Mcu Thunderbolts - Tumblr Posts

I've seen a lot of people now denying that MCU Bucky has anything to do with Arnie Roth, and that he's based on Ultimates Bucky Barnes, who was a childhood friend of Steve's too (which is also where the similarities end with them, as opposed to Arnie who's similarities only continue)

The thing is Ultimates came out TWENTY YEARS AFTER Arnie Roth, there's no way to neither confirm nor deny that Ultimates Bucky could himself also be a partial merge of Bucky Barnes and Arnie in the tentative link of being Steve's childhood friends, and MCU Bucky bears significantly more similarity to Arnie than he does Ultimates Bucky. He has very little in common with Ultimates Bucky in fact while his backstory is beat for beat extremely close to Arnie's to the point of mirrored lines and scene blockings, and even has elements of similarity with being used by Baron Zemo

Arnie's creator believes that MCU Bucky is a partial merge with him and given how little in common MCU Bucky has with Ultimates Bucky by comparison to him and Arnie, I also choose to believe it. There's only so much plausible deniability going on, and Ultimates Bucky is just not close enough to be believable to me as the inspiration when the overlap with Arnie is so much more glaring, and Ultimates came decades after Arnie. We have had confirmation that Arnie "will be seen" in Thunderbolts which I'm hoping will at the very least be Marvel finally acknowledging he exists.

as someone who knows very little about the American governmental system... is it even realistic that Bucky is a senator/candidate, outside of the simple fact that it goes against everything we know about his character for the last 13 years and is deeply ooc and weird?

Can someone with his history actually become a senator? Dude has killed like...a lot of people, specifically American citizens to keep it relevant to this context, and he's openly broken the law and gone against multiple governments in some of the most wild displays of anarchy alongside Steve and the Avengers. Also I don't think he's been a consistent enough resident of any state even if you take out the Blip?? At least 9 years right? Bro has maybe been on American soil for 3 years, pre AND post Blip, and that's being generous assuming Thunderbolts takes place in 2024-2025.

I don't know how realistic it is that he's even able to run for senate? I'm not an expert, not American, but it just seems absurd.

The main take really is that Bucky Barnes as a senator is one of the stupidest things, what the hell

I've now seen a fair few posts about Bucky's change in appearance and seen people offer up in-universe explanations such as it's first time in his entire life he's been getting consistent food and water etc. I need to say one thing.

I find it abhorrent that people feel the need to critique/comment on the body of a real life person considering all we now know of what these super cut beefy actors go through (which btw includes extreme dehydration which is life threatening) just so a movie can have a "sexy shirtless scene" and what Sebastian Stan has said in the past about his body dysmorphia. And in the context of Bucky as a character, it's disgusting considering he spent almost a century with no autonomy over what he looks like or what he did with his time, he's not cattle to judge.

So yeah we can think up all the in universe explanations we like and post the most backhanded compliments in support of him, but the thing is we shouldn't be commenting at all. This isn't like what they did with Thor where it was part of a poor taste storyline and a costume that Hemsworth donned, this is a real person's body and after the horrible treatment the late Chadwick Boseman received for his body's changes undergoing treatment, I would've hoped people had learned that even "complimentary" comments about body weight changes can be inappropriate and unwelcome. Just don't say anything?? It's so easy to shut up.

if Bucky does fully become the Winter Soldier again in Thunderbolts* I don't see it as "undoing" anything and I'm getting annoyed with all these articles and posts about that "ruining" or "undoing his character arc". People in recovery do relapse, relapses happen, and demonizing them doesn't help. We haven't failed because a relapse is not a failure and it's not undoing anything: it's a natural part of recovering. No one is a robot that magically bounces back and never falters again.

If done right it's important to show a character getting back up from a relapse. I've had a couple relapses over the last ten years and it hurts to see people act like that's some kind of character failure or bad narrative/writing choice, when it's sadly just realistic. Relapses can be devastating and it's vital to depict a character pulling through one and finding that consistency towards recovery again.

Granted I don't think Marvel will do it any justice at all if that is the case since they've glossed over pretty much all of his recovery already, but I can dream

Bucky has to be under some kind of blackmail from Val or whoever because there's no way you can look me in the eye and say honestly that Bucky would choose to work for the government that screwed over Sam (and Steve's wishes along the way), and did to Isaiah and his troop what Hydra did to him by experimenting on them; dehumanizing them, unknowingly and unwillingly turning them into super powered weapons of war, then punished and imprisoned Isaiah for doing the same shit they made Steve a hero for.

Bucky is one universe-hopping visit from Hobie away from becoming a punk rock anarchist, come on now.

Bucky has to be under some kind of blackmail from Val or whoever because there's no way you can look me in the eye and say honestly that Bucky would choose to work for the government that screwed over Sam (and Steve's wishes along the way), and did to Isaiah and his troop what Hydra did to him by experimenting on them; dehumanizing them, unknowingly and unwillingly turning them into super powered weapons of war, then punished and imprisoned Isaiah for doing the same shit they made Steve a hero for.

