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Bucky's Long Road Home
2006-11-01 09:20:01

Should Bucky Come Back?

We had a meeting last week, a get-together to discuss the direction of some stuff coming up with one of the characters, and where we might be able to take their story. It got pretty heated--at different points during the hour-and-a-half that it went on, one editor would be yelling at another editor over the particulars of some fictional person's life or beliefs or history.

And then, when the meeting was over, we all walked out of the conference room, and nobody was particularly angry or upset with anybody else.

I love that. I love the fact that we can commit ourselves to the work and display such a passion for these very silly, very childish ideas and concepts, but not have it devolve into hurt feelings or bruised egos, at least most of the time.

There's an aphorism I use around the office with my own staff of people: "If I'm Not Convinced, It's Because You Didn't Convince Me." Or, to put it another way, I'm always trying to keep my mind open to new ideas, new approaches, new ways of thinking about these characters and these stories. Which doesn't mean that I'm going to be a pushover all the time--but which does mean that maybe 80% of the time, I'm not going to feel so strongly about an approach to make somebody do it my way. And the other 20% is an escalating scale of stuff that i care about more certainly, and in that area, I try not to be intransient, but it's progressively more difficult to sway me as you get nearer and nearer to the core. But it can be done--or at least I think it can.

I remember, a few months before CAPTAIN AMERICA came over to my editorial office, there was some discussion about bringing Bucky back--a writer at the time had brought up the idea, and people were talking it over. Joe Quesada and I started talking back and forth about it, and with every exchange our words got louder and louder and our faces redder and redder, until we were pretty much screaming at the top of our lungs at one another. In the end, that storyline didn't happen then.

But it wasn't long thereafter that Joe told me that Ed brubaker was interested in writing CAP, and that he wanted to bring Bucky back. And I had a similar conversation with Ed (though at nowhere near the same volume) in which I outlined all of my problems with doing this, all of the questions he'd have to answer to my satisfaction to assure me that he knew what he was doing, and that his storyline would be additive to the mythos, rather than subtractive. Ed went away for about a week, called me back up, we walked through the checklist, and he had an answer to every objection I had raised. And so we did the story, and it seems to have worked.

And I think ideally that's how it should work. You neither want to be so entrenched that any new idea or new approach is going to be strangled before it can really blossom, but neither do you want to be so open-minded that you'll barter away the bedrock of the characters for what momentarily sounds like a good story idea.

More later.

Tom B

dont
bring him back that's like batman being wit robin

Posted by tarhaun on 2006-10-31 20:15:31

I love it
I think Bucky's return has been great for the Marvel U. He ties in so nicely to the goings on with Cap, Wolvie, Fury and the other characters contemporary with the WWII timeframe. I think he has been handled in a way that makes his return a classic tale, not something that writers will try to retcon out of existence in 5-10 years. I also like the slow pacing of rediscovering the character of Bucky. He is a great antihero to balance out Steve Rogers.

Posted by bigdaddyhub2 on 2006-10-31 21:06:04

Backy's way back home
I would love to see a new 'Bucky' in the continuty.
Just today I took a 'Superman' comic in a store and thought, wha do DC-heroes have sidekicks, but in Marvel are none?
Bring this character back (no not the same one - Barnes is dead).

I would really enjoy the find the new 'Bucky' is married. But to see first a anti-hero in him. Perhabs he would be comparable to 'Clint Barton', who he threads his wife. It would be great to find a series about these couple, the missunderstandigs, angreyness - until Cap comes and helps them out. Viola a new Bucky
Regards

Posted by Fallensnow on 2006-11-01 16:10:52

Awesome return!!!
I loved that Bucky came back, but not as "Bucky", but rather "Winter Soldier". I thought it was great the way he came back, Brubaker did a fantastic job at keeping the interest in the story, and ended it better in Cap #14. Great Job.

Posted by Cap_America on 2006-11-01 20:31:25

Winter Soldier
He is prolly may fav. charactor now, he has kinda a silver surfer conplex and that is awesome, PLZ don't kill him off

Posted by x10ofspades on 2006-11-03 07:17:11

winter soldier project
I'm glad that Bucky is shaving himself now, and Russia is a beautiful country we ought to see more, but I'm more in tersted by the poor &@&*&@#*@ who had been shot at the outdoor of a bar, had to be more vigilante is that it...?

Posted by notapotatoe on 2006-11-04 07:47:59

ITZ BECOMING A HABBIT
i fink that bringing bucky back would be boring there have been many times comic hero's hav been bort back, yes it was exciting wen cap woz bort bak but itz jus becomin a crazy habbit nw that evry comic hero dat haz died iz being bort bak. itz lyk bringin uncle ben bak in spiderman it wld b all fun n gamz at first but den if u fink bout it, it wld kill da main rezn peter parker bcam spidey. i agree wit tarhaun itz silly bucky shld b kept dead wit all da fake buckiez ovr da yrz it wld b a dumb idea, i wld personalli fynd it hrd hw u wld bring im bak but bi all meenz bring im bak if u fink itz gna du gd 4 da salez n da readerz, im jus givin mi opinion.

Posted by heat ray on 2006-11-04 15:27:16

I'm serious
I mean : I mean it, there's much to do I think with the figure of looser of Jack Munroe aka NOMAD ( long time I hadn't read Caldwell but don't push me- that's my favourite ) than with the Winter Soldier -even if I 'm glad to see Bucky alive. Something between Mad max and Shade the changing man -no offense but I'm a fan of Peter Milligan -

I'm your man

Posted by notapotatoe on 2006-11-05 17:35:20

Bucky
it's a shame that now after cap coming to peace with his death and having a statue of him erected , and giving his lost sister a flag ,, it was cool now to find out bucky's alive and cap can't seem to find him .. to both of them time has stood still .. and only missed each other for the few years , that each has just been rediscovered .. we'll see don't ruin the memory ..

Posted by monster1 on 2006-11-05 18:47:02

Perfect
Bringing Bucky back to the Marvel U is one of the best moves you guys have made in years (and some of those were pretty good). To someone way too young to remember Bucky and only hearin of him from old comics , this is simply, GREAT!

Posted by CapAmerica0906 on 2006-11-06 15:09:12

Bucky is dead
There should be no charater in Marvel to ever go by that moniker again. It is a nickname, not a codename. It worked for Barnes, but now he is Winter Soldier. No one else should be Bucky.

I would love to see that checklist though. I understand some it must be off-limits, but I'm very curious about what Tom's objections were.

Posted by IanZL on 2006-11-06 17:33:38

Yeah, Bucky should be back, he's awesome.

Posted by NiCKLESS on 2006-11-07 05:39:28

serious one more time
-nomad ?
-off the road ?

okay okay

you know what I'm gonna do ?
I will send you plots.

Posted by notapotatoe on 2006-11-08 10:22:53

Array

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