James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beganwithamask) wrote2013-03-06 11:08 am
beganwithamask) wrote2013-03-06 11:08 am
Entry tags:
tu shanshu application
Player Information:
Name: Nekky
Age: 23
Contact:
Plurk:![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
nekky
AIM: xnecronomical
Journal:nekky
Game Cast: Arthur Curry, DC Comicsrelentlesstide (activity)
Character Information:
Name: James Buchanan Barnes; Bucky
Canon: Marvel 616
Canon Point: April 1945, just pre-death.
Age: 20
Reference:
Bucky Barnes @ Marvel Wikia (Unabridged)
Earth 616
Marvel WWII
Setting:
Marvel canon consists of a shiny multiverse - that is to say, multiple universes, each with its own Earth and timeline. There are about a million of them from What If stories and AU stories Marvel wanted to put out (like Marvel Zombies, plus each animated universe has its own Earth, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is yet another Earth), but there are just a few that generally matter. Each Earth is designated with a series of numbers to identify it, the main timeline of the comics canon is Earth-616. This is the universe that this version of James Buchanan Barnes hails from.
Earth 616 isn't all that different from regular Earth in a lot of ways. A lot of the history is primarily the same or really similar, geography and locations are generally the same (Marvel tends to use existing cities and countries in their stories, though unique to Marvel are the countries of Latveria, where a villain named Doctor Doom rules, the other-dimensional kingdom of Asgard based on Norse myth, and the undersea kingdom of Atlantis, where Namor rules), and technology levels are mostly about what you'd expect for each respective time period with some exceptions. What our Earth doesn't have, though, are costumed crimefighters, people with superpowers, the occasional time travel nightmare, magical artifacts, and some criminal organizations.
Modern Earth 616 is a huge mess, but the only relevant time period for Bucky is the 1920s to 1945. The world was pretty much the way you'd expect it in 1925 when Bucky was born, and stayed that way for several years. In 1939, a man named Professor Phineas Horton unveiled his creation - a synthetic man who caught fire when exposed to oxygen. He was made up of something called Horton cells, which Horton invented. Basically he knew jack-all about biology and made it all up as he went, stumbling upon the Horton cell, which is has been shown to have all sorts of crazy properties; they catch fire in the air, a transfusion of them has been shown to heal someone of a bullet wound and give them powers (Jackie Falsworth, later on), and to change a boy's body chemistry to unlock mutant abilities and give him the same fire powers (Thomas Raymond). This synthetic man, though, was named Jim Hammond, called The Human Torch, and in a few years, he would join up with Bucky and others. Atlantis was rediscovered by man beneath the waves, and bombed by Germans for Atlantean corpses to experiment on, sending their prince, Namor, on the warpath. A man named Nick Fury helped a German scientist named Abraham Erskine defect to America, where he would go on to engineer Operation Rebirth, a serum and process that gave a sickly young man named Steve Rogers, who just wanted to enlist in the Army, amazing strength, stamina, and health. He would go on to become a costumed icon of the world, Captain America.
Superheroes started to emerge in the early days before America entered WWII; though there were a few before then, like the Two-Gun Kid and the first Union Jack, it wasn't a widespread thing until people like the Avenging Angel, Phantom Bullet, and Fiery Mask took up their masks and codenames. They were basically just men, with no special powers. They and the Human Torch weren't entirely well-received at first, especially the Torch, who is one of the first visible heroes with powers. The Angel specifically designed his costume so that people wouldn't think he was some kind of criminal despite him wearing a mask. 1940 is when people with special powers first really started to emerge and gain press. The Human Torch is widely considered the first, and the day he fought Namor after Namor flooded Manhattan made history.
This is the sort of thing Bucky often saw in the news in those early years of his life. In a lot of ways, he witnessed the dawn of superheroism in the world. Politically, tensions were high in America when he hit his teenage years, people waiting to see if America would have to enter the war against Germany and the Axis. Bucky was highly trained and handed over to Steve Rogers, newly made Captain America, as a partner, and he worked personally with a lot of the first widely recognized superheroes.
WWII went, in a lot of ways, just like how our world's war went, though there are some differences. The British SAS was possibly formed earlier, as it says Bucky was shipped off in March 1941 to train with them (when it wasn't formed until July 1941 historically). Captain America, Bucky, the Invaders, the Young Allies, the Kid Commandos, the Liberty Legion... all of these things were used in American media as propaganda, to boost morale and raise bond sales. Most actual superheroes in those days had comics published about them in-universe, though these were mostly highly fictionalized and exaggerated. (As such, a lot of the really old comics have been removed from continuity and declared to be these 'propaganda comics'.) A lot of the characters shown are ahead of their times, attitude-wise; Bucky, Toro, and the others complain extensively about the Young Allies propaganda comic because of its blatant racism toward one member of the team, and Bucky publicly decries the Japanese internment camps on American soil.
Several super-teams were formed during the war, a few of them by Bucky, to combat Nazi Germany and the Red Skull's HYDRA. HYDRA is a long-spanning villain organization that has had several different changes in leadership over the decades, but they often worked with the Red Skull to further their own ends (world domination or finding the secret to immortality, typical villain shit, it depends on who's writing them). While this meant HYDRA worked with the Nazis, they weren't themselves loyal to the Nazi party. The Red Skull, on the other hand, was. The Red Skull, Johann Schmidt, was Hitler's attempt at a super-soldier; the formula was imperfect and gave him this condition where his face looked... well, like a Red Skull. Just as Captain America was a symbol for the Allies, the Red Skull was a symbol of fear for the Axis, and the Skull was high on the command chain in the Nazi party. Cap and the Skull were nemeses, and the Skull had several German costumed agents working for him like Baron Heinrich Zemo, Warrior Woman, and Master Man. HYDRA and the Skull's band of villains were sort of the world's first look at costumed terror.
