James Barnes

"This isn't a back alley, Steve, it's war!"

- Bucky Barnes

James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes is the protégé and childhood friend of Captain America, and a member of an elite special unit of Allied soldiers formed in World War II known as the Howling Commandos. He was assumed dead after falling off of Zola's Train, Bucky was able to survived the fall thanks to Zola's experiments. Hydra then brainwashed him for the "Winter Soldier" program. Under HYDRA, control Bucky would be responsible for countless assassinations including political parties in marvel cinematic universe. Bucky became a formidable fighter and an even more ruthless killer. His experiences with the KGB would earn him the name known as The Winter Soldier.

Captain America: First Vengeance
James Buchanan Barnes noticed a weak, scrawny-looking kid getting beaten up by some bullies. He stepped in and saved the kid, who introduced himself as Steve Rogers. Years later, during an art class Bucky and Steve find out that America has joined the Second World War. Over the next two weeks he trains Steve at Goldie’s Boxing Gym. They visit US Recruiting and Induction Center in New York where Steve is classified as 4F and rejected from service. But Bucky was enlisted in the Army.

Captain America: The First Avenger
After meeting him in his childhood, Bucky became Rogers's best friend. After the Pearl Harbor attack, Bucky enlisted in the U.S. army and assumed the title of Sgt. Barnes.

The day before his shipment out to England, Bucky helped his friend Steve from being beat up by a bully by kicking him in the groin. Bucky and Steve then went to the Stark Expo on a double date. Steve was interested in enlisting for the sixth time. Despite Bucky's protests, Steve still went through with it but said goodbye to Bucky before doing so. Bucky and his unit, the 107th, then shiped to England the next day.

A year later, Bucky and his unit consisting of 200 men went up against a Nazi sup group named HYDRA lead by Johann Schmidt at the orders of the SSR but 150 of the men were either killed or captured while 50 barley escaped. Bucky and the Howling Commandos were among the captured. Bucky was taken to a prison where he was forced to work to design rockets called Valkyries, but it eventually became too much and he was taken to an isolation clinic for interrogation. But a few days later Steve (who had become Captain America) infiltrated the base, freed the prisoners and eventually Bucky too. During the escape Bucky and Steve encountered Schmidt and Zola but were able to escape them and the facility before it blew and walked all the way back to base, 30 miles out. Bucky, Captain America and Gabe Jones ziplined on to the top of a HYDRA train. Bucky takes Rogers's shield and blocks him while he is down, but clearly not having the upper body strength to hold on to it when getting hit it shoots him out the side of the train and Rogers is unable to save him, letting him fall into a icy river below.

The Avengers
In a deleted scene from the film, Bucky Barnes' file is among the ones overviewed by Steve. Oddly enough, he is reported as "Missing in Action", implying that S.H.I.E.L.D. thinks he may still be alive.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
S.H.I.E.L.D personnel Skye and Grant Ward see Barnes' name on a wall in memorial of those who were killed in action. As Barnes was killed before the formation of S.H.I.E.L.D; it can be presumed he received posthumous honors.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
"Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists, but the ones that do call him The Winter Soldier. He's a ghost, you'll never find him."

- Black Widow to Captain America

Steve Rogers’ best friend Bucky Barnes was thought to have died in World War II. However, he resurfaces decades later as the Winter Soldier, a brainwashed, mega-enhanced Super-Soldier doing dirty work for a mysterious organization. The hardened Winter Soldier has no memories of his former identity and that suits him just fine — he is simply a killing machine.

Character traits
Bucky Barnes is a loyal and brave man, a honest person and a good soldier. He firmly believes in the duty of protecting his Country, and is eager to test his own value. He's a very close friend of Steve Rogers, who he has always protected from bullies.

Barnes is a highly trained soldier, an expert fighter and a talented marksman. In battle, he uses canonical firearms, and most of all as a sniper, Bucky is an expert on sniping.

Abilities
Surviving the fall from Zola's train, Bucky was found by HYDRA agents. Some time later, Bucky's memory was wiped by HYDRA scientists. Bucky was given some form of the Super Soldier Serum, now working underneath S.H.I.E.L.D.'s nose, Bucky underwent further experimentation at the hands of Arnim Zola and various other doctors to become HYDRA secrert weapon "The Winter Soldier". The Winter Soldier is highly skilled in all forms of hand-to-hand combat. He is skilled with all types of firearms and bombs, and is a skilled knife thrower and marksman. His entire left arm has been modified mechanically, making it cybernetic, which has granted him superhuman strength and agility.

