Winter Soldier: The Longest Winter (#1-5)

Writers: Ed Brubaker and Butch Guice

Cover artist: Lee Bermejo and Gabriele Del'otto (#1), Lee Bermejo (#2-5)

Variant covers by Gabriele Dell'Otto, Joe Kubert (#1)
 and John Tyler (#4), an Avengers Art Appreciation variant.

2nd printing variants to #1-3

Collected in:

• Winter Soldier: The Longest Winter (Marvel Comics,  Oct 3rd 2012), with Fear Itself #7.1.
• Winter Soldier by Ed Brubaker: The Complete Collection (Marvel Comics, Sep 23rd 2014)
• The entire series is available on Marvel Unlimited and Comixology.

-        This story picks up from where The Life Story of Bucky Barnes left off, where we saw James

and Natasha visiting Bucky's elderly sister Becca, who is suffering from Alzheimer's. At its conclusion, Bucky sets off on the road with Natasha.  

This is the Winter Soldier's second solo outing; the first, the one-shot Winter Kills, was a Civil War tie-in. Naturally, this means a new logo. Compared to the red star design on Winter Kills, here the Russian-style block typeface is complemented by a hammer and sickle. #1-2 use a gold logo; #3-15 use a silver logo; #16-19 use a white logo.

-        Brubaker, Guice and Lark worked as the creative team on #1-14, but by #14 Brubaker's emerging prospects in film and TV meant he had to leave Marvel in order to work on those projects. For #15-19, Jason Latour and Nic Klein took over, only for the series to be shamefully cancelled shortly after the first issue.

-        The art on the recap page for #1 and #6 (drawn by Steve Epting), a montage of Bucky's life through a young visit to Camp Lehigh to the Cold War, is taken from Captain America (vol. 5) #14, the point where the Cosmic Cube revives his memories.

-        Butch Guice, the artist for all issues in Brubaker's run except for Broken Arrow, collaborated with Brubaker before back in 2009/2010 for the Captain America stories Reborn, Two Americas and No Escape.

#1

Continuity Notes

-        Fred Davis, the Bucky of the late 1940s, speaks on television in defence of James. He was last seen in Old Wounds; this scene would be revisited in #6, also the issue of his death. The newsreader says that "it's been months" since Bucky's "tragic death."

-        Bucky recalls moments from his past: Russian training and indoctrination, and being frozen into a stasis tube as a sleeper agent, "ready to be shipped to America." Per the Winter Soldier arc, this last scene would have been in the late 1980s/early 1990s. Bucky says that there were "three enhanced agents of mass destruction." One of these, Leo Novokov, would be seen in the second arc.

-        James and Natasha align themselves with Jasper Sitwell, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent first seen in Strange Tales #144. More recently, he has appeared in Secret Warriors and Matt Fraction's run on Punisher: War Journal.

-        Ex-Soviet the Red Ghost, Professor Ivan Kragoff, reappears in this story, along with his army of Super-Apes. He was seen dying in Amazing Spider-Man #676, essentially a 'Villain's Month' type story before DC had the idea, but would be resurrected by MODOK in Deadpool #55. Likely, it takes place before the Amazing Spider-Man issue. He is joined by Lucia Von Bardas, the cyborg ex-Prime Minister of Latveria from Secret War.

-        Perhaps appropriately, the artwork depicts Bucky and Widow fighting in the snow. Winter Soldier, indeed. Brubaker also used the snow motif in The Trial of Captain America, which saw Bucky tried for his war crimes. It being the 'longest winter' is perhaps even more accurate. #6 will confirm a December setting for this first set of issues.

#2

Continuity Notes

-        Sitwell shows James and Natasha the video footage of the attempted assassination of Doom from last issue. It occurred early that morning, at "just after 0800 hours."

-        Bucky recalls "empty places in my mind start filling it": the three other men involved in the Zephyr Procedure - Arkady, Leo and Dmitri. He says that he "never trusted" Leo, but admired Dmitri's nationalism.

