#but then in CACW they went full blown russian with it and that.... doesn't actually make sense for this MCU

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Hot take but the more I think about it the more I reckon they should've left the Russian aspect out of the Winter Soldier in the MCU. 

I know it's a part of the comics, and the name is meant to evoke the Cold War (Russian, Winter), but IMO it better suits the ‘Gitmo Army brat’ Bucky of the comics than the ‘Arnie Roth’ Bucky of the MCU; it doesn't fit with the MCU's specific backstory parameters. (Plus conflating Russian/KGB with SHIELD/Hydra just muddies the waters, for no particular purpose.)

Examples:

If Bucky was tortured by Nazi doctors in Russia it would've been under Operation Osoaviakhim, not Paperclip.

It doesn't make sense that Russians would name him after an American's quote about America. That's the exact opposite of what Russians would do.

Whereas it’s exactly what Americans would do if he was in American hands when the WS was created (ie. from early on). If comics!Steve can quote Mark Twain it doesn’t make sense that people don’t recognise a Thomas Paine reference in-universe. 

It doesn't make any sense, logistically, that the WS is tortured and operated on by Zola, who is in America (and stays there until he dies), unless the WS is also in America from early on.

(Per Agent Carter) It also doesn’t make any sense that the man who created the WS mind-control techniques -- Doctor Fennhoff/Faustus -- is working for the SSR in America, with Zola, if the WS himself is not also in America when those techniques are implemented. 

(And we know that that tech stayed in America, not Russia, because in the Black Widow movie the Red Room had to go undercover in Ohio just to steal it, and this was in 1995!)

It seems significant that we only see the WS in Siberia a mere 10 days before the Dissolution of the Soviet Union (and Howard Stark knew about him / recognised him instantly, and called him Sergeant Barnes, like Zola did.) 

It doesn't make sense that the WS is shown being conveniently stored in a local urban bank vault in Washington, DC... but was previously shoved hundreds of miles out of the way, in the Siberian wilderness, where it would've been a massive pain in the ass for any American Hydra to get hold of him. (And if they did, for some reason, want to massively inconvenience themselves just for a cold-name’s sake, why not Canada or Alaska?) 

It doesn't make sense that MCU WS is shown exclusively speaking English to the American Hydra agents who have control of him in the present day... but then all his control-words were in Russian and suddenly he speaks only Russian to handlers before this... And yet, he’s back to speaking English again in the flashbacks from TFATWS?? 🤦‍♀️

IMO it would've just been simpler and more straight-forward if it was just Nazis who found Bucky at the bottom of the ravine, not Russians (might even explain why he didn't escape, post-fall but pre-brain damage; he would've been thinking he'd get repatriated pretty soon, when the war's over... and he's kinda right 😭). 

And it would ram home the 'we were the ones doing wrong' horror of CATWS, if Bucky had just been on US soil the entire time and nobody good knew.

Possible scenario: 

The Russians who found Bucky wounded in WWII handed him over to the Americans, since the war wasn’t over yet and the two sides were ‘officially’ still allies. (And/or because they didn’t realise what they had, and/or he was part of some POW exchange deal.)

By the time Stark, Carter & Phillips found out, they had already hired Zola and Fennhoff. 

They intended to use Bucky to reboot the eugenicist supersoldier program and also experiment in the field of mind control (a la Project Artichoke, MK/Ultra etc.) Which they knew people would object to, so they kept Bucky’s recovery quiet from the other Commandos, his family, etc. 

SHIELDra had Bucky in America all along, and the whole Russian Boogeyman / Russian weapons thing was just a cover so that Hydra Demagogues could blame every WS hit on the USSR, and thereby drum up convenient anti-Communist hysteria during the Cold War. 

(After scientists were sent there to work under Operation Osoaviakhim, Hydra grew slowly in Russia -- with the rise of (anti-Communist) capitalism, and with Fascism being typically the resort of anti-authority criminal classes. Hydra ideology flourished much more quickly in the US (where it would be conformist-authoritarian, not anti-authoritarian), because the US was already capitalist, and had already been doing Hydra eugenic science like Project Rebirth, back in WWII.)

Being a greedy liar and a thief, Howard Stark decided to take advantage of the end of the Cold War by selling the WS to the Soviet branch of Hydra, just days before the Dissolution of the Soviet Union made it moot, and stealing the WS from the Pentagon to patent it himself. 

He sold Bucky complete with the Red Book, which the Russians either translated while reading aloud, re-wrote in Russian for their own purposes (explaining why an American organisation’s supersoldier appears to have Russian trigger words; perhaps he doesn’t, they would work in any language?) and why Zemo read them aloud in Russian.

(And/or, maybe the Americans really did use Russian trigger words on Bucky, to perpetuate the ‘definitely-not-American’ Boogeyman mythos?) 

The Russians realised they had been double-crossed by Stark, and sent the WS after him and his wife in retribution, and to steal the WS serum back (which Stark may or may not have also promised but failed to deliver.) 

The other US intelligence agencies failed to look into it more closely because, once they discovered the sale of the WS, and the theft of the serum, they considered Stark and his wife traitors / double-agents, and thought it was best for PR if the whole thing was hushed up.

Despite now having a mind-controlled super soldier of their own, the Russians didn’t have the secret of creating new mind-control. This explains why they couldn’t control the other Winter Soldiers (despite them being Hydra ideologues before serum), and why the Red Room had to go undercover in America, to steal the secret of mind-control from SHIELD in 1995. 

Why would they have to go to America to get that intel, if it was already in Russia?

#dat's me #bucky barnes #bucky meta #meta #mcu #mcu meta #POSSBLE SCENARIO UNDER THE CUT #bout to post a hot take while spaced out and sleep-deprived #always a wise decision! #of course it doesn't follow that a thing is good just because it is in the comics #it could be a comic written by mark millar after all #what is the watsonian explanation... #for this preposterous east coast american / siberian wilderness set up?? #what does the russian aspect add to it? why was it necessary for the plot? #at first it looked like the russian stuff was just a cover up by americans to conceal bucky's true identity #but then in CACW they went full blown russian with it and that.... doesn't actually make sense for this MCU #time for a catnap