Marvel Just Introduced the Most Tragic Version of a Popular MCU Character

For 15 years, Sebastian Stan has been praised for capturing the complexity and tragedy of Captain America’s best friend, Bucky Barnes. As Captain America’s loyal sidekick who was brainwashed into becoming a Russian assassin called the Winter Soldier, Bucky is a hero defined by suffering and trying to make up for his past sins, which the Marvel Cinematic Universe perfectly encapsulates. However, Marvel Comics developed an even more tragic and relatable version of Bucky Barnes for its Ultimate Universe. In this universe dominated by the evil Maker, Bucky took on the role of the terrifying Neo-Nazi terrorist, the Grand Skull, and Ultimates #22 finally reveals how this transformation occurred.

After being trapped in the City for decades, the Maker has finally freed himself, and the heroes of Earth are engaging in an epic battle to liberate their world from his tyranny. Among the Maker’s vicious followers are the Neo-Nazi group, the Red Skull Army, led by the masked Grand Skull. We were first introduced to them in Ultimates #10, where it was hinted that Bucky was the man behind the mask. Now, with the final battle underway, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, is forced to confront the man he once saw as a brother, who has now come to represent everything he opposes.

The Maker’s New World Broke Bucky

A significant part of Bucky’s tragedy in the Ultimate Universe is how realistic and relatable it is. Through flashbacks, Ultimates #22 reveals the origin not just of Bucky but also of his close bond with Steve. Unlike in the main universe where they met during the war, the Ultimate Universe has Bucky and Steve be childhood and lifelong best friends. With Steve’s frail and sickly body, Bucky was always there to protect him. Of course, when the war started, and Steve obtained the Super Soldier Serum, he followed Bucky into the field and helped protect him. However, instead of going down with an exploding plane and becoming a brainwashed assassin as he had in the main universe, something far more inevitable ultimately happened to Bucky: he grew old.

While Captain America was frozen in ice and presumed dead for decades, Bucky returned home from the war. Since the Russians didn’t abduct him, give him the Super Soldier Serum, and put into suspended animation, Bucky lived a normal life. However, when the Maker took over the world and began instituting his own global dictatorial government, Bucky saw the ideals he fought for during World War II crumble away into dust. Even worse, everyone else was too blind to see what was happening to their world. Throughout the years, Bucky tried a dozen times to become a congressman while there still was a Congress. Yet try as he might, Bucky could do nothing but watch as democracy died.

After the fall of democracy, Bucky could only get a job fixing cars. However, the Maker managed to take that away from him by developing cars that could fix themselves. And as the decades went by, an elderly Bucky discovered he had liver cancer. Despite his crummy life, Bucky still didn’t want to die a meaningless death. So, having been completely broken by the Maker’s new world, Bucky begged the villain’s lackey, Nick Fury, for a second chance at life. Fury obliged, and after giving Bucky the super soldier Infinity Formula, had him go undercover as the Grand Skull of the Red Skulls. However, over time, while undercover, Bucky’s disillusionment and anger lead him to embrace the fascist ideology of the Red Skulls.

In the present day, after a lengthy battle against the recently unfrozen Steve, Bucky is defeated, physically and psychologically. After decades of loneliness and watching everything he fought for die, Bucky was reduced to a weeping old man begging to be spared. However, Steve saw that his friend was too far gone and made a painful choice. He embraced Bucky for the last time and then snapped his neck. Unlike every other version of Bucky in the multiverse, this one was beyond redemption and needed to be given peace.

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Bucky’s Descent Is Tragically Realistic

No matter the universe, Bucky Barnes is a character defined by tragedy and a fall to the dark side. However, the significant difference between the Buckys of the main and Ultimate Universes lies in the circumstances surrounding their corruption and their agency in it. In the main Earth-616 universe, Bucky never wished to become the Winter Soldier. After surviving the plane explosion and losing his arm, he was tortured and brainwashed into becoming a soulless killer who, thanks to his Super Soldier Serum and periods of stasis, retained his youth well into the modern day. And while Bucky did commit many atrocities, these acts were always against his will. Indeed, as soon as Bucky broke free of his brainwashing, he immediately sought to redeem himself by becoming a hero.

However, the Bucky of the Ultimate Universe didn’t need any sci-fi brainwashing or Super Soldier Serum to become a villain; he did it all of his own volition. This version of Bucky’s story, unfortunately, hits close to home today because of how realistic his descent is. Bucky was a veteran who was abandoned by his country. He also felt powerless as the world around him changed for the worse, with the pillars of democracy crumbling and AI taking people’s jobs. The fear regarding his own mortality is also one shared by countless people. And in the end, a life full of resentment, isolation, and helplessness led Bucky to adopt the very ideology he had spent his whole life fighting.

What makes this version of Bucky so tragic is that through the Maker’s influence and the natural progression of time, he had willingly given up his own beliefs so that he could feel like he still had control and purpose over his life. Instead of finding a way out of the darkness, Bucky had allowed the corruption to take everything he had left. And in the end, Bucky had fallen so much that even Captain America, his best friend and brother, saw that he was beyond redemption. In an industry with countless convoluted hero-turned-villain storylines, Ultimates #22 offers the most grounded, nuanced, and tragic example of how even the best of us can lose our way to time and overwhelming feelings of hopelessness.

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