As far as the Allies' superteams go, there were several: The Invaders, the Kid Commandos, the Young Allies, the Liberty Legion, and after Bucky's time, the All-Winners Squad, which I won't go into because he was dead when they were a thing, but they were basically the Invaders. The Invaders were the most prominent team, and basically everyone knew who they were: Captain America and his partner Bucky, the Human Torch (the synthetic man mentioned above) and his partner Toro the Flaming Kid (who was a mutant whose powers were brought out by Horton cells, though mutant wasn't a term that anyone used in the 40s, they were just considered people with powers and he's one of the earliest recorded mutants), and Namor the Sub-Mariner (perhaps the first mutant, also half-Atlantean and half-human). They were the main members, though later on, they were also joined by The Destroyer, the second Union Jack, and Spitfire, heroes from Britain. The Invaders were formed in 1941 with Pearl Harbor, and given their name by President Roosevelt himself, and they were the Allies' main weapon against the heightening terror of Nazi Germany and the rise of the Red Skull and his ilk. They went on countless missions, by themselves as a team, separately, and separately with regular soldiers, and served to boost the soldiers' morale and give them hope (along with being one hell of a team and basically kicking a lot of Nazi ass).
The Kid Commandos and Young Allies were teams that Bucky formed during the war with people around his and Toro's age. The Kid Commandos were Golden Girl (Gwenny Lou Sabuki), the Human Top (Davey Mitchell), Bucky, and Toro, and formed when Toro was shot, and Bucky went to rescue Golden Girl's father, a highly skilled surgeon, from a Japanese internment camp to save his life. They were all captured by a villain called Agent Axis, and his experiments gave Gwenny Lou and Davey superpowers. They did a few missions together as a team. The Young Allies were formed with six boys, four of which they met at a meeting of the Sentinels of Liberty (which was sort of a patriotic homefront youth group), the other two were Bucky and Toro. The Young Allies did several missions together over the course of the war, though the individual members often were apart doing their own thing. They were the ones that had the propaganda comic published about them; it was extremely racist and insulting, so they hated it, but still helped with the war effort selling bonds.
The Liberty Legion is another team of Bucky's, formed when all the Invaders but him were captured and brainwashed by the Red Skull. These were other costumed heroes of America, friends of Bucky's, especially Jeff Mace (who went by The Patriot). They helped him rescue the Invaders and that was about all he did with them. The Liberty Legion continued to operate on the home front without Bucky afterward, a superteam on American soil while the Invaders fought overseas. A few of them would go on to join the All-Winners Squad later on.
Another thing that I should probably mention is Marvel's Atlantis, briefly. It has a higher level of tech and science, and Bucky was a friend and teammate of Namor's, their prince. They often flew around in his Atlantean flagship, and Bucky learned to pilot it nearly as well as Namor. He was the only one who could when they needed to rush Toro across the country to California to break out Dr. Sabuki. As such, he has a vague experience with some higher levels of tech and he also knows a little bit about the sort of mystic artifacts that HYDRA was fond of (though only enough to know they're trouble). Most of the technology in that world is what you'd expect of the 1940s though - he went to pictures, he watched newsreels, he used regular military grade guns, he listened to the radio and knows Morse code, etc. He also has a little bit of experience with supernatural creatures; he believes in vampires because they exist, and because he and the Invaders had a run-in with the vampire supervillain Baron Blood. Basically, there is much less strange stuff in his world than modern Marvel, but more than ours, and he's familiar with a lot of it because he was often right there.
Marvel's Earth develops a lot after World War II on the supervillain and superhero front, but Bucky only saw the dawning of the age and not what came immediately after. Since his pull point is 1945, nothing after that is very relevant.
Personality:
On the surface, Bucky seems to be a brash, overconfident, smooth-talking young man. He walks the walk and talks the talk and never lets on when he doesn't have a clue what he's doing. He tends to act like he's older and wiser than he really is, which leads to him being considered rather bossy on a good day and a bully on a bad day. He's been like that since his mother's death, angry at the world in general and not knowing how to express it. His father urged him to keep acting like everything was fine for his sister's sake, so Bucky had to bottle everything inside, and fist-fighting is the only way he knew how to express himself. He takes after his father in that regard - Major Samson said that the elder Barnes also used to be a roughneck in his youth. Compound all that on top of being raised as an entire Army base's kid brother after his father's death and you've got a recipe for class-A bully. Bucky was on his own after being orphaned and separated from his sister, and you can't show fear amongst an entire base full of rowdy, confident, macho soldiers or you become a target - which means he constantly had to wear that brave face and pretend everything was fine so that the men would accept him. He picked on and beat up older kids more often than not, probably because it was bully or be bullied. He's always scrabbled for survival and to find his place in life.
His early days at Camp Lehigh were likely spent with no direction. The Army had to bend a lot of rules to even let him stay on base, and so he's always been indebted to his father's military friends and the brass, and to the men he lived amongst. Bucky learned quick how to survive as a little kid amongst a bunch of soldiers, and developed a natural charm and way with words. He managed to worm his way into many a heart by being extroverted and confident, everyone's kid brother, and he also used that charm to forge connections and acquire non-requisition goods like cigarettes, pin-up girl posters and calendars, men's magazines, anything that might be in demand and not for sale at the base commissary. He'd sell them to the base soldiers in "secret" (It wasn't talked about openly, but it seemed that everyone who spent much time at Lehigh knew what he was up to) and turn a small profit, thereby solidifying his place as the camp mascot. He rarely got in trouble for things; most people looked the other way when it came to Bucky and everyone knew it, so he got used to getting away with a lot of stuff. He still doesn't handle it very gracefully when someone says no to him, unless that someone is Steve Rogers, and being spoiled by the base has only helped along his overbearing, pushy personality.
Nowadays, while Bucky still hasn't gotten past being quick-tempered and always ready to fight, he's more disciplined and much more deadly. His training with the SAS in Britain was excruciating, and one of the hardest things he's ever done, but it was good for him - they provided the structure that Fort Lehigh didn't, gave him a direction and a purpose. Training for his special assignment was a huge deal for Bucky and he relished it, exceeding expectations in most, if not all, fields. He wanted to be a soldier, he had wanted to be a soldier his entire life, just like his father, and this gave him the chance before he was legally able to enlist. Becoming Captain America's partner was the best thing that ever happened to him, and Steve and the SAS, for the most part, managed to temper Bucky's wildness. He held himself to a higher standard when he put on his uniform and worked hard to be someone his father, and Steve, could be proud of.
