Another book cancelled

Winter Soldier cancelled with issue 19

After missing the memo last time around about X-Treme X-Men and Age of Apocalypse's cancellations, I created a Google alert to warn me when the term "Marvel cancels" appears. Already, one new cancellation in, it feels a bit like getting a call in the middle of the night from a family member and knowing it can't be good news. Of course, it didn't help that the first cancellation my new alert informed me about is one of my favorite ongoings. So yes, the news is out, Winter Soldier is officially cancelled, ending with issue 19 in June. Suspicions arose with the July solicits revealed this past week and no sign of Winter Soldier 20. So sadly, we couldn't even figure out what Bucky's been doing for 20 issues, we just get the 19. I'm sure we'll get more of what Bucky's up to as time goes on, but for the time being, we're going to be left with what last month's solicits showed, Bucky in space intertwined with someone who may or may not be the Electric Ghost. Presumably it will the arc he's on now, as well as the series.

Readers of this blog will know that Winter Soldier is both one of my favorite ongoing series and one of my favorite characters. I love the conceit behind Winter Soldier and the story of his origin enough to boost him there (let alone his tie with other favorite character Captain America), but through his time in the Marvel Universe his personality and the strength of his books have further cemented him in my heart. I'm extremely saddened to see this series go. It seems like Latour and Klein are both reaching a level of comfort with the character and with the story that would have brought Bucky to new places and new areas of his life. It's particularly sad because Bucky is entering a new point in his life, fresh off re-entering his own life after the brainwashing that created the Winter Soldier. After Brubaker's run ended, he's without Natasha and presumed dead by most of the world. His connections are as diminished as they've ever been and the start of Latour's run aimed itself at reintegrating him into missions from Nick Fury. On top of that, all the things I said about X-Treme X-Men and Age of Apocalypse being really solid and entertaining books that have been kind of pushed to the side for bigger events and titles and characters apply to the Winter Soldier title as well. I'm sad about this, though I think we all kind of knew from the get-go this was either going to kill or never survive. It's the kind of book that has probably more of a niche than most superhero books and those tend to have some trouble surviving (with obvious exceptions like Hawkeye leaping to mind).

As sad as I am about the cancellation, it's not entirely a surprise. Like I said, I think most fans of the book probably knew we were living on borrowed time with this one. In fact, we only got as far as 19 because of the announcement last Comic-Con that the new Captain America movie would have the title "Captain America: Winter Soldier." Brubaker revealed in some of his exit interviews that the book had been teetering on cancellation before that. He had said, after announcing his exit from Captain America, that he intended to remain on Winter Soldier for the foreseeable future, at the time expecting the foreseeable future to put him pretty much where he ended, given the book's cancellation. Instead, the title saw a bit of a sales boost after the movie reveal and Brubaker had to jump ship anyway. Latour and Klein both note in their blog posts dealing with the cancellation (below) that they knew they were fighting an uphill battle when they signed on but that it didn't change their desire to do the book. The problem with a character and a book like Winter Soldier is that, even though fans of the cinematic universe might leap on to the book to prepare for the upcoming movie, it requires the origin story to truly understand. Bucky is so woven into his own history that jumping into the series midway through probably didn't help a lot of new readers, eager to learn about the character who will feature in the motion picture. Also, the motion picture will cast him as a villain and suddenly he's a completely different character, one that audiences of the first Cap movie will recognize as dead, in the book.

I'm sad to see the book go and that's my primary view on this. Was it expected? Yeah, a little bit. Was I happy to have whatever time I got from this book? Sure was. Do I think that this is the end of Winter Soldier appearing in the Marvel Universe? Absolutely not. Marvel will certainly continue to throw Bucky into situations, likely starting with Secret Avengers where he was promoted even before the book launched, because he's a great character and he's well-liked. Hawkeye hadn't caught on in a solo series until Fraction's and he's still cited as plenty of people's favorite Avenger. With a movie coming out, Marvel isn't going to keep Bucky on the bench. So take some solace, then, that James Buchanon Barnes won't be on the sidelines long before we see him again. Will it be in his noir-ish solo series? Probably not. Is that super depressing? Sure is. Is there comfort in knowing good characters won't just fall by the wayside? Yes. So thank you Ed Brubaker and Butch Guice and Michael Lark and Bettie Breitweiser and Jordie Bellaire and Declan Shalvey and Jason Latour and Nic Klein and everyone else involved with this risky book from the start and from the middle and from the end. It was a great title that, yeah, deserved a bit better than it got but certainly gave it all. Pick up every issue from here on out for support and, you know what, go back and buy the rest too.



Writer Jason Latour's blog post about the cancellation can be found here. Artist Nic Klein's can be found here.