Bucky is a Marvel Comics superhero. Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, he first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941). Originally James Buchanan Barnes, the alias of Bucky has been used by several individuals in the Marvel Universe.

History

Origins

Barnes (named after James Buchanan, the 15th President of the United States) was an orphan, the son of a soldier killed in training at Camp Lehigh just before the United States' entry into World War II. As a result, he was unofficially adopted by the camp as a mascot. Nicknamed "Bucky", he took to wearing a uniform and becoming savvy with the ins and outs of military life even though he was a teenager. It was at Lehigh that he met and befriended Private Steven Rogers, who by all appearances was the most clumsy soldier in the camp. This was at the same time that reports of the then-mysterious Captain America began to appear in news magazines, and Barnes eagerly devoured the accounts of this new hero.

One night, however, he looked into Rogers's tent and saw that his friend was changing into the uniform of Captain America. Barnes made a deal to keep the secret of Rogers' dual identity if he could become his sidekick. Rogers agreed, and trained Barnes appropriately. Together, Captain America and Bucky fought Nazis both at home and abroad, as a duo and as part of the superhero team known as the Invaders. Barnes also teamed up with the sidekicks of other heroes in a group called the Young Allies .

In the closing days of World War II in 1945, Captain America and Bucky tried to stop the villanous Baron Zemo from destroying an experimental drone plane. Zemo launched the plane with an armed explosive device on it, with Rogers and Barnes in hot pursuit. They reached the plane just before it took off. Bucky unsuccessfully tried to defuse the bomb, and it exploded in mid-air. The young man was killed instantly, and Rogers was hurled into the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. Rogers' body, preserved in suspended animation in a block of ice, would only be found decades later by The Avengers (Avengers #4, March 1964).

The Bucky legacy

Fearing that the deaths of Captain America and Bucky, if revealed, would be a blow to morale, President Truman asked William Naslund, the hero known as the Spirit of '76, to assume the identiy of Captain America. Assisting him was Fred Davis, a former bat-boy for the New York Yankees, who had previously posed as Bucky in 1942. The new Captain America and Bucky finished the rest of the war and continued to fight crime with the All Winners Squad and the Liberty Legion. Naslund was killed in 1946 fighting the android Adam II, and Captain America's identity passed to Jeff Mace, the Patriot (What If #4, August 1977).

Davis assisted Mace until 1948, when he was shot and wounded, forcing him to retire and leaving him with a permanent limp. In 1951, Davis joined the secret war-criminal hunting organization known as the V-Battalion, and eventually became one of its leaders on the Penance Council. He also ran for public office, eventually becoming a senator. (Captain America Comics #66, 1948; Citizen V and the V-Battalion #1-#4, 2001).

In 1953, an orphan named Jack Monroe, who idolized Captain America and Bucky, discovered that his history teacher also had a similar passion, to the extent of undergoing plastic surgery to make him look like Steve Rogers and assuming his name as well. In addition, "Rogers" had discovered, in some old Nazi files stored in a warehouse in Germany, the lost formula for the Super-Soldier serum that had given Captain America his abilities. The two used the serum and began to fight Communists as Captain America and Bucky (Young Men #24, December 1953).

Unfortunately, "Rogers" and Monroe were unware of the stabilizing "Vita-Ray" process used on the original Captain America. As a result, despite their bodies being enhanced to peak human efficiency, they slowly grew paranoid and dangerously insane. By the middle of 1954 they were irrationally attacking anyone they perceived to be a Communist. In 1955 the Federal Bureau of Investigation managed to hunt them down and placed them in suspended animation. The 1950s Captain America and Bucky would be revived years later after the return of Steve Rogers, going on another rampage, and would be defeated by the man they had modelled themselves after. (Captain America #153, September 1972).

Monroe was eventually cured of his insanity and took up the superhero identity of Nomad , an identity that Rogers himself had once taken, even teaming up with the original Captain America on a number of occasions. At one point during his solo career, Monroe was injured severely enough to need to be placed in stasis once again. He was revived and brainwashed by Henry Peter Gyrich (who was in turn being manipulated by Baron Strucker). Monroe was then forced to become the new Scourge of the Underworld and sent to kill the reformed supervillain team known as the Thunderbolts. Monroe eventually broke free of the conditioning, helped the Thunderbolts to defeat Gyrich, and then disappeared (Thunderbolts #35-#50, 1999-2001). When last seen, he had been shot by an unknown assailant and dumped in the trunk of a car (Captain America Vol. 5 #3, April 2005).

For a brief time after Rogers awakened in the modern age, perennial Marvel sidekick Rick Jones also donned the Bucky costume in an attempt to make himself Captain America's partner. However, Rogers was still wracked with guilt over the original Bucky's death, and refused to make this a permanent arrangement. When the role of Captain America was taken over by John Walker, he formed the Bold Urban Commandos (BUCkies) as a backup team. Walker's main partner was African-American Lemar Hoskins, who used the name "Bucky" until he realized the racist connotations of the alias when applied to him. Other persons who have used the Bucky alias include an unnamed baby that Nomad looked after for a period and Rikki Barnes, who was from the alternate Earth created by Franklin Richards in the wake of the Onslaught incident. Rikki Barnes is still a member of the Young Allies on Counter-Earth.

Powers and abilities

Of the various Buckys, only Monroe and Hoskins had augmented strength and reflexes. James Barnes, Fred Davis, Rick Jones and Rikki Barnes were merely highly skilled in acrobatic fighting techniques. The baby Bucky did not have any training to speak of.