Another thing about Bucky is that he's spent his life searching for approval, for validation. He's always felt he had to prove that all the trouble people have gone to for him has been worth it. His father's last words were that he was disappointed in him, so it possibly fueled a need to be seen as worthy, to prove himself to others. On base, he sought approval from the soldiers by being their go-to guy for non-requisition goods and by being their scrappy kid brother. He sought approval from Major Samson by promising to be better when he got in trouble. He sought approval from the General by working hard at his training and coming back to the States as a soldier. Later on, he longed to prove himself when the Invaders were formed - after all, they all had powers, and he was just a kid in a domino mask. Namor was often snide to downright hurtful toward Bucky, but it still meant the world to him when Namor finally complimented him and admitted that he could pull his own weight with the team.
He hides any feeling of inadequacy he might feel behind his cocky, fast-talking front. Bucky is often bossy with his friend (his only friend his age) Toro, clearly taking the dominant role in their friendship, but despite that, he cares for his friends deeply, and clings to those friendships, since it's the closest thing to family he has left. He'd do anything for those people he considers family, including flying cross-country in an Atlantean airship with his dying best friend to kidnap a doctor out of a Japanese holding camp to save that friend's life. Even though he may act blustery on the surface, he does have his softer moments, like when he was truly troubled that he'd taken a life for the first time, and when Toro was shot, Bucky is shown almost clinging to Steve.
On the field, he has to act a different way, though, especially in front of the other troops. As Bucky, he may be "Captain America's plucky boy sidekick" in the comic books and newsreels, but soldiers don't want a "plucky boy sidekick" - they want someone capable. Bucky is more than capable, and he acts much more maturely in front of soldiers than he does with his friends. He's also notably overprotective of Cap, especially in the early days. On a mission in Africa, he would get defensive whenever the soldiers didn't listen to Steve, who had just been instated as Captain America; the whole purpose of the mission, besides Bucky's secret orders to assassinate someone, was to garner more respect for Cap from the common soldier, and Bucky took it seriously, threatening to get into fights at the slightest hint of disrespect.
So to sum it up, Bucky is essentially a good kid who wants to do the right thing and who loves his country beneath a bossy, bullying exterior. He grew up a scrappy kid amongst men, and had to grow up too quickly. At the heart of it, he's a boy fighitng a man's war.
When he finds out he's in a world between life, death, and dreaming, he likely won't take it very well. At his canon point, he was willing to sacrifice himself to keep Zemo's drone plane from reaching the states, so he'll believe he's actually dead or lying in a coma in a VA hospital. He'll probably be in denial and not actually believe the kedan for a while, because while he's seen a lot of strange and mystical things, he doesn't usually just take strangers at their words, especially not in a strange place with no one he actually knows and trusts around. It'll take a while to sink in, basically. He's very stubborn about things, and this is definitely something he'll be stubborn about, not trusting any of the natives for a good while.
Appearance: Bucky looks young for his age. Even at 20, he looks more like he's 17 or 18, and he's usually clean shaven to keep up the illusion. He stands about 5'7" and weighs somewhere around 150-160 lbs; he's a wiry sort of man, leanly muscled and trim, stronger than most would guess he is. The heavy fabric of his costume doesn't really lend itself to showing off his physique, and he's often underestimated by his opponents. Despite his young age, he has several scars from knives, shrapnel, bullets, fist-fights, etc, though none of them are visible when he's in costume or wearing his uniform. A prominent one when his arms are visible is a long, jagged one down his left inner forearm where he once kept a stick of C4 buried beneath the skin. The scar is from cutting his arm open with his own fingernail (Avengers/Invaders).
Other than the attributes he doesn't show, he's a relatively normal looking young man. He's somewhat handsome, very "American", with brown eyes and neatly cut and combed brown hair. Bucky Barnes doesn't particularly stand out appearance-wise, which makes him an ideal candidate for the black ops and secretive missions he was trained for.
Abilities:
Bucky is a baseline human being, with no special powers or superhuman enhancements to speak of. To compensate, he is highly trained by both the British and US militaries, and he has a natural talent for hand to hand combat (Major Samson and General Phillips both regarded him as one of the best natural fighters they had ever seen; he was good enough even pre-training for the military to authorize sending a 16 year old, technically unenlisted orphan boy overseas for specialized training with the British S.A.S. even before the US entered WWII.)
He trained for some unspecified number of months (could have been anywhere from 2-4) with Britain's brand new elite special forces group, the S.A.S., though I will note here that this isn't exactly historically possible, as Bucky was shipped out for training the day after his 16th birthday (which would be March 21, 1941) and historically, the SAS wasn't formed until July 1941. I'm going to say in the Marvel-verse, it formed up earlier, but possibly didn't have that particular name until July. Still, Bucky was likely one of the first men in that training program. Anyway, he was there for a few months, and describes them as some of the most intense months of his life. His training was extensive and ruthless, but he loved it, and he was a natural.
He was trained by some of the greatest names in hand-to-hand combat - Colonel Rex Applegate and William Fairbairn, and later Steve Rogers, who was also trained by the aforementioned men. Bucky is highly adept at hand to hand combat, both unarmed and armed (usually with a knife), various forms of martial arts (it's likely he knows about as much as Steve does, though he isn't at a super-soldier's level), acrobatics (he's shown to be very limber and quick on his feet), espionage, stealth, survival, advance scouting, and silent kills.
Bucky is also an accomplished marksman, and is proficient with several types of firearms (his favorite being a Thompson M1 submachine gun, though he also uses handguns and whatever he can get his hands on). He has some experience in sniping. He's also knowledgeable about demolitions, and disarming bombs (which he thinks is tedious). Basically, he was trained to do all the dirty work that they couldn't allow Captain America to do, and they covered it up by putting him out there as 'Cap's plucky boy sidekick', a direct counter-image to the Hitler Youth. Meanwhile, his opponents tended to underestimate him because of the propaganda and his age, and Bucky learned to use that to his advantage.
And because a comics ability section isn't complete without every single ridiculous skill they can pile onto a 16-20 year old, Bucky is multilingual and speaks English, Russian, German, Japanese and just a smattering of French, and he's a pretty damn good pilot. He can pilot Namor's Atlantean flagship almost as well as Namor can, which means he's pretty quick at figuring out the controls of various aircrafts.
