The Marvel Cinematic Universe represents the greatest feat of interconnected storytelling that a franchise has ever pulled off; that said, there are more than a few major story threads and character arcs that the MCU has left dangling for years. There was one reveal during Captain America: Civil War that never got a lot of explanation – but it seems like an issue that definitely needs to be addressed. That would be the existence of the multiple Winter Soldier candidates that Zemo (Daniel Brühl) tracked down.
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To recap: the final act of Captain America: Civil War saw Zemo lead Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Stever Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), and Prince T’Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) to a HYDRA facility in Siberia. There, the group discovers an entire squad of Winter Soldiers being kept in cryostasis; instead of unleashing the squad of crazed super soldiers, Zemo kills each one them with a gunshot to the head, ending the threat of the legendary assassins. He almost ends Bucky as well, by instigating a fight that tears the Avengers apart, after it’s revealed that Bucky was the assassin that killed Iron Man’s parents.
Who Were The Winter Soldiers?
We know that Bucky Barnes was the prized pupil of the Winter Soldier Program, and represented its best results. The issue with Russia’s version of the Super Soldier Serum was that it drove its recipients mad with psychosis, so much so that they had to be put into cryostasis. But who were these other candidates for the Winter Soldiers Program? And why did they each choose to step up and face the risks of taking the Super Soldier Serum? And how does Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour) fit into all this?
The story of the Winter Soldiers is actually one of those minor character expansion pieces that would be exciting for fans to dig into. It’s a fun concept to play with: each one of the candidates that joined the program is a character with a backstory steeped in black-ops espionage, as well as their own personal stakes. Each of them also has to duel Bucky at some point in their training, creating a fun recurring role for Sebastian Stan to play (without too much commitment). These other Winter Soldier candidates are “blank slate” characters that can be tied to various other characters or franchises in the MCU via surprise twist reveals.
At the very least, we’ve learned that the MCU tends to succeed best with spy-action content like Captain America: The Winter Soldier – and hopefully the double-dose of Captain America: Brave New World and Thunderbolts* in 2025. A limited series expanding upon who the Winter Soldiers were would be a fun and unexpected spinoff of that underutilized plot thread from Civil War.
You can stream Captain America: Civil War on Disney+.
