Bucky Barnes, the man formerly known as the deadly Winter Soldier, has enjoyed a pretty incredible character arc since he was first introduced in Captain America: The First Avenger.
Back then, Sebastian Stan’s supporting player was a loyal ally to the scrawny Steve Rogers (AKA Captain America), only to fall into the hands of HYDRA, the clandestine organization responsible for morphing Bucky into a brainwashed terrorist. But there is light at the end of the tunnel for Barnes, who found sanctuary and asylum in Wakanda at the tail-end of Civil War and will be back for Avengers: Infinity War.
As we’ve already heard, it’ll be T’Challa’s sister, Shuri, who helps him get back on his feet, separating Bucky Barnes from the Winter Soldier alias. It’s a tricky process, too, one which involves creating a “one-to-one digital representation” of Bucky’s brain. Yikes! But for Stan himself, he’s had a great time getting to rediscover who the character really is.
Speaking at a panel during Wizard World St. Louis, the actor teased what lies ahead for Barnes, saying:
“I’ve been enjoying rediscovering him in the last few movies, including Infinity War, because he started out a certain way and then it was such a hard left with Winter Soldier, it was immediately like a whole different ballgame,” Stan said. “So now it’s been fun going back a little bit and finding different things that we discovered in that early movie and putting them back in little by little, finding out where is he now.”
From what we’ve heard so far, Bucky Barnes is set to have a fairly big role in Infinity War, and what the actor says here certainly has us excited to see how the character’s arc progresses. After all, we’ve still got a lot of questions about his current situation and how exactly Shuri has helped him to recover.
Not to mention we can’t wait to see that new arm in action. We can only imagine it’s a significant upgrade over what he had before, too, making him a real force to be reckoned with. With Black Panther on its way to theaters (February 16th), and rumors of Bucky possibly making an appearance in the pic, perhaps we’ll get some more answers sooner rather than later.
If not, though, then Avengers: Infinity War is now only a few months away (May 4th), and by that point, we’ll finally get to meet back up with Sebastian Stan’s fan favorite character and see what’s been going on with him.