As far as weaknesses go, he's still just a human, albeit a better trained one. He's not immune to getting shot or smacked around, he's just determined enough to keep getting back up until he's dead. He's also afraid of jumping from planes, though writers are sometimes inconsistent about this, because his father died in a parachuting accident (but the cause of death was pre-Brubaker so it isn't always taken into account).
Inventory:
- His costume underneath his Army uniform, with the domino mask in a pocket
- A beat up, leather-backed journal half full of writing and a pen
- His dogtags
- A smallish fighting knife hidden in his boot
Suite: A one floor in the Earth Sector would probably be ideal. He tends to be uncomfortable in a whole lot of finery or tech, so simple is better, and stone houses are sturdy and easily defensible. He's also a determined, headstrong, stubborn guy, and will probably fit in better with the residents of the Earth Sector than anywhere else.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person:
Their intel is supposedly solid, a tip-off from a defecting German agent about the Allied spy trapped behind enemy lines, his cover blown. His orders don't say what the man knows, just that he's important and must be extracted no matter the cost. That's why General Phillips sent the Invaders.
It's been a chilly December, and Bucky suppresses a shiver. He's wearing long underwear underneath the bulletproof fabric of his costume, but it doesn't help as much like this, with Bucky crouching high in the branches of a barren tree, exposed to sharp winds that cut right through wool and cotton and skin to chill his very bones. Toro will be there when this is over; they'll sit in their tent as the adults deal with contacting the brass and taking care of the spy, and drink terrible hot cocoa made from melted snow and the packets of powdered milk, sugar, and cocoa in their ration packs. Bucky will dig out the chocolate disks he's saved and they'll each melt one into their drink to make it richer. He'll press his tin cup into Tom's hands first, and his friend will warm it up for him til it nearly scalds his tongue when he takes a drink.
Thoughts of 'later' and cocoa and warmth are fleeting, but motivating nonetheless. J. Bucky Barnes has always hated the cold, and he's definitely feeling it at his vantage point. He huffs out a breath, and it fogs into the air as he brings his binoculars to his eyes again. The compound is nearly hidden in the drifting snow, and he doesn't doubt that the goose-steppers think they're safe all holed up in their concrete building. They won't be for long.
They say Army life is a game of 'hurry up and wait', and Bucky, having spent his entire life on Army bases, is pretty sure it's true. They had to move fast to get here, to find this place, and now the Invaders are camped a half a mile off, waiting on Bucky to give the signal when he's completed his part of the mission. They'll have to move quickly and quietly, with little interruption from the guards patrolling the perimeter, or the Skull's agents will off their target before they can get to him; it's unsurprisingly hard to do stealth with two men who set themselves on fire, so the quiet jobs fall to Bucky, as they always do. This is what he was trained for.
The perimeter guards come into view a moment later, and he thinks finally before he drops down from his tree, quiet as a shadow. They never see him coming - he uses the falling snow to his advantage, moves silently through it. His time in the tree has ensured he's been cloaked in snowflakes. He waits until one guard goes ahead of the other, and takes the straggler first, with a hand on his mouth and slim knife in his hand slicing through the man's throat like butter. The soft whump of the dropping body alerts the second, but before he can shout, Bucky is on him. Another silent kill - the angle of his knife thrust slices up through heavy fabric and flesh easily.
"Nein!" He doesn't expect there to have been a third patrol guard turning the corner. The man goes for his radio and Bucky curses, scrabbling after him. He isn't quite quick enough in the bone chilling cold, but as soon as the hiss of blood steaming in the snow becomes apparent, Bucky is going for his own radio. "Cap? They changed the guard patterns, a third one alerted them inside. Go in with the Torches hard and fast, I'm going on ahead for our man."
"What? Bucky, no, it's too dangerous, wait for back-up-"
"Ksshh," he imitates the sound of static, mind racing as he heads for the nearest entry point, gloves stained with blood freezing in the cold. "Sorry Cap, can't hear you, ain't gettin' a good signal. I'll meet you fellas on the inside."
Steve's voice is that of a true commander; it's the voice he uses to make sure people listen, but Bucky isn't just anybody. "Bucky, this is an order, you take cover until we get there!"
"I got other orders, Cap," he says, sounding older in that moment than his actual years, and then his tone is light again, ever confident. "Hurry up, wouldja? I'll give our guy your regards." The Allied agent inside couldn't wait on him to rendezvous with the rest of the Invaders, and Phillips was clear that this man is important. The secrets in his head will die with him if this mission goes south. Maybe it isn't the smartest thing he's ever done, slipping into a Nazi compound alone after the soldiers inside have been alerted to his presence, but there isn't any time for a plan. And if he dies in the attempt, well...
Who wants to live forever?
Network:
[Anonymous location]
So I gotta hand it to myself, this is one heckuva hallucination I've dreamed up.
[The face on the screen is young; he could probably pass as sixteen or seventeen still, though in reality he just turned twenty. The way he sits, the expression on his face, he's not trying to act any older - people let their guards down for teenagers, mostly, and he can use that to his advantage. His brown hair is combed neatly in a vaguely old-fashioned style, and what's visible of his shoulders are clad in something that could be US military - though, circa WWII if you would recognize something like that. He seems a little... bored? almost, leaning on his hand, elbow on the desk in one of the little cafes.]
I'm guessin' I'm in a VA hospital somewhere, drugged outta my gourd. Might not have lost my looks in that grenade blast if the nurses are givin' me the good stuff. [His smile is easy, charming, that winning Bucky Barnes smile he's so known for. He seems perfectly willing to accept that this is all his mind messing with him while his body is in a coma somewhere, and he figures he might as well play along. For now. If he's wrong... Well, it's a good cover. Even in a dream, he won't spew state secrets about the drone plane and Zemo's castle to just anyone.] Shapeshifters, a city on a turtle, an' a 'world between life, death, and dreaming', what'll the morphine cook up next? Even these video talk consoles, bet the Army would love to go runnin' with that idea. Hey, if this is my drug-induced coma, my unit's prob'ly here somewhere, so hey, you see 'em, tell 'em Private James Barnes is lookin' for those guys.
