The Winter Soldier: Part 3

Aleksander Lukin is turning his office upside down looking for his dossier on the Winter Soldier. Another person in the office with him reasons that it couldn’t just disappear. Lukin accuses the other person for taking it. Their argument is interrupted by his secretary who tells him that the his private jet is ready to take him to America. Lukin says he’ll be out when he is ready. Looking at the Cosmic Cube, he wonders what it has done about.[1]

At that same moment, Steve Roger has returned to his apartment and discovered the Winter Soldier file on his coffee table. He checks with his security system, which verifies that nobody has been in the apartment since while he was gone. Cursing the file, Steve opens it up and reads what is inside.

The dossier contains detailed notes chronicling the origin and history of the Winter Soldier.

Doctors Notes - May 5, 1945

Details the recovering of Bucky from the waters of the English Channel by a Russian spy submarine. This came on the orders of Colonel Vasily Karpov. Karpov was curious to learn if Captain America’s partner was also injected with the Super Soldier Serum in the hopes they can recreate it.[2]

May 7, 1945

The scientists then began to thaw out the body and dress the wounds to prevent further bleeding where his arm was severed. The patient was legally dead, as expected, but they thawed out the body they used electricity to perform Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation and were able to get his heart beating again. Miraculously, they managed revive the young man. On the one hand, he had no memories of his past before his death. On the other, he maintained reflex memory from all the training he received, something the doctors discovered when the subject suddenly attacked them. It took a team of Russian soldiers to subdue the young man, even with only one arm.

May 21, 1945

After a battery of tests, they find no traces of the Super Soldier Serum in the young man’s body. After much discussion with Colonel Karpov, the scientists then put the subject in cryogenic suspension until they could figure out what to do with him.

KGB Internal Documents - June 1954

In the years since he was put in suspended animation, the subject was transferred to the newly formed Department X to be used in a brand new program dubbed Project: Winter Soldier. Through spies within MI6, Colonel Karpov is able to get his hands on the designs for a cybernetic arm to replace the one the subject lost in the explosion. Once the arm was successfully attached, Karpov began to realize his plans for the subject: To turn him into a weapon to use against the Americans, an ironic turn of events for such an iconic war hero.

Once the arm was installed, Winter Soldier was subject to a battery of mental implantation and sensory deprivation in order to turn him into the perfect spy and assassin. He then underwent training, which was adapted easily thanks to the muscle memory that the subject still remembered below the surface.

November 5, 1954

With Winter Soldier’s training complete, they decided to put him on his first field test. Dressing him up as an American soldier, they sent him across the lines into West Berlin. Due to the fact that he appeared and sounded American, nobody thought twice about the Winter Soldier. He spends the evening in a night club among American and UK soldiers. On the ride back to base, Winter Soldier forces the vehicle to crash, and crosses the border without incident. As it appears to look like a drunk driving accident, western officials don’t bother with a full investigation.

Mission Reports

What follows are a series of mission briefs regarding the Winter Soldier. The first is on January 11, 1955, the Winter Soldier had eliminated a United Nations Diplomatic Negotiation Team in Cairo. The fire was officially deemed as an accident. In May 1955, Winter Soldier was sent back into West Berlin to assassinate NATO General James Keller. On January 6, 1956, Winter Soldier was sent to Madripoor where he eliminated British Ambassador Graines in the middle of a New Years Eve party along with the acceptable number of collateral damage. The sheer number of deaths left the authorities at a loss to determine a motive.

April 1, 1956, Winter Soldier was sent to Algeria to eliminate the visiting French Defense Minister, Jacques Dupuy. The Algerian Nationalist Movement was blamed for a killing. On May 12 that same year, Winter Soldier blew up Algerian Peace Conference Envoy was totally eliminated. Lastly, Winter Soldier was dispatched to Mexico City on February 17, 1957, to assassinate United States Colonel Jefferson Hart.

Scientific Analysis - June 7, 1957

After three years of frequent use, Winter Soldier began trying to fill the blanks in his memory. The scientists in Department X were deeply concerned that this might affect Winter Soldier’s ability to carry out his missions. The subject has also begun to question his orders and attacked a fellow operative, almost killing him. When interrogated about these acts of insubordination, Winter Soldier could provide no answers.