-        Natasha notes it is ex-H.A.M.M.E.R. tech being auctioned off. Similar auctions on run-offs from Osborn's corrupt version of S.H.I.E.L.D. are glimpsed in the penultimate arc to Matt Fraction's Invincible Iron Man run.

#3

Continuity Notes

-        Fury explains the history of Lucia von Bardas from Secret War to Bucky and Natasha:

 "When Doom got deposed a while ago... We fixed it so she was made prime minister of Latveria. But Lucia wasn't the puppet our people wanted... She was secretly supplyin' Doom's buncha U.S. super villains, instead... Tryin' to cause us enough trouble we wouldn't notice she was just as bad as the jackhole she replaced. Politics bein' what they are, I defied orders an' put together a secret strike team to take her out. Cap an' Widow were part of it... We brought the whole damn castle down on Lucia... But she wasn't so easy to kill. Next time we saw her, she was part cyborg... ...an' all that hidden craziness wasn't hidin' anymore. We managed to take her down again, after she nearly killed Luke Cage... But when S.H.I.E.L.D. was bein' dismantled by Norman Osborn... ...she fell through the cracks. Disappeared from custody. And dropped completely off the radar. Our people couldn't find any sign of her."

#4

Continuity Notes

-        The Red Ghost has been using the ex-Simian Research Facility as a storage place for the past few weeks, a facility that has been "abandoned since the '80s."

#5

Continuity Notes

-        Doom gives us a humorous jab at the amount S.H.I.E.L.D.'s directive and Fury's position has shifted over the past few years: "Colonel Fury... or is it ex-colonel now? Von Doom stopped trying to keep track of all your promotions and demotions long ago."

-        Andre Rostov, the Red Barbarian, is assassinated. He was last seen as a warden in the Siberian gulag Bucky was sent to in the Prisoner of War arc in Captain America, but now he resides in the Bahamas "after all his decades of service," paid for by the Zephyr sleeper codes. Rostov was first seen as a villain in Tales of Suspense #42, working with soviet The Actor against Iron Man.

Young Avengers: Style > Substance (v2 #1-5)

Writers: Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

Cover artist: Jamie McKelvie

Variant Covers for the first arc by Bryan Lee O'Malley, Stephanie Hans, Tradd Moore, David Lafuente, and original series artist Jim Cheung. Bryan Lee O'Malley would also draw a variant cover for the first issue of Gillen/McKelvie's most recent project, The Wicked and the Divine, published by Image.

Miss America sketch by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Collected in:

• Young Avengers: Style > Substance (Marvel Comics, Sep 10 2013)
•  Young Avengers: Style > Substance (Panini Comics, Aug 28 2013)
•  Young Avengers by Kieron Gillen & Jamie McKelvie Omnibus (Marvel Comics, Dec 16 2014)
•  #1-5 are available on Comixology and as part of Marvel Unlimited.

-        Kieron Gillen adds page-by-page writers notes for all of his works, including titles by other publishers (e.g. Three, Uber), which are available on Tumblr and his Workblog. His commentaries for Young Avengers features some pretty insightful stuff.

-        Similarly, Gillen has created musical playlists for Young Avengers and Journey Into Mystery, compiling tracks which, as he explains on Tumblr, either link to the issue or influenced his writing. The playlist for Young Avengers are available on Spotify here. There's also a separate playlist for The Afterparty.

-        Gillen and McKelvie wrote a prelude to this series, The New World, for the Marvel NOW! Point One anthology, centring around Miss America meeting Loki. However this story occurred in Earth-212, not 616. Previously, Miss America and Loki had been featured in Vengeance and Journey Into Mystery respectively.

-        Each of these issues are enhanced for Marvel AR content. Content for #3-5 is available on YouTube.

 #1 "Style > Substance

Continuity Notes

-        During his conversation with Billy in their apartment, Hulkling refers to himself as seventeen.

-        Hulkling says to Billy "the only mom I ever knew got burned alive in front of me. And for the last year, I've been stroking your hair and saying it's going to be okay." It's pretty clear Billy and Teddy have been together for at least a year at this point.

