I remember watching that movie in theatres back in 2014 (2015?) when it first came out, and gasping in shock when Pierce slaps the Winter Soldier across the face. This guy has super-serum, and Pierce is an old man. The Winter Soldier could have killed Pierce with his pinky finger. I was expecting him to react violently to being slapped, and for Pierce to end up as a red smear on the nearest wall.
When the Soldier just accepted his punishment, I was deeply creeped out. That’s when it really hit me that he is a victim. He’s been brainwashed so thoroughly Pierce has zero hesitation in getting violent with him. Pierce KNOWS he’s the one in control, and the Soldier would never dare to fight back.
Pierce can hit him with impunity, and the Soldier being a supersoldier is irrelevant. Yeah, he’s physically extraordinarily strong, but he’s not a person, he’s a tool. Pierce expects unquestioning obedience from him, and he always gets it. The Soldier’s mind is not his own, and he’s been enslaved.
P.S. Now I’m nostalgic for the days when Marvel used to make movies that didn’t suck. Yeah, there were some turkeys back in the day, but there were also some movies that were really GOOD. In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, they convinced Robert fucking Redford to appear in a superhero movie, and he was amazing. Pierce wasn’t your average supervillain.
He was much scarier than that, because he was just a charming, genial, unscrupulous human being who had accumulated far too much power. He had no superpowers at all, but he was a terrifying villain because he didn’t NEED superpowers. He had his brain and his position, and he had a bureaucracy to ensure his decisions get implemented. Plus, the Winter Soldier programmed to carry out Pierce’s every order and treat him like he was God. Pierce didn’t need to get his hands dirty.
Also, that movie is an interesting outlier compared with other MCU movies. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is barely a superhero movie. Yes, it features 2 characters with superserum, and it has plenty of action scenes. But at its core, it’s really a spy thriller.
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