Name: Nekky
Age: 23
Contact:
Plurk:
AIM: xnecronomical
Journal:
nekkyGame Cast: Arthur Curry, DC Comics
relentlesstide (activity)Character Information:
Name: James Buchanan Barnes; Bucky
Canon: Marvel 616
Canon Point: April 1945, just pre-death.
Age: 20
Reference:
Bucky Barnes @ Marvel Wikia (Unabridged)
Earth 616
Marvel WWII
Setting:
Marvel canon consists of a shiny multiverse - that is to say, multiple universes, each with its own Earth and timeline. There are about a million of them from What If stories and AU stories Marvel wanted to put out (like Marvel Zombies, plus each animated universe has its own Earth, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is yet another Earth), but there are just a few that generally matter. Each Earth is designated with a series of numbers to identify it, the main timeline of the comics canon is Earth-616. This is the universe that this version of James Buchanan Barnes hails from.
Earth 616 isn't all that different from regular Earth in a lot of ways. A lot of the history is primarily the same or really similar, geography and locations are generally the same (Marvel tends to use existing cities and countries in their stories, though unique to Marvel are the countries of Latveria, where a villain named Doctor Doom rules, the other-dimensional kingdom of Asgard based on Norse myth, and the undersea kingdom of Atlantis, where Namor rules), and technology levels are mostly about what you'd expect for each respective time period with some exceptions. What our Earth doesn't have, though, are costumed crimefighters, people with superpowers, the occasional time travel nightmare, magical artifacts, and some criminal organizations.
Modern Earth 616 is a huge mess, but the only relevant time period for Bucky is the 1920s to 1945. The world was pretty much the way you'd expect it in 1925 when Bucky was born, and stayed that way for several years. In 1939, a man named Professor Phineas Horton unveiled his creation - a synthetic man who caught fire when exposed to oxygen. He was made up of something called Horton cells, which Horton invented. Basically he knew jack-all about biology and made it all up as he went, stumbling upon the Horton cell, which is has been shown to have all sorts of crazy properties; they catch fire in the air, a transfusion of them has been shown to heal someone of a bullet wound and give them powers (Jackie Falsworth, later on), and to change a boy's body chemistry to unlock mutant abilities and give him the same fire powers (Thomas Raymond). This synthetic man, though, was named Jim Hammond, called The Human Torch, and in a few years, he would join up with Bucky and others. Atlantis was rediscovered by man beneath the waves, and bombed by Germans for Atlantean corpses to experiment on, sending their prince, Namor, on the warpath. A man named Nick Fury helped a German scientist named Abraham Erskine defect to America, where he would go on to engineer Operation Rebirth, a serum and process that gave a sickly young man named Steve Rogers, who just wanted to enlist in the Army, amazing strength, stamina, and health. He would go on to become a costumed icon of the world, Captain America.
Superheroes started to emerge in the early days before America entered WWII; though there were a few before then, like the Two-Gun Kid and the first Union Jack, it wasn't a widespread thing until people like the Avenging Angel, Phantom Bullet, and Fiery Mask took up their masks and codenames. They were basically just men, with no special powers. They and the Human Torch weren't entirely well-received at first, especially the Torch, who is one of the first visible heroes with powers. The Angel specifically designed his costume so that people wouldn't think he was some kind of criminal despite him wearing a mask. 1940 is when people with special powers first really started to emerge and gain press. The Human Torch is widely considered the first, and the day he fought Namor after Namor flooded Manhattan made history.
This is the sort of thing Bucky often saw in the news in those early years of his life. In a lot of ways, he witnessed the dawn of superheroism in the world. Politically, tensions were high in America when he hit his teenage years, people waiting to see if America would have to enter the war against Germany and the Axis. Bucky was highly trained and handed over to Steve Rogers, newly made Captain America, as a partner, and he worked personally with a lot of the first widely recognized superheroes.
WWII went, in a lot of ways, just like how our world's war went, though there are some differences. The British SAS was possibly formed earlier, as it says Bucky was shipped off in March 1941 to train with them (when it wasn't formed until July 1941 historically). Captain America, Bucky, the Invaders, the Young Allies, the Kid Commandos, the Liberty Legion... all of these things were used in American media as propaganda, to boost morale and raise bond sales. Most actual superheroes in those days had comics published about them in-universe, though these were mostly highly fictionalized and exaggerated. (As such, a lot of the really old comics have been removed from continuity and declared to be these 'propaganda comics'.) A lot of the characters shown are ahead of their times, attitude-wise; Bucky, Toro, and the others complain extensively about the Young Allies propaganda comic because of its blatant racism toward one member of the team, and Bucky publicly decries the Japanese internment camps on American soil.
Several super-teams were formed during the war, a few of them by Bucky, to combat Nazi Germany and the Red Skull's HYDRA. HYDRA is a long-spanning villain organization that has had several different changes in leadership over the decades, but they often worked with the Red Skull to further their own ends (world domination or finding the secret to immortality, typical villain shit, it depends on who's writing them). While this meant HYDRA worked with the Nazis, they weren't themselves loyal to the Nazi party. The Red Skull, on the other hand, was. The Red Skull, Johann Schmidt, was Hitler's attempt at a super-soldier; the formula was imperfect and gave him this condition where his face looked... well, like a Red Skull. Just as Captain America was a symbol for the Allies, the Red Skull was a symbol of fear for the Axis, and the Skull was high on the command chain in the Nazi party. Cap and the Skull were nemeses, and the Skull had several German costumed agents working for him like Baron Heinrich Zemo, Warrior Woman, and Master Man. HYDRA and the Skull's band of villains were sort of the world's first look at costumed terror.
