Sul

Finally read this, I've been slacking hard with my Bucky reading... Anyways had so much fun with this, I'm not a fan of manly humorous comics like these, but this one made me cackle like a mf.

Really loved the dynamics between Clint and Bucky... And to think I was convinced the ship between those two was a Marvel Rivals crack ship...

Anyways art wasn't something that blew my mind, but overall fun experience.

So I've read: - Ed Brubaker run - Captain America & Bucky - Winter Soldier (2012) - Winter Soldier: The Bitter March (2014) - Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier 

Done with Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier... It was certainly a run. I really can't help to see it as some alternative universe.

Now, the art of Marco Rudy is a delight, the guy carries the run imo. The composition is oof gorgeous, the peeks and small foreshadowing on what is about to happen is great too and that's all there is to the run and the aardvark that appeared out of nothing in the spaceship.

Oh! And I also loved this cover

Now reading this run which from my understanding happens after Original Sin and maybe I should have read that before reaing this bc I have no iea what is Bucky doing in space...

Anyways, love Marc Rudy art, his X-men issue is peak to me. Love the pshycodelic composition but it doesn't help me in unerstaning this but oh well

Done with Winter Soldier: The Bitter March, what a good ass comic, really really fun story. It takes place in the cold war time, back when Bucky was the Winter Soldier, so he's the antagonist (at first) and my god it's fun to see him have those Cap flashbacks.

Finishing off with Winter Soldier 2012 issues #15-19 are ... bad, but man these covers slap.

Also last issue ending... OOF

Picking up from his return in Eve of Destruction, the Scott Summers we see is a man haunted from the inside. The previous analysis established two core traumas: the external, world-shattering change of the Phoenix, and the internal, identity-destroying fusion with Apocalypse. Having now experienced a loss of self that mirrored Jean’s, his fear is no longer just of an outside force. It’s a fear of his own mind, a space once violated by a monster. The man "acting with his gut more than his head" is a man who no longer trusts his own thoughts.

This instability sharpens into a profound, functional apathy by the time Grant Morrison’s New X-Men begins. This isn't a new development, but the activation of his ultimate defense mechanism. As you noted, we've seen this before for example when he believed Jean was dead in the Savage Land, he responded with severe emotional repression. Faced with trauma too great to process, Scott’s psychological failsafe is to disconnect entirely. The Apocalypse fusion was so violating that the repression required is total.

And so when a man built on structure has his internal foundation annihilated, he clings to the only structure he has left: the mission. His leadership of the X-Men is no longer just a role; it’s an escape. He pours every ounce of his being into strategy and protection because it allows him to function without having to feel. He has walled off the part of him that was fused with Apocalypse, but in doing so, he has also walled himself off from everything—and everyone—else.

This culminates in one of the most tragic moments of Jean & Scott relationship. As the panel shows, Scott makes a rare attempt to breach his own defenses, confessing his deepest fear: that Apocalypse’s thoughts and self-deceptions have become part of him. He is not just telling Jean he was possessed; he is admitting he is fundamentally corrupted. Jean’s response, while perhaps well-intentioned, is a critical failure of empathy. By saying, "You're not the only one," she equates his experience with her own, dismissing his situation. (very familiar to the "oh Scott you're only a man")

On this page, he finally articulates the tragedy he has been living. He admits to Emma, that the foundation of his lifelong romance was a teenage ideal, one that was never equipped to survive the "unimaginable violence and change" of their lives. He sees Jean as having moved on,and acting all cautious around him, while he remains trapped in the complexity of his own damage. Sounds familiar?

Maybe Storm was right, back then Scott was the same, but Jean changed yet they could find themselves in that adversity, but now? Now Scott changed too and this is shaking everything they have built and Scott once again is paralyzed and feelinng small and faulty in her pressence.

It is a desperate, last-ditch effort to find someone who will not dismiss his change but will instead help him understand it. After a lifetime of his trauma being tied to Jean, he is finally seeking help for a wound that is his and his alone. He has come to Emma because the woman who was once his anchor in the storm has become the calm, distant shore he can no longer reach.

This profound vulnerability pushes him toward Emma, who comes to embody everything he feels he has lost in Jean. While his wife once again ascends into the abstract, cosmic matters of the Phoenix, Emma remains intensely and unapologetically present. She offers him not just psychic intimacy, but a feeling of equality and a connection rooted in their shared flaws—a deeply human experience he can no longer find with Jean

And so, the cycle repeats with devastating precision. The Phoenix takes Jean from him once more. But this time, he isn't just a grieving widower; he is an unfaithful husband left with a compounded and unresolved guilt. The story ends as it began, with Jean gone, with too much left unsaid, and with Scott trapped in the same vortex of responsibility and loss that defined him at the end of the 1980s, proving that his original wound had never truly healed.

(Winter Soldier #6–14) – This arc quickly became one of my all-time favorites. The build-up is so tight and deliberate—it doesn’t waste a panel. From the very beginning, we get a clear picture of how emotionally dependent Bucky is on Natasha. It’s subtle at first, but it builds into something really vulnerable. And then comes Leo—easily one of the most compelling villains Bucky's ever had. The way Leo manipulates that dependency is just chef’s kiss writing. He doesn’t just fight Bucky physically; he plays him like a piano, turning every emotional beat into a trap Bucky charges right into.

And Bucky does fall—hard. We see him spiral, acting more rash and reckless than usual, losing his edge not because he’s weaker, but because he’s hurting. That’s what makes it hit so hard— he’s just desperate. And that desperation is weaponized against him in such a devastatingly smart way.