The Falcon and the Winter Soldier draws a comparison between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, since both of them use the same notebook, but each person put in that notebook is what differentiates them. When Steve gave Sam Wilson the Captain America shield in Avengers: Endgame, he also gave Bucky his notebook, first seen in 2014's Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which contained lists of things Captain America had missed while being frozen since WWII. While it's likely Steve was hoping Bucky would enjoy them as well, Bucky makes his own additions to the notebook with a different and much more serious goal, while also proving a key difference in how Bucky is actually the opposite of Steve Rogers.
In Marvel's The Falcon and The Winter Soldier episode 3, "Power Broker", Bucky has decided to break Baron Zemo out of prison in order to get his help finding the Flag-Smashers, who've turned themselves into Super Soldiers with a new serum. As they travel to Madripoor to follow up on a lead, Zemo had taken Bucky's notebook and recognized the purpose of the names Bucky had written down: those he had wronged as HYDRA's Winter Soldier. However, Sam Wilson also recognized the notebook, confirming that it was the same one that had belonged to Steve Rogers, who had been writing down all the things he wanted to catch up on in the past that he had missed while frozen, such as Thai food, the Star Wars/Star Trek films, disco, the moon landing, and Marvin Gaye's Trouble Man album (Sam's recommendation).
Unfortunately, Bucky Barnes has felt the need in the Marvel series to use the notebook in a more sober and serious manner, having written down and crossing off the names of those he's wronged and tried to atone for due to his dark past, attempting to set things right so he can move forward with his life. As a result, it essentially creates a key opposing distinction between Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers. While Steve wanted to catch up on the past and make up for lost time, Bucky is much more concerned with addressing the darkness so he can move on and forget the past entirely.
Sadly, some the names on Bucky's list are harder to atone for due to the immense pain and hurt he caused, such as Yori Nakajima. Yori's son RJ was a management consultant who was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time, and he was killed by the Winter Soldier because he was a witness to the assassin's latest murder. While Bucky ended up befriending Yori as he built up the courage to tell him about what happened to his son, he has yet to confess and atone for his actions. Bucky also has more names besides that he'll need to attend to if he wants to truly move on, though he does have a few names already crossed off.
As the former Winter Soldier continues to get through his much darker list in the notebook given to him by Steve Rogers, one can only hope that Bucky will eventually try to embrace the things that Rogers wrote down and left for him once Bucky's list it completed. While Bucky apparently already listened to the Trouble Man album, it doesn't seem as though he's in a place where he can truly enjoy it, or anything else on Rogers' list for that matter. Hopefully, Bucky might realize that there's still some good in the past, once he manages to reconcile his darkness.
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April 08, 2021 at 05:37AM