The theory is that these are more muscle reflexes, but there is a growing concern that he might be remembering his past life. It is then recommended that Winter Soldier spend his time in between missions in suspended animation and that he undergo complete mental implantation every time he is revived.

Incident Report - March 12, 1973

After fifteen years of successful reemployment, the Winter Soldier has failed a mission. He was sent to the United States to eliminate Senator Harry Baxter. While the subject did as instructed he went AWOL shortly thereafter. Fearing that they lost an important asset, Russian spies were ordered to focus their efforts on finding him. Luckily, he had not been apprehended, but a number of operatives had to break cover in order to track him from Texas to Chicago. Reports were such that Winter Soldier looked confused.

They finally caught up with him staying at a flophouse on New York City’s Lower East Side.[3] It took a team of operatives posing as police officers to get him back into custody. When questioned, Winter Soldier had no answers or memories of what happened. It is recommended that they watch him more closely and refrain from sending Winter Soldier to the United States in the future.

Vasily Karpov’s Personal Journal - September, 1983

Now an old man with very few years left, Karpov had relocated to the Middle East. Against recommendations, he had Winter Soldier revived to act as his bodyguard. Vasily finds it amusing to be using Bucky to further Russian interests, as it is a fitting revenge after he and Captain America humiliated him in front of his soldiers during World War II. He looks forward to seeing what kind of damage Winter Soldier can do to American relations in the region, figuring the next few years should be amusing.

Project: Winter Soldier, Final Report - August 4, 1988

Just prior to his death, Vasily Karpvo’s final orders were to have Winter Soldier decommissioned. He was to be put into stasis once more with instructions to renew his mental implantation should he be revived again. The stasis chamber was then transported to an undisclosed location where Department X stores its abandoned experiments.

…

Steve Rogers finishes reading the notes on Winter Soldier and immediately calls Nick Fury. He tells to get Sharon Carter and meet with him right away as he has more on Winter Soldier that he needs to show them. When Fury asks what he found, he tells him to just get to his apartment right away.

Steve then thinks back to the war: While on leave stateside with Bucky, the pair decided to go see a movie. The film reel showed footage of one of their recent missions in Europe. The crowd cheers at the images of brave warriors charging into battle. Hearing everyone getting hyped up, Bucky joins in. That’s when Steve points out that battle in question was particularly bloody and they lost a lot of good men. Bucky remembers, reminding Steve that he was held the hand of a young soldier who died out on the field. Steve then points out that none of the horrors they experienced are up on display. This makes Buck realize Toro was right about Steve, that he was going to bring the war back home with them and that he needs to learn how to relax. Steve is surprised to hear Toro talk about him that way. This made Bucky laugh and he tells Steve if he didn’t have him as a friend, nobody would ever truly understand him.

The memory causes Steve to break down in tears.

Recurring Characters

Captain America, Winter Soldier, Red Skull/Aleksander Lukin, Nick Fury (voice only), (flashback) Captain America, Bucky, Vasily Karpov.

Continuity Notes

1. This other person that Lukin is speaking with is unidentified here. In Captain America (vol. 5) #14 we will learn that the Red Skull used the Cosmic Cube back in issue #1 to cheat death when Lukin sent the Winter Soldier after him. The Skull now lives inside Lukin’s mind. This will remain the status quo until Captain America (vol. 5) #42.

2. Bucky was seemingly killed in a drone bomb explosion in Avengers #4. However, we saw that his body was recovered by the Russians in Captain America (vol. 5) #8. We also see a scene of Karpov fighting alongside Bucky. He worked with the Invaders back in 1942, as seen in Captain America (vol. 5) #5.

3. It’s interesting to note that Winter Soldier ended up at a flophouse on the Lower East Side, because that’s where the Sub-Mariner — also unaware of his past — lived for years until his memories were revived in the present. See Sub-Mariner #1 and Fantastic Four #3.

Topical References

• Aleksander Lukin is depicted as having a computer with a CRT monitor in his office. This should be considered a topical reference as this is now an obsolete technology.