Review: Winter Soldier #1

Lately it’s been pretty hard to read Marvel due to the fact that most books feel like they are waiting for their next movie to come out this summer, like X-Men vs Avengers. So I saw a new number one on the shelf that caught my interest, Winter Soldier. The basics of Winter Soldier are that he is Cap’s best friend and sidekick, James “Bucky” Barnes. We lost Bucky at the end of WW2 where the Russians revive him in Project X, they used him as a weapon in the Cold War. Later becoming an enemy of Captain America. I was hoping for something good, but I have mixed feelings about it.

Winter Soldier is reported dead and gone at the hand of Captain America. Truth be told he, is working underground to redeem what is left of his good name. Winter Soldier and Black Widow are in Vegas infiltrating an underground Russian base built during the Cold War looking for stasis tubes. These stasis tubes that once revived Bucky hold others that were trained for infiltration and war, other Winter Soldiers if you will. As they arrive at the tube they were looking for, it's on its way up an elevator to another location. Back at the hotel, Bucky is haunted by his past with the news report of Winter Soldier dead and was the Winter Soldier really Bucky Barnes? At this point Black Widow “consoles” Bucky and brings up the past of the stasis tubes that were once part of his life.

Black Widow and Winter Soldier are briefed on their mission to find another tube and an ex-Russian agent who has been hiding in plain sight, Nico Stanovich. Nico has disappeared and killed off his family which he had used to assimilate into American life. Their goal is to find Nico and the stasis tube and who is reactivating the Winter Soldiers.

The story is actually worthwhile and can play out very well. It sets up more to come and can grab you and bring you in it. It’s a bad guy spy assassin/ trying to redeem his name from filth. And it's definitely more on the grittier side of these types of stories, but that's what you want and works well for Winter Soldier.

The down fall is the art to this book it looks like it was done by two different artists, but it wasn’t. It was a blend between an action style and realistic and it didn’t blend well. It was like watching an old cartoon and you knew what was animated because it popped from the background or stationary item. The action was portrayed well minus Black Widow’s. She seemed to made out of rubber and could contort into any position and her legs seemed extra-long. The colors were dark and sometimes Bucky's coloring was washed out like he was gray and dead. That was the hardest part to get over while reading.

The story is good and worth the read; you are just going to have to get over the art that goes with it. I know the cover was a different artist and if the art in the book was consistent with the cover it would have worked. I'm hoping Marvel can put a different artist, or at least a more consistent one, to keep this story going. I hate to say it, but you can have a good story in comic but it won’t do well if the art doesn’t fit. This is definitely one of the better stories put out by Marvel and yes, I'll still be picking up #2.

Score: 3/5

Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Butch Guice
Cover Artist: Lee Bermejo
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $2.99
Release Date: 02/01/2012