Winter Soldier Abilities
other abilities:
 * Peak Human Strength: The Winter Soldier's physical strength is enhanced to the very peak of human potential. HYDRA removing the remnants of his severed left arm, the doctors replaced the missing limb with a cybernetic one. The Winter Soldier was able to riped open a S.H.I.E.LD. armor SUV. Then later, throwing Jasper Sitwell from a moving car into an incoming truck.
 * Peak Human Durability: The Winter Soldier's bones and muscles are denser and harder than normal, to the highest human potential, which makes him very durable compared to a normal human.
 * Peak Human Stamina: The Winter Soldier's musculature produces less fatigue toxins during physical activity than the musculature of an ordinary human.
 * Peak Human Speed: The Winter Soldier can run and move at speeds that are superior of a normal human. The Winter Soldier's speed is also comparable to Steve's, who had difficulty catching up to him.
 * Peak Human Reflexes and Agility: The Winter Soldier's reflexes and agility is superior of a ordinary human. When Steve throws his shield at him while he was chasing after him, he easily catch it with his cybernetic arm and threw it back at him.
 * Peak Human Healing: The Winter Soldier's healing speed and efficiency is at the highest limits of human potential, which means he can heal faster than most humans.
 * Master Combatant: Receiving vast training from HYDRA, Bucky became a master assassin that can even rival a Super Soldier, The two engaged fighting in a brutal one-on-one fight, both rivaling each other with every move. The Winter Soldier single-handedly killed up to a dozen well-armed Quinjet pilots in a single encounter and escaped uninjured.
 * Expert Marksman: The Winter Soldier fired a single round through Natasha Romanoff stomach and into a nuclear scientist, that she was protecting effectively killing him. The Winter Soldier was capable of shooting Nick Fury multiple times through the wall from another building from Steve's apartment.
 * Expert Pilot: The Winter Soldier was able to "hijack" a Quinjet after killing the pilot.

Equipment

 * Uniform: HYDRA designed a lightweight tactical suit for The Winter Soldier, it's conceal Bucky's true identity from the world. The uniform is constructed from nomex thread and carbon fiber. The lightweight suit is entirely bullet proof to small arms fire, and has advanced flexibility for close quarters combat.
 * Weaponry: The uniform has a vast array of weapons for combat, conventional firearms including assault rifle with grenade launcher and machine guns a handgun, knives and explosives

Friends and Allies

 * Steve Rogers/Captain America - Best friend turned unwilling enemy.
 * Howling Commandos
 * Dum Dum Dugan
 * Gabriel "Gabe" Jones
 * Jim Morita
 * Jacques Dernier
 * Montgomery Falsworth
 * Strategic Scientific Reserve
 * Peggy Carter
 * Howard Stark
 * Chester Phillips

Enemies

 * Red Skull
 * Arnim Zola

Appearances/Actors

 * Marvel Cinematic Universe (3 films)


 * Captain America: The First Avenger - Sebastian Stan
 * The Avengers (Photograph only) (Deleted scene)
 * Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Sebastian Stan
 * Marvel Cinematic Universe (1 TV series)


 * Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
 * "Seeds" (Mentioned only)
 * "End of the Beginning" - Sebastian Stan (Archive footage)


 * Marvel Cinematic Universe (1 comic)


 * Captain America: First Vengeance (First appearance)

Behind the scenes

 * Sebastian Stan was considered for the role of Captain America, but got the role of Bucky instead.
 * Bucky's uniform from Captain America: The First Avenger is based on his original and his codename The Winter Soilder.
 * About the role, Stan stated, "Steve Rogers and Bucky are both orphans and kind of like brothers. They kind of grow up together and look after each other. It's a very human, relatable thing.... I also wanted to look out for how their relationship changes once Steve Rogers becomes Captain America. There's always a competition and they're always one-upping each other. I paid attention to how Bucky is affected by Steve's change and suddenly Steve is this leader".
 * When Steve finds Bucky hooked up to machines in Arnim Zola's HYDRA Lab and Bucky is in a sort of trance. These experiments allowed him to survive his fall.
 * Though the Winter Soldier was a HYDRA asset in the film, he Bucky's body was recovered by Soviet officers. Given the fact he uses Russian weaponry and spoke Russian while pursuing Black Widow; it can be presumed at some point HYDRA infiltrated the KGB like they had done with SHIELD. This is supported by Arnim Zola's reveal that HYDRA had infiltrated many governments and manipulated world history. In the wake of WWII both the United States and the Soviet Union were the two greatest powers, making it logical that sleeper cells would lay within both.
 * To prepare for the role of the Winter Solder, Sebastian Stan went through five months of physical training and historical research: "I dove into the whole Cold War history: I looked at the KGB. I looked at all kinds of spy movies, and all kinds of documentaries about that time, and what it was about. I grabbed anything from that time period and anything about brainwashing."
 * Stan also went through rigorous fight and weapons training. He took a lot of good-natured ribbing from his friends because he would walk around all day practicing his moves with a plastic knife because he wanted his movements to feel natural.

Trivia

 * In the comics, Bucky is younger than Steve Rogers. In the initial stories by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Bucky was a teenage mascot for Captain America's regiment. He was later adapted to having been older. In the Ultimate Universe, Bucky was a paratrooper/war photographer who was a childhood friend of Rogers, often having defended him from bullies. Fifty seven years after Rogers fell into the ocean and shortly after Rogers was revived, Bucky had become an aging, cancer-ridden veteran and he married Rogers' wartime girlfriend.
 * Bucky's codename is Winter Soldier, much like his older self in the comics.
 * In the comics, Bucky wears a mask, and his identity is a secret.
 * Bucky used Captain America's shield in Captain America: The First Avenger while on Zola's train. This is a reference to Bucky Barnes becoming the new Captain America in the comics when Rogers fell into the ocean.
 * In the comics, Bucky was a trainer and lover of Black Widow, and the two have rekindled their relationship and remained steady since Bucky's resurrection.
 * The Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes) is able to match Captain America (Steve Rogers) move by move, even to the point of catching Rogers' shield. This foreshadows Barnes taking over as Captain America (which happened in the comics).
 * The Winter Soldier creator Ed Brubaker appears in a cameo as a scientist durning Bucky's transformation as Winter Solider.

Gallery

 * See: James Barnes/Gallery