So it was made clear that uh you guys are very deprived in this ship. Do you guys have any like reading suggestions for where to enter into WinterWidow as a ship?
Also please enjoy the first of my RenFaire art stuff.
Renfaire 2023 1/7
I’ve seen a few posts wishing we could see more of Nat’s POV and how/why she ended up getting back together with Bucky now, and it got me thinking. As much as I love seeing them together again, Thunderbolts #2 took me by surprise too.
But this has almost always been a ship where 90% of it happens off screen, so I decided to do some rereading to go over what we DID see after the breakup (if you can call it that).
Cut for length, comic panels and speculative rambling. Basically, what we know of BuckyNat from Nat’s side, starting from end of Winter Soldier (2012). Part 1 of ???
Winter Soldier (2012), issue #14. For context, this is what we know of the memory wipe.
It’s honestly kind of vague, and we don't see her for the rest of the run.
Then Black Widow (2014), issue #8 begins with this summary.
Specifically, their relationship, so we can assume this is why she still knows who he is and works together with no hesitation.
They still move in the same spy circles and are quick to team up, working together seamlessly.
And oddly flirty.
She admires him at the very least, maybe even remembers running ops together. Calls him only Winter Soldier or Barnes.
He drops in again in issue #15 and she immediately knows it’s not a coincidence, but allows him to tag along.
Nat accepts his help but doesn’t appreciate him getting in the way of completing her mission. She also thanks him later for picking her up in the middle of nowhere.
There’s still trust and familiarity there, even if it’s just professionally. Noticeably, she calls him Bucky instead of James. She clearly doesn’t remember them and he probably hasn’t told her.
Fast forward to Black Widow (2016), issue #9, where things get interesting and confusing. Recluse, daughter of the Red Room’s Headmistress, seems to spill the beans.
Nat is not happy about it but there’s that immediate 'we' again. They’re going to get out of this together.
“Oh, Barnes..." could be anything from pity to sympathy to exasperation. She already knows from the last run that Bucky tends to keep an eye on her. And it doesn't take a super spy to tell that he (still) loves her.
Nat’s face is hidden from us but Recluse interprets it as shock. She could be wrong, but this also gives Nat a lot of context for things she's apparently forgotten. Things she might have already suspected, given what she does next.
The sudden use of James is a jolt to Bucky (and also every BuckyNat fan). Does she remember?!
My theory is that she’s using it for two reasons: 1) Bucky’s very out of it and this gets his full attention immediately, 2) not revealing to Recluse that any of this might be new information to Nat. This whole run was about the leverage gained by who has what info.
Neither of those answers the question, but then:
This kind of does.
Some more seamless fighting later, she confronts him.
The way I see this page has changed over the years. At first I interpreted this as just her saying he should stop hovering. She doesn't address the part about what she does or doesn't remember. Just wants to know if there's more to this than him being in love with her.
But now, "you must remember that much" and "James?" makes me think they must have talked about the memory wipe some point. Maybe not the relationship, but that a wipe did happen and that they do have a history. How else would she know to call him that?
Nat can be quite mean, even to people she loves, but she's being surprisingly gentle here. She may not remember but she does care.
They have their little adventure on the moon in issue #10, Bucky resuscitates her and they kiss!
You just know Natasha went digging the moment she suspected Bucky didn't tell her everything. Their relationship was known to the public as seen in Secret Avengers (2011), issue #15. (Which itself was a good issue about superheros inevitably coming back from the dead, and the toll it takes on them and the people who love them.) So yeah, she probably figured out a lot by herself.
And this is just Nat being Nat, all business and a little mean. If they didn't talk about stuff before, they were probably going to.
It definitely would have been nice to know what Nat thought about technically not being given a choice to forget him. Sure, Bucky didn't want more people messing with her head, but as Steve and Logan said, there were options they hadn't tried. If Nat had known she was missing something important, would she have thought it was worth trying to recover? People making these choices for her seems like something she would be pretty angry about.
