This led to a member of the audience inquiring about the decision to off the sidekick, which Fraction explained wasn't something he came up with on his own, explaining that Ed Brubaker was going to kill Bucky at the end of "Gulag," the storyline running in "
Captain America
" during "Fear Itself."
"When 'Fear Itself' started, we did a retreat where I was kind of pitching it all," Fraction said. "The thing about Blitzkrieg USA is, we've never seen Cap fight a modern war on US soil and I wanted it to be in DC so it was it American institutional icons and things like that. This is where we get the taste of how big this is. And Ed, in his very Ed way, turned and said, 'Yeah, this is where the Red Skull kills Bucky.'"
To his surprise, Fraction immediately loved the idea. "You do that, and it is the all-time greatest Captain America story. Put it up in the rafters. No one is going to ever touch it. You are Frank Miller on 'Daredevil' if you have the Red Skull kill Bucky when you're done with Bucky." Brubaker protested, citing the character's popularity, but Fraction's enthusiasm eventually won out. "'When it's time, that's how you got to go. That's how it's got to end.' I don't think Ed realized he'd said it out loud, or if he did he immediately regretted it because I sort of dove on it and said, 'Yes! I'm doing it! It's done! No take-backs!'"
"There's an issue of Bucky on a plane frantically racing to DC somewhere that will just remain unpublished. But, yeah -- originally 'Gulag' was going to be the end of the Winter Soldier, cuing up Ed's work on 'Captain America' #1. Luckily, 'Fear Itself' was happening at the same time and it was one of those moments where it all worked. Ed saw a moment to contribute to the greater good of the Marvel Universe. He is one of my dearest friends, one of my oldest friends in comics and certainly is a big part of the reason I'm at Marvel. It was an amazing solid that a friend did for another friend. Ed just saw that it would make 'Fear Itself' stronger. In conclusion: it's all Ed's fault."
