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Credits Writer: Ed Brubaker Pencils/Cover: Steve Epting Inks: Steve Epting & Mike Perkins Colorist: Frank D'Armata Letterer: VC's Randy Gentile Editor: Tom Brevoort

Quick Summary

This issue is primarly the illustrated contents of the "Winter Soldier Project file", which Cap finds mysteriously - and tracelessly - in his apartment (and apparently removed from Lukin's offices).

It details how Karpov and his submarine crew found Bucky after the fatal explosion, eventually revived he frozen body, and trained the memory-lost result as an assassin. The revived body still had the memory and language skills, but Bucky's personality, his memories, were gone.

When the Winter Soldier's conditioning proved to be unstable, and he wandered off in the 1950's, he was recaptured by Solviet agents and put into cryo-suspension. Karpov, when assigned to the Middle-East, would revive the Winter Soldier and have him serve as Karpov's bodyguard in the 1980's. Following Karpov's death by natural causes, the Winter Soldier would be returned to cryo-statis.

When Cap is finished reviewing the file, he calls Fury and Sharon, asking them to come over so that they can see the file. He then sinks into a reverie, remembering Bucky as he was...

Commentary

Another excellent issue in the Winter Soldier saga, wherein much of the background of the Winter Soldier is revealed.

• We must be wary of taking the contents of the file as complete, or gospel; first, its a Soviet file, and who knows if its complete. Second, this was given to Cap from Lukin's office, by agent or agents unknown.
• I can't help but feel that the file being taken from Lukin and given to Cap is the results of the Red Skull, perhaps via some connection to the Cosmic Cube; he's been merged and separated with the CC so many times, I wonder of the CC has managed to retain some kind of an imprint of the Red Skull's hatreds and personalities. Lukin admits to being affected by the CC - his whispered "What are you doing to me?".
• There seems no question that the body of Bucky has become the Winter Soldier, and that it has retained Bucky's training and aptitude for languages, while having had supplemental training by the Soviets.
• How much of Bucky's mind is still there, somewhere? Obviously, most of it was gone when they revived him - but when he broke conditioning and headed fro NYC in the late 1950's, clearly something was moving him - Bucky (iirc) was a native of Brooklyn.
• Bucky got his cybernetic arm in 1954; I wonder of its been upgraded since then? You'd think that they'd have had ample opportunities to upgrade its capabilities, with weaponry, additonal strength, etc., perhaps the skin has been upgraded to adamantum (or at least carbonadium, the Soviet's attempt to equal adamantium).

Steve Epting provides his usual top-notch work, with the dark, moody images adding depth and texture to the text of the file. The storytelling - one page per file page, with the accompanying illustration, was creative and (at least by me) well-recieved.