As far as the Allies' superteams go, there were several: The Invaders, the Kid Commandos, the Young Allies, the Liberty Legion, and after Bucky's time, the All-Winners Squad, which I won't go into because he was dead when they were a thing, but they were basically the Invaders. The Invaders were the most prominent team, and basically everyone knew who they were: Captain America and his partner Bucky, the Human Torch (the synthetic man mentioned above) and his partner Toro the Flaming Kid (who was a mutant whose powers were brought out by Horton cells, though mutant wasn't a term that anyone used in the 40s, they were just considered people with powers and he's one of the earliest recorded mutants), and Namor the Sub-Mariner (perhaps the first mutant, also half-Atlantean and half-human). They were the main members, though later on, they were also joined by The Destroyer, the second Union Jack, and Spitfire, heroes from Britain. The Invaders were formed in 1941 with Pearl Harbor, and given their name by President Roosevelt himself, and they were the Allies' main weapon against the heightening terror of Nazi Germany and the rise of the Red Skull and his ilk. They went on countless missions, by themselves as a team, separately, and separately with regular soldiers, and served to boost the soldiers' morale and give them hope (along with being one hell of a team and basically kicking a lot of Nazi ass).
The Kid Commandos and Young Allies were teams that Bucky formed during the war with people around his and Toro's age. The Kid Commandos were Golden Girl (Gwenny Lou Sabuki), the Human Top (Davey Mitchell), Bucky, and Toro, and formed when Toro was shot, and Bucky went to rescue Golden Girl's father, a highly skilled surgeon, from a Japanese internment camp to save his life. They were all captured by a villain called Agent Axis, and his experiments gave Gwenny Lou and Davey superpowers. They did a few missions together as a team. The Young Allies were formed with six boys, four of which they met at a meeting of the Sentinels of Liberty (which was sort of a patriotic homefront youth group), the other two were Bucky and Toro. The Young Allies did several missions together over the course of the war, though the individual members often were apart doing their own thing. They were the ones that had the propaganda comic published about them; it was extremely racist and insulting, so they hated it, but still helped with the war effort selling bonds.
The Liberty Legion is another team of Bucky's, formed when all the Invaders but him were captured and brainwashed by the Red Skull. These were other costumed heroes of America, friends of Bucky's, especially Jeff Mace (who went by The Patriot). They helped him rescue the Invaders and that was about all he did with them. The Liberty Legion continued to operate on the home front without Bucky afterward, a superteam on American soil while the Invaders fought overseas. A few of them would go on to join the All-Winners Squad later on.
Another thing that I should probably mention is Marvel's Atlantis, briefly. It has a higher level of tech and science, and Bucky was a friend and teammate of Namor's, their prince. They often flew around in his Atlantean flagship, and Bucky learned to pilot it nearly as well as Namor. He was the only one who could when they needed to rush Toro across the country to California to break out Dr. Sabuki. As such, he has a vague experience with some higher levels of tech and he also knows a little bit about the sort of mystic artifacts that HYDRA was fond of (though only enough to know they're trouble). Most of the technology in that world is what you'd expect of the 1940s though - he went to pictures, he watched newsreels, he used regular military grade guns, he listened to the radio and knows Morse code, etc. He also has a little bit of experience with supernatural creatures; he believes in vampires because they exist, and because he and the Invaders had a run-in with the vampire supervillain Baron Blood. Basically, there is much less strange stuff in his world than modern Marvel, but more than ours, and he's familiar with a lot of it because he was often right there.
Marvel's Earth develops a lot after World War II on the supervillain and superhero front, but Bucky only saw the dawning of the age and not what came immediately after. Since his pull point is 1945, nothing after that is very relevant.
Personality:
On the surface, Bucky seems to be a brash, overconfident, smooth-talking young man. He walks the walk and talks the talk and never lets on when he doesn't have a clue what he's doing. He tends to act like he's older and wiser than he really is, which leads to him being considered rather bossy on a good day and a bully on a bad day. He's been like that since his mother's death, angry at the world in general and not knowing how to express it. His father urged him to keep acting like everything was fine for his sister's sake, so Bucky had to bottle everything inside, and fist-fighting is the only way he knew how to express himself. He takes after his father in that regard - Major Samson said that the elder Barnes also used to be a roughneck in his youth. Compound all that on top of being raised as an entire Army base's kid brother after his father's death and you've got a recipe for class-A bully. Bucky was on his own after being orphaned and separated from his sister, and you can't show fear amongst an entire base full of rowdy, confident, macho soldiers or you become a target - which means he constantly had to wear that brave face and pretend everything was fine so that the men would accept him. He picked on and beat up older kids more often than not, probably because it was bully or be bullied. He's always scrabbled for survival and to find his place in life.
His early days at Camp Lehigh were likely spent with no direction. The Army had to bend a lot of rules to even let him stay on base, and so he's always been indebted to his father's military friends and the brass, and to the men he lived amongst. Bucky learned quick how to survive as a little kid amongst a bunch of soldiers, and developed a natural charm and way with words. He managed to worm his way into many a heart by being extroverted and confident, everyone's kid brother, and he also used that charm to forge connections and acquire non-requisition goods like cigarettes, pin-up girl posters and calendars, men's magazines, anything that might be in demand and not for sale at the base commissary. He'd sell them to the base soldiers in "secret" (It wasn't talked about openly, but it seemed that everyone who spent much time at Lehigh knew what he was up to) and turn a small profit, thereby solidifying his place as the camp mascot. He rarely got in trouble for things; most people looked the other way when it came to Bucky and everyone knew it, so he got used to getting away with a lot of stuff. He still doesn't handle it very gracefully when someone says no to him, unless that someone is Steve Rogers, and being spoiled by the base has only helped along his overbearing, pushy personality.
Nowadays, while Bucky still hasn't gotten past being quick-tempered and always ready to fight, he's more disciplined and much more deadly. His training with the SAS in Britain was excruciating, and one of the hardest things he's ever done, but it was good for him - they provided the structure that Fort Lehigh didn't, gave him a direction and a purpose. Training for his special assignment was a huge deal for Bucky and he relished it, exceeding expectations in most, if not all, fields. He wanted to be a soldier, he had wanted to be a soldier his entire life, just like his father, and this gave him the chance before he was legally able to enlist. Becoming Captain America's partner was the best thing that ever happened to him, and Steve and the SAS, for the most part, managed to temper Bucky's wildness. He held himself to a higher standard when he put on his uniform and worked hard to be someone his father, and Steve, could be proud of.
