of it that I like a lot, while other stuff feels a little out-there to me.  I can’t even quite say why, since I like plenty of genre stuff that’s decidedly out-there, but I just can’t tell if it’s the kind of story I like for Bucky.  I might check out further volumes at some point, although I think I’d like to get my hands on Brubaker’s series first.

Warnings

Comic-book violence, sexual content, and some dark themes.