-        Around the same time, Billy also appears briefly in Avengers Assemble Annual #1, which centres around the newly-rebuilt Vision and his quest to reconcile himself in the post-Disassembled, post-Civil War world. In the final scene, the Vision meets Billy at his apartment. As Billy appears in full costume, the implication is this occurs after he has retaken the mantle, however it's also possible that the costume is a formality for meeting the Vision, and actually occurs before this. Gillen's response on Tumblr indicates that this appearance occurs before #1, noting "Wiccan is basically past the completely immobile part of his depression. He's almost always fine. The problem is when anything about doing superheroing again comes up, when he explodes. Which is basically what happened in YA1."

-        Hulkling shapeshifts into the guise of the Superior Spider-Man, indicating that this is within a month or two of Dying Wish/My Own Worst Enemy, and the initial titles in the Marvel NOW! relaunch. Peter/Octavius adopts a new costume in The Superior Spider-Man #14.

-        Hawkeye also appears in the Hawkeye series by Matt Fraction, alongside Clint Barton. How exactly these two series link with each other has been a repeated joke between Gillen and Fraction when asked by fans, but how exactly they do link will be (attempted to be) detailed in the sections on Hawkeye.

-        Marvel Boy last appeared as The Protector in the Avengers vs. X-Men arc of Avengers vol. 5. Noh-Varr explains "My people ordered me to stay away from Earth. The Avengers felt similarly. Which was fair. I didn't exactly do myself proud."

-        The core character link to the previous incarnation of the title, Wiccan and Hulkling, both previously appeared in Avengers: The Children's Crusade. Both were likely 17 by the end of that story, indicating this is some months after the conclusion of Children's Crusade. At the end of Children's Crusade, Teddy proposes to Billy; an apartment together is only a logical next step.

-        As for Tommy's presence (a theme throughout the overall 15 issue arc), Hulkling explains that because the Kaplans "were so understanding" about Billy and Teddy getting an apartment together, "they drove Speed so crazy he had to move out!" We see Tommy at his new job in #6.

-        This issue occurs entirely at night.

       Pop Culture

-        Noh-Varr's room features posters for the films Metropolis (1927), Spirited Away (2001) and Blow-Up (1966).

-        Noh-Varr plays 'Be My Baby' for Kate, a 1963 song by The Ronettes. He will play this track for her again in #15.

-        The waiter at Joe's Diner refers to Loki as "cosplay boy."

       #2 "DYS"

      Continuity Notes

-        This issue picks up from #1 in the next morning.

 -   A flashback in #10 bridges the gap between #1 and #2, showing Loki manipulating Billy overnight. The captions indicate this was "half a year ago." The flashbacks in #7 indicate that the first story arc occurs in February.

-        The Uncanny Avengers (or, formally, the Unity Squad) cameo in this issue.

       #3 "Parent Teacher Disorganisation"

      Continuity Notes

-        The Young Avengers go to MJ's Bar in New York, introduced in Amazing Spider-Man #686. This has been decimated by Superior Spider-Man #15, but is rebuilt in subsequent issues.

      Pop Culture

-        Wiccan says "This looked more fun in Fellowship," a reference to the first Lord of the Rings film, based on J.R.R. Tolkien's book.

-        Loki compares himself to Tyrion from Game of Thrones. "You watch and/or read it?" Based on George R. R. Martin's epic novel series, the acclaimed HBO adaptation began in 2011. As well as being roughly the same height as Loki and steeped in mythical history, the man who portrays Tyrion in the series, Peter Dinklage, would go on to portray Boliviar Trask, the creator of the Sentinel project, in 2014's X-Men: Days of Future Past.

      #4 "Deus Ex Machine Gunner"

      #5 "The Art of Saving the World"

      Continuity Notes

-        It's in this issue that the Young Avengers officially, officially reform, along with the debut of Wiccan's new 'cosmic' costume, designed by McKelvie. The design and some commentary is available on his blog.

-        Hawkeye says "In addition to the accidental Skrull thing? I've been with Clint. You know, the original Hawkeye...", clarifying that this is at least some point during Fraction's run, be it before her move to L.A. or after.