Another thing about Bucky is that he's spent his life searching for approval, for validation. He's always felt he had to prove that all the trouble people have gone to for him has been worth it. His father's last words were that he was disappointed in him, so it possibly fueled a need to be seen as worthy, to prove himself to others. On base, he sought approval from the soldiers by being their go-to guy for non-requisition goods and by being their scrappy kid brother. He sought approval from Major Samson by promising to be better when he got in trouble. He sought approval from the General by working hard at his training and coming back to the States as a soldier. Later on, he longed to prove himself when the Invaders were formed - after all, they all had powers, and he was just a kid in a domino mask. Namor was often snide to downright hurtful toward Bucky, but it still meant the world to him when Namor finally complimented him and admitted that he could pull his own weight with the team.
He hides any feeling of inadequacy he might feel behind his cocky, fast-talking front. Bucky is often bossy with his friend (his only friend his age) Toro, clearly taking the dominant role in their friendship, but despite that, he cares for his friends deeply, and clings to those friendships, since it's the closest thing to family he has left. He'd do anything for those people he considers family, including flying cross-country in an Atlantean airship with his dying best friend to kidnap a doctor out of a Japanese holding camp to save that friend's life. Even though he may act blustery on the surface, he does have his softer moments, like when he was truly troubled that he'd taken a life for the first time, and when Toro was shot, Bucky is shown almost clinging to Steve.
On the field, he has to act a different way, though, especially in front of the other troops. As Bucky, he may be "Captain America's plucky boy sidekick" in the comic books and newsreels, but soldiers don't want a "plucky boy sidekick" - they want someone capable. Bucky is more than capable, and he acts much more maturely in front of soldiers than he does with his friends. He's also notably overprotective of Cap, especially in the early days. On a mission in Africa, he would get defensive whenever the soldiers didn't listen to Steve, who had just been instated as Captain America; the whole purpose of the mission, besides Bucky's secret orders to assassinate someone, was to garner more respect for Cap from the common soldier, and Bucky took it seriously, threatening to get into fights at the slightest hint of disrespect.
So to sum it up, Bucky is essentially a good kid who wants to do the right thing and who loves his country beneath a bossy, bullying exterior. He grew up a scrappy kid amongst men, and had to grow up too quickly. At the heart of it, he's a boy fighitng a man's war.
When he finds out he's in a world between life, death, and dreaming, he likely won't take it very well. At his canon point, he was willing to sacrifice himself to keep Zemo's drone plane from reaching the states, so he'll believe he's actually dead or lying in a coma in a VA hospital. He'll probably be in denial and not actually believe the kedan for a while, because while he's seen a lot of strange and mystical things, he doesn't usually just take strangers at their words, especially not in a strange place with no one he actually knows and trusts around. It'll take a while to sink in, basically. He's very stubborn about things, and this is definitely something he'll be stubborn about, not trusting any of the natives for a good while.
Appearance: Bucky looks young for his age. Even at 20, he looks more like he's 17 or 18, and he's usually clean shaven to keep up the illusion. He stands about 5'7" and weighs somewhere around 150-160 lbs; he's a wiry sort of man, leanly muscled and trim, stronger than most would guess he is. The heavy fabric of his costume doesn't really lend itself to showing off his physique, and he's often underestimated by his opponents. Despite his young age, he has several scars from knives, shrapnel, bullets, fist-fights, etc, though none of them are visible when he's in costume or wearing his uniform. A prominent one when his arms are visible is a long, jagged one down his left inner forearm where he once kept a stick of C4 buried beneath the skin. The scar is from cutting his arm open with his own fingernail (Avengers/Invaders).
Other than the attributes he doesn't show, he's a relatively normal looking young man. He's somewhat handsome, very "American", with brown eyes and neatly cut and combed brown hair. Bucky Barnes doesn't particularly stand out appearance-wise, which makes him an ideal candidate for the black ops and secretive missions he was trained for.
Abilities:
Bucky is a baseline human being, with no special powers or superhuman enhancements to speak of. To compensate, he is highly trained by both the British and US militaries, and he has a natural talent for hand to hand combat (Major Samson and General Phillips both regarded him as one of the best natural fighters they had ever seen; he was good enough even pre-training for the military to authorize sending a 16 year old, technically unenlisted orphan boy overseas for specialized training with the British S.A.S. even before the US entered WWII.)
He trained for some unspecified number of months (could have been anywhere from 2-4) with Britain's brand new elite special forces group, the S.A.S., though I will note here that this isn't exactly historically possible, as Bucky was shipped out for training the day after his 16th birthday (which would be March 21, 1941) and historically, the SAS wasn't formed until July 1941. I'm going to say in the Marvel-verse, it formed up earlier, but possibly didn't have that particular name until July. Still, Bucky was likely one of the first men in that training program. Anyway, he was there for a few months, and describes them as some of the most intense months of his life. His training was extensive and ruthless, but he loved it, and he was a natural.
He was trained by some of the greatest names in hand-to-hand combat - Colonel Rex Applegate and William Fairbairn, and later Steve Rogers, who was also trained by the aforementioned men. Bucky is highly adept at hand to hand combat, both unarmed and armed (usually with a knife), various forms of martial arts (it's likely he knows about as much as Steve does, though he isn't at a super-soldier's level), acrobatics (he's shown to be very limber and quick on his feet), espionage, stealth, survival, advance scouting, and silent kills.
Bucky is also an accomplished marksman, and is proficient with several types of firearms (his favorite being a Thompson M1 submachine gun, though he also uses handguns and whatever he can get his hands on). He has some experience in sniping. He's also knowledgeable about demolitions, and disarming bombs (which he thinks is tedious). Basically, he was trained to do all the dirty work that they couldn't allow Captain America to do, and they covered it up by putting him out there as 'Cap's plucky boy sidekick', a direct counter-image to the Hitler Youth. Meanwhile, his opponents tended to underestimate him because of the propaganda and his age, and Bucky learned to use that to his advantage.
And because a comics ability section isn't complete without every single ridiculous skill they can pile onto a 16-20 year old, Bucky is multilingual and speaks English, Russian, German, Japanese and just a smattering of French, and he's a pretty damn good pilot. He can pilot Namor's Atlantean flagship almost as well as Namor can, which means he's pretty quick at figuring out the controls of various aircrafts.
