The Winter Soldier From Russia With Love

As big as possible. I really hope they don't say it was Hydra that did it.

I could understand how the first movie downplayed Nazis, but there isn't as much stigma about Soviet Russia as there is about Nazis.

Besides, the thing about Winter Soldier is that once he's in the present, he's just someone's indentured assassin.

If they want, he can be working for Lukin, Zemo or whoever. Just say that whoever "owns" him got him from ex-KGB when the Soviet Union ended.

 

It would be cool to see Howard Stark and his connection with Anton Vanko show up somewhere and play a role in this.

 

It depend on how they do it, but I'd rather not.

I they do something like saying that Winter Soldier's arm was a prototype stolen from Stark Industries, then please don't. We get it, Starks are hot ****. Move on.

 

I have a feeling they'll downplay the Russia stuff

 

I think it's inevitable that HYDRA were the ones who recovered Bucky's body from the train battle in CATFA. It's also highly likely that Skully recognized Bucky and saw fit to continue the mind control experiments he was doing on him when Cap had rescued him the first time. So Bucky was probably already Red Skull's puppet in the closing days of WWII.

But after Skull's death/disappearance, and after HYDRA was destroyed/driven underground by the Allies, the case can be made for Bucky falling fortuitously into the lap of the Soviet Union as they carve Germany up into East and West. This is probably where Aleksander Lukin becomes the ideal puppetmaster for Winter Soldier during the Cold War. It would also be nice to see Dr. Faustus make an appearance as Lukin's mind control expert, the one who keeps Bucky's memories buried.

 

I could totally buy that. Definitely wouldn't make a lot of sense for a Russian submarine crew to find him, like in the comics.

 

I just want it to link up with Natasha's history like in the comics. I really want to kick some "Clintasha" fan bottom.

 

Inevitable, why? There isn't meant to be such a big gap between Bucky dying and Skull dying.

It isn't a choice between Hydra and being exactly like the comics.

It could have been a unit of the Soviet Army instead. The Soviets, just like the SSR, know Zola is going to pass through that certain location, so they send a team to intercept him. The Howling Commandos got there first, but the Soviets found Bucky and provided medical aid.

 

I meant more about Vanko's involvement. I don't see it too out of the realm of possibility that he was a Hydra agent or working for the person responsible for the Winter Soldier. Maybe it's already after he was deported and they could show John Slattery again =P

I don't know. I guess it's important to keep the story focused on Cap, but I think it'd be cool to see ties both to CA:TFA as well as to other aspects of MCU history.

 

There's no indication whatsoever how much time passes. This is the irritating "montage" sequence where the movie more or less fast-forwards through the rest of the war and Cap's exploits. The gap between the train scene and the bomber scene could be days, or years....nobody knows. [/QUOTE]

Highly unlikely that the Soviets would be deep inside the German Alps. They'd be too busy holding the Nazis off on the Eastern Front, so a mountain-climbing expedition in Bavaria by Soviet commandos wouldn't likely be high on their agenda.

Bucky went down in HYDRA territory. Behind enemy lines. It's inevitable that any survivors (i.e., Bucky) of the train raid would have wound up captives of HYDRA.

 

Well, I'd actually buy a younger Vanko working on the Winter Soldier. That would be pretty cool.

The problem with these ties is that they make the MCU look smaller. If they want to make references, they should be to things that are new rather than the same things we've seen before.

 

The train montage comes BEFORE Bucky's death. Right after it, Schmidt mentions that their plan is on the eve of completion, and after Zola is brought back to London, there is sense of urgency. They're definitely racing against the clock at that point.

 

So true. I agree with you. Unfortunately, that's not exactly how Hollywood works, is it? But let's be hopeful that Marvel Studios decides to continue to be awesome, break the mold, and expand the reaches of the MCU even in this small way.

Yeah, Col. Phillips has his beef (steak) with Zola right after they capture him on the train, which of course is when Bucky falls. After that, he says they expect Schmidt to attack in the next 24 hours. Cap has only had a bit time to mourn Bucky's death (can't get drunk), and decides to "go after Schmidt"/avenge Bucky by walking right up to his front door.

 

I don't think Vanko being anywhere near Winter Soldier makes sense. Besides, it would mean recasting as I don't think Mickey would come within 100 miles of Marvel ever again after his role got butchered. Natasha makes absolute sense, as she and Bucky would have likely moved in the same circles of government and espionage. But keep Vanko out of it.

 

The Vanko is question would be Anton, Ivan's father and Howard Stark's erstwhile business partner.

 

Even then, I don't see it. Neither Vanko would plausibly have anything to do with Winter Soldier.

 

Why not Anton? He was surely smart enough, and a Russian.

 

Even so, it makes no sense that the Soviets would have picked Bucky up and Manchurian Candidate-d him. Even if you buy into the highly unlikely scenario that an unnamed, unseen Soviet commando unit *just happened* to be in the same area as the train battle and *just happened* to find Bucky, it would be almost impossible to believe that the Russians (who were, as you recall, ALLIES during WWII) wouldn't have just given a wounded American soldier medical treatment and shipped him back to his unit, instead of holding him hostage and turning him into a mind-controlled assassin for the KGB.

HYDRA makes more sense. Makes PERFECT sense. Bucky is in HYDRA territory; there's really only two groups that could have found him: HYDRA or the Howling Commandos. We know it wasn't the Howlers, ergo....
Plus, HYDRA had already tried to make Bucky a programmed assassin; they just needed to complete the job. Maybe Skull isn't the one who completes the job; and most likely not Zola (who is in custody/protection of Phillips by this point)....but one of Schmidt's underlings could've kept HYDRA going for the rest of the war (and beyond, even if they had to go underground). Enter: Baron Zemo, Von Strucker, Madame Hydra, or whoever.

 

They would have nothing to do with espionage, assassinations, etc becuase they were physicists. They were both disgraced, convicted criminals, anyway. They wouldn't be allowed anywhere near something that would be considered a classified project like Winter Soldier, which would carry a degree of privilege and prestige for the Soviets allowed to work on the project.

 

Very tenuous allies. The Soviets started out on Hitler's side, and only joined the Allies at Hitler's betrayal.

And as I said, perhaps the Soviets were there to capture Zola for their own reasons.

Actually, by that point, Schmidt is on the ropes. All his bases but the one in the Alps are destroyed. He has no territory left.

And according to word of god, Bucky was being experimented on with a variant of the super-soldier serum that will enable him to survive the fall. No one ever said anything about him being brainwashed.

 

Cut off one head...

 

I kind of see CA and the Howlin' Commandos not looking for Bucky after capturing Zola to be a bit curious. With how tight-knit the group was, you'd think they would go looking for his body and bring it back with them for a proper burial.

 

Damn near impossible.

Bucky dropped into an icy river at the bottom of a chasm. In order to retrieve his body, you'd have to rope down into a sheer canyon thousands of feet deep, then try to follow the course of a raging, icy river for god knows how many miles before haystack-needling Bucky's corpse somewhere downstream. And let's not forget that you're deep in the heart of HYDRA/Nazi country, too.

Hell, even Steve would've said "**** it, he's long gone."

 

Which will make him feel all the guiltier when Cyber-Bucky shows up, albeit without real justification.