Story #2Gulag—Part 4
Writer:
Ed Brubaker. Penciler:
Butch Guice. Inker:
Mitch Breitweiser, Stefano Gaudiano. Colorist:
Bettie Breitweiser.
Synopsis
In the Russian prison camp, a heavily drugged
James "Bucky" Barnes has given up the
Winter Soldier’s secrets about
Project Zephyr. This Soviet project planted three Soviet
sleeper agents, each with special training and the ability to pass as ordinary American citizens, in the United States in the 1980s.
Colonel Rostov now knows their whereabouts and activation codes and plans to sell them to the highest bidder. As a parting shot he tells Bucky he wants him to die knowing that whatever happens is his fault—since the Winter Soldier trained these three sleepers. When he awakens later in his cell, the
Warden comes to take him for his last tournament fight—one he can not possibly win—and Bucky responds by breaking the man’s nose with a head-butt. Bucky is then beaten by the guards and delivered to the arena to face his opponent. The huge Russian fighter has a third eye in his forehead and uses it to fire a beam that puts a huge crater in the ground. Bucky realizes that he is fighting the original
Unicorn. Using a chain Bucky flips his foe so that the Unicorn’s beam crashes through the Warden’s office window. He kicks Unicorn into a rage, tricking him into firing a beam that blasts a hole in the prison wall and in a flash Bucky rushes through. The Unicorn pursues and fires again—igniting the methane tanks that heat the buildings, setting off a chain reaction of explosions (which
Black Widow saw in story 1). Bucky fights pursuing guards and seizes a gun to shoot down others. Suddenly Black Widow leaps into the fray and takes down the rest of his foes and together they head into the forest to her waiting copter. Meanwhile Bucky muses on how he thought taking responsibility for the Winter Soldier’s actions would bring redemption—instead it must be to stop all the remaining dangers with his fingerprints on them….
Story #3Super-Soldier
Writer:
Ed Brubaker. Penciler/Inker:
Chris Samnee. Colorist:
Bettie Breitweiser.
Synopsis
Steve Rogers meets with
Nick Fury at
Avengers Tower to tell him how Steve’s report to the President went over. He told the President how he and Fury traced the movements of the dead Soviet
sleeper and shut down the last part of the cover-up, destroying a factory making armored battlesuits. The President’s advisers were angry: they had the reports of Bucky’s explosive escape from the Gulag and were not going to listen to any more about Russian conspiracies.
President Obama declares that whatever happens,
James Barnes can’t be
Captain America anymore…and he needs a Captain America. Steve is conflicted but Nick Fury knows that he was not the man to head
SHIELD for the long term…and the President is calling on him. Steve looks for a way to fix all of this somehow…not knowing that what’s coming next will rip them all apart.