Of course, we don't get to see any of that because this is comics, and also there was a LOT of things going on at the same time. Bucky's first Thunderbolts run and the Secret Empire (Hydra Cap) event were happening, which lead to both of them dying. Sort of.
Nat had some feelings about it too, but this post is already ridiculously long so more about that in part 2.
guys, I sense a lot of tension about this whole buckynat situation XD ... there is even some hate going on on "X" saying they should have stayed broken and stuff... and, listen, I understand, this kind of reunion wasn't what we was hoping for after all these years (10 years?!?!) and of course we had better scenarios in our mind and we were hoping for more good character work (or any characters work at all!), and we want to hear Nat's version (eheh) and these writers are, let's say, uhm, not so good...
BUT
these are american superhero comics for you in 2024. No greatly written for most part, action focused all the time, little or not at all character development, aiming to reach big sales or them get cancelled, flowing with the MCU synergy and stuff. And I tell you as someone who has read comics her whole life (and I had a loooong life, ok XDDD): bad moments in comics come and go, and poor characters run through a lot of shitty writing, and this happens all the time.
Are Lanzing and Kelly good writers? No. HELL NO.
Do I think Cold War was the worst thing written in the media in the maybe last 5 years? YES with a cherry on top! 100% YES.
Is Thunderbolts a good mini series? ... Well, not really. Better than SOL and CW, but still, we're not quite there yet. It was basically random, with a stretched plot that I can't even recall, and really not a team book since it doesn't focused on any of its characters for real. 'Cause you know, I said it before: no character work, just action action and more action.
Is Bucky written by L&K good? No. He isn't. But to be honest he wasn't good in a lot of other comics too, sadly. He has been worse, he has been better. He will improve at some point, that's the cycle.
All this said, am I happy they brought buckynat back? YES. I AM SUPER HAPPY 'cause it opens for possibility!!!
If they gain some more audience as a couple there are more opportunities for them to get more exposure, to be feautured into other comics (in the current cap run written by Straczynski for example?) more and better content, not only together but on their own too! I think them both didn't have a good comic since... 2018??? Nat even earlier probalby, but it's important they somehow stay relevant in the stories 'cause this is how this whole circus works (sad): the characters who sell better get more stories, more comics, better comics from better writers (... hopefully!)! It's bad, but that's the comic market guys.
Idk, it just feels so sad to me that we have waited for so long for buckynat reunion and when it happened finally it left us with just a bittersweet aftertaste... I think this is inevitable 'cause we had so many hopes and we pushed it bigger than life into our heads, and this is reality XD...But realistically speaking, I was never expecting their reunion to be that different from what we got in the end.
It's good to be disappointed, it's right, but let's turn this into a good occasion then, let's try to stay positive and maybe try to exorcise the bad in it by taking a creative angle on the matter: let's write meta about Natasha's pov, let's write fics, let's do edits, fanarts, let's discuss it. But wishing it never happened and dragging them badly...
I know we all feel like they deserved better, and I agree, but let's consider this just THE BEGINNING. It's a starting point and we should keep our fingers crossed for something good to come!
Let's not give up!!!
I'm sorry if this is so long and a whole lot of useless blablabla bhubhubhu, but some of the stuff I'm reading around is starting to be really depressing and a bit too negative considergin the whole situation, and it's a shame 'cause I feel like we should be at least a tiny bit happier here around <3 :D
Let me know what you think of all this mess (or not, lmao) if you want! <3
I absolutely agree with everything here. As much as we can criticize and voice our disappointment about how it was done, we must remember current state of marvel comics, which is, I’d argue, the worst it’s ever been.
No good writers want to work with Marvel Comics OR their cinematic counterpart, which is understandable.
Unfortunately, the era of good writing is gone, for now at least.
Bucky realising nothing made sense in his life 'till he got Nat back by his side, and then forgiving himself and allowing himself to be happy again after such a long time. With her! Not lost anymore, but whole again! This is straight out of my dreams, I swear!!!
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