As far as weaknesses go, he's still just a human, albeit a better trained one. He's not immune to getting shot or smacked around, he's just determined enough to keep getting back up until he's dead. He's also afraid of jumping from planes, though writers are sometimes inconsistent about this, because his father died in a parachuting accident (but the cause of death was pre-Brubaker so it isn't always taken into account).
Inventory:
- His costume underneath his Army uniform, with the domino mask in a pocket
- A beat up, leather-backed journal half full of writing and a pen
- His dogtags
- A smallish fighting knife hidden in his boot
Suite: A one floor in the Earth Sector would probably be ideal. He tends to be uncomfortable in a whole lot of finery or tech, so simple is better, and stone houses are sturdy and easily defensible. He's also a determined, headstrong, stubborn guy, and will probably fit in better with the residents of the Earth Sector than anywhere else.
In-Character Samples:
Third Person:
Their intel is supposedly solid, a tip-off from a defecting German agent about the Allied spy trapped behind enemy lines, his cover blown. His orders don't say what the man knows, just that he's important and must be extracted no matter the cost. That's why General Phillips sent the Invaders.
It's been a chilly December, and Bucky suppresses a shiver. He's wearing long underwear underneath the bulletproof fabric of his costume, but it doesn't help as much like this, with Bucky crouching high in the branches of a barren tree, exposed to sharp winds that cut right through wool and cotton and skin to chill his very bones. Toro will be there when this is over; they'll sit in their tent as the adults deal with contacting the brass and taking care of the spy, and drink terrible hot cocoa made from melted snow and the packets of powdered milk, sugar, and cocoa in their ration packs. Bucky will dig out the chocolate disks he's saved and they'll each melt one into their drink to make it richer. He'll press his tin cup into Tom's hands first, and his friend will warm it up for him til it nearly scalds his tongue when he takes a drink.
Thoughts of 'later' and cocoa and warmth are fleeting, but motivating nonetheless. J. Bucky Barnes has always hated the cold, and he's definitely feeling it at his vantage point. He huffs out a breath, and it fogs into the air as he brings his binoculars to his eyes again. The compound is nearly hidden in the drifting snow, and he doesn't doubt that the goose-steppers think they're safe all holed up in their concrete building. They won't be for long.
They say Army life is a game of 'hurry up and wait', and Bucky, having spent his entire life on Army bases, is pretty sure it's true. They had to move fast to get here, to find this place, and now the Invaders are camped a half a mile off, waiting on Bucky to give the signal when he's completed his part of the mission. They'll have to move quickly and quietly, with little interruption from the guards patrolling the perimeter, or the Skull's agents will off their target before they can get to him; it's unsurprisingly hard to do stealth with two men who set themselves on fire, so the quiet jobs fall to Bucky, as they always do. This is what he was trained for.
The perimeter guards come into view a moment later, and he thinks finally before he drops down from his tree, quiet as a shadow. They never see him coming - he uses the falling snow to his advantage, moves silently through it. His time in the tree has ensured he's been cloaked in snowflakes. He waits until one guard goes ahead of the other, and takes the straggler first, with a hand on his mouth and slim knife in his hand slicing through the man's throat like butter. The soft whump of the dropping body alerts the second, but before he can shout, Bucky is on him. Another silent kill - the angle of his knife thrust slices up through heavy fabric and flesh easily.
"Nein!" He doesn't expect there to have been a third patrol guard turning the corner. The man goes for his radio and Bucky curses, scrabbling after him. He isn't quite quick enough in the bone chilling cold, but as soon as the hiss of blood steaming in the snow becomes apparent, Bucky is going for his own radio. "Cap? They changed the guard patterns, a third one alerted them inside. Go in with the Torches hard and fast, I'm going on ahead for our man."
"What? Bucky, no, it's too dangerous, wait for back-up-"
"Ksshh," he imitates the sound of static, mind racing as he heads for the nearest entry point, gloves stained with blood freezing in the cold. "Sorry Cap, can't hear you, ain't gettin' a good signal. I'll meet you fellas on the inside."
Steve's voice is that of a true commander; it's the voice he uses to make sure people listen, but Bucky isn't just anybody. "Bucky, this is an order, you take cover until we get there!"
"I got other orders, Cap," he says, sounding older in that moment than his actual years, and then his tone is light again, ever confident. "Hurry up, wouldja? I'll give our guy your regards." The Allied agent inside couldn't wait on him to rendezvous with the rest of the Invaders, and Phillips was clear that this man is important. The secrets in his head will die with him if this mission goes south. Maybe it isn't the smartest thing he's ever done, slipping into a Nazi compound alone after the soldiers inside have been alerted to his presence, but there isn't any time for a plan. And if he dies in the attempt, well...
Who wants to live forever?
Network:
[Anonymous location]
So I gotta hand it to myself, this is one heckuva hallucination I've dreamed up.
[The face on the screen is young; he could probably pass as sixteen or seventeen still, though in reality he just turned twenty. The way he sits, the expression on his face, he's not trying to act any older - people let their guards down for teenagers, mostly, and he can use that to his advantage. His brown hair is combed neatly in a vaguely old-fashioned style, and what's visible of his shoulders are clad in something that could be US military - though, circa WWII if you would recognize something like that. He seems a little... bored? almost, leaning on his hand, elbow on the desk in one of the little cafes.]
I'm guessin' I'm in a VA hospital somewhere, drugged outta my gourd. Might not have lost my looks in that grenade blast if the nurses are givin' me the good stuff. [His smile is easy, charming, that winning Bucky Barnes smile he's so known for. He seems perfectly willing to accept that this is all his mind messing with him while his body is in a coma somewhere, and he figures he might as well play along. For now. If he's wrong... Well, it's a good cover. Even in a dream, he won't spew state secrets about the drone plane and Zemo's castle to just anyone.] Shapeshifters, a city on a turtle, an' a 'world between life, death, and dreaming', what'll the morphine cook up next? Even these video talk consoles, bet the Army would love to go runnin' with that idea. Hey, if this is my drug-induced coma, my unit's prob'ly here somewhere, so hey, you see 'em, tell 'em Private James Barnes is lookin' for those guys.