Bucky is one universe-hopping visit from Hobie away from becoming a punk rock anarchist, come on now.

lol people are running out of things to say about the trailer why is there a whole article about how revolutionary the vibranium arm in the dishwasher is for the broader universe lore on water safe prosthesis in the marvel universe when Bucky took a whole ass dive into the potomac river in the first movie he appears with a metal arm in

the dishwasher is a comic relief bit I don't think it's intended to be that deep

So I've seen a couple people now say they're not sure why fans are against Bucky being in the senate or think he must be being forced to somehow, considering we've already seen him as the Secretary of State in What If...? and I wanted to explain why I personally would find it extremely out of character if he's willingly a senator in Thunderbolts*

For the sake of ease I'm going to refer to Earth-82111 Bucky as Secretary Bucky and Earth-19999 Bucky as Primary Bucky.

Based on everything we know about Primary Bucky, I don't see how he'd have any reason to WANT to be there and it feels very contradictory to the path they've set him on ever since Civil War.

It all pretty much comes down to the fact that Secretary Bucky and Primary Bucky have led two entirely different lives since the war, around the time there was a divergence in their lives. Their experiences from around the age of 26 onwards have made them into separate people, despite being technically both Bucky. Sebastian Stan's even said he was surprised by his lines as Secretary Bucky because they're so different from the Bucky he's used to playing.

The point of divergence in their lives is of course the train. Secretary Bucky never fell from the train and lost his arm, he was able to be rescued by Captain Carter, so he didn't go through any of the experiences that Primary Bucky has that would make his character detest the idea of being in government.

Secretary Bucky stayed the light-hearted Bucky we met in early CATFA. He never woke up during a horrific surgery to instal a bionic arm where he'd had his real one torn off in the fall, he never experienced decades of torture, brainwashing, forced assassinations and dehumanization. We can't say for sure how much Secretary Bucky knew about Isaiah Bradley and the men of his squadron, but we do know that Primary Bucky knows about them and withheld that information from Steve, which is huge. Primary Bucky knows which governments and organizations (like SHIELD) are corrupt and in what ways, has stood against the American government both as the Winter Soldier and by his own volition, he was framed for an event that led the world to agree on mandatory registering of a specific demographic of people I wonder where he might've seen that before, and has teammates who were kept on the Raft. He saw his own government, the American government, violate their own citizens the way HYDRA did him; injecting them with unknown substances that irreversibly changed their bodies, then punished Isaiah for doing the same thing they hailed Steve as a hero for, and further violated Isaiah by taking his blood without consent and creating more soldiers from him. Primary Bucky was a victim of HYDRA, the clear bad guys, but Isaiah and his brothers-in-arms were victims of the supposed "good guys", and on that fact alone I cannot see any way Primary Bucky is anything other than disgusted and mistrustful of them, if he doesn't outright hate the government. Primary Bucky has also learned a lot from being friends with Sam, how it wasn't Sam's fault for putting down the shield when the government and the country they're in put him in an extremely difficult and impossible situation out of pure racism, about how their country views heroism and its very white standards for it, and how it's not as simple as it was for Steve or John Walker for Sam to have the shield and be Captain America. He saw the US government make one promise to Steve's memory and then immediately disrespect it.

Secretary Bucky seems happy to serve his country and does so by choice, and like I said, we don't know how much he knows about SHIELD's corruption or what the government he serves did to Isaiah and the men of his squad but it's safe to say the different lived experiences he's gone through make him view his government in a positive light and he's very likely never been a number 1 enemy of the state, while Primary Bucky looks completely miserable having to wear that pin during the entire trailer.

Of course you could argue that Primary Bucky has become a senate as a way to try and change things, but the thing is he also knows better than most what goes on in the shadows and I'd say has a very grim perspective on how realistic his chances would be. He's seen and experienced how futile bureaucracy in their world is for making significant change, and idk it just doesn't feel like Bucky's style considering he chose vigilantism over "proper" processes with dealing with HYDRA remnants and the Flag-Smashers.

I'd say it's in character for the Bucky of Earth-82111 to go into politics and end up where he is, he led a completely different life that was never shaped the same way as Bucky from Earth-19999. It feels extremely out of character for Bucky from Earth-19999 to go into politics, echoes of each other or not, their initial 26 years of shared life experiences wouldn't overrule the catastrophic changes 19999's experiences would make to his mind set and opinions because people's loyalties and thoughts change depending on what information they have. Primary Bucky knows and has seen things Senate Bucky has not, so his opinion has been changed and updated from where they were at 26.

80 years is a long time for a lot of deeply impactful things to diverge them further away from each other, even if they all echo one another, regardless of how identical the first quarter was. That's just my opinion.