Winter Soldier #14 (Spoilers)
This is a reaction post to Winter Soldier #14, which is also the last issue of the Brubaker/Guice run. As my icon indicates, I am not happy.
For those who haven't been following it, the latest arc of Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier goes something like this:
An old protege of Bucky's (from his WS days) was revived, and went after Bucky for his perceived betrayal of the Soviet Union. He did this by kidnapping the Black Widow and brainwashing her (again!). She was eventually freed, but at a cost: her memories of Bucky are gone beyond standard methods of retrieval. This is the only aspect of her life that is apparently gone. She remembers everything else. SHIELD hasn't given up, as there are non-standard methods they can use, but Bucky tells them to give up because Natasha has been mindfucked "enough for ten lifetimes," and he doesn't want her to go through any more psychic trauma on his account. The issue ends with Bucky getting one last glimpse of Natasha, and then heads off to face a lonely life without her.
There has been some good things about the arc. The art was stellar, and Brubaker's storytelling was very good. He did an excellent job of conveying just how much Natasha means to Bucky, and how much it hurts him to watch her attacked just to get at him, nevermind mindfucked, which is a pain that is all to familiar to both.
This is a good segue to the problematic parts. Natasha was violated, and not by an enemy of hers trying to get revenge on her. In fairness, Leo isn't happy with Natasha, and he does things intended to hurt her (both by himself and through cats paws), but she's the secondary target. His ire is centred upon Bucky. IIRC, at no point do we get Natasha's reaction to any of this (there are a few moments where we seem to get that, but those can't be trusted as she was still brainwashed at that point--think brainwashing-ception). We do get a fair amount from Bucky telling us how much this will hurt her, but we never get hers. I am not discounting Bucky's pain here. Someone he loves was attacked primarily to get at him, and that is every superheroes nightmare. That said, the primary pain is Natasha's as she's the one who was brainwashed. Her voice is essential. We never get it.
That is bad enough, but Bucky's actions at the end make it worse. So he doesn't want Natasha to go through any more mindfucking? That's all well and good. The problem is that her wishes are never taken into account. What are her wishes? We don't know. She is never consulted. Think about it: she has several large gaps in her memory. Most people would be deeply unnerved by that, and I can only imagine what that would mean to somebody who has brainwashed several times, especially when she knows she's been brainwashed several times.
The storyline fully established that Bucky is an idiot when it comes to Natasha. From a Watsonian perspective, his reaction is perfectly understandable. However, there were four other people in that room, and none of them pointed out the obvious. It isn't his fucking decision to make! It would have been perfectly understandable if Natasha did not want to subject herself to unconventional methods of memory restoration. She would have had some agency. But no, Bucky got all "protective," and apparently everyone decided to humour him at Natasha's expense.
Natasha had a good showing throughout the arc. Her skill and her cunning were both on full display, and she was very lethal. However, this was undermined by her not being in full control of her actions. Her agency had been subverted. I don't know if I can call this a fridging per se, but I'm hard pressed to think of any other way to describe it.
I don't know why Brubaker did this. I sense editorial, but I don't want to cast stones without being certain. Maybe he didn't want to do it, or maybe he wanted Natasha to choose not to get her memories back. I don't know. I do know is that somebody made a lousy decision at some point (or at some points), and that is bullshit. It is also sadly typical.
For those who haven't been following it, the latest arc of Ed Brubaker's Winter Soldier goes something like this:
An old protege of Bucky's (from his WS days) was revived, and went after Bucky for his perceived betrayal of the Soviet Union. He did this by kidnapping the Black Widow and brainwashing her (again!). She was eventually freed, but at a cost: her memories of Bucky are gone beyond standard methods of retrieval. This is the only aspect of her life that is apparently gone. She remembers everything else. SHIELD hasn't given up, as there are non-standard methods they can use, but Bucky tells them to give up because Natasha has been mindfucked "enough for ten lifetimes," and he doesn't want her to go through any more psychic trauma on his account. The issue ends with Bucky getting one last glimpse of Natasha, and then heads off to face a lonely life without her.
There has been some good things about the arc. The art was stellar, and Brubaker's storytelling was very good. He did an excellent job of conveying just how much Natasha means to Bucky, and how much it hurts him to watch her attacked just to get at him, nevermind mindfucked, which is a pain that is all to familiar to both.
This is a good segue to the problematic parts. Natasha was violated, and not by an enemy of hers trying to get revenge on her. In fairness, Leo isn't happy with Natasha, and he does things intended to hurt her (both by himself and through cats paws), but she's the secondary target. His ire is centred upon Bucky. IIRC, at no point do we get Natasha's reaction to any of this (there are a few moments where we seem to get that, but those can't be trusted as she was still brainwashed at that point--think brainwashing-ception). We do get a fair amount from Bucky telling us how much this will hurt her, but we never get hers. I am not discounting Bucky's pain here. Someone he loves was attacked primarily to get at him, and that is every superheroes nightmare. That said, the primary pain is Natasha's as she's the one who was brainwashed. Her voice is essential. We never get it.
That is bad enough, but Bucky's actions at the end make it worse. So he doesn't want Natasha to go through any more mindfucking? That's all well and good. The problem is that her wishes are never taken into account. What are her wishes? We don't know. She is never consulted. Think about it: she has several large gaps in her memory. Most people would be deeply unnerved by that, and I can only imagine what that would mean to somebody who has brainwashed several times, especially when she knows she's been brainwashed several times.
The storyline fully established that Bucky is an idiot when it comes to Natasha. From a Watsonian perspective, his reaction is perfectly understandable. However, there were four other people in that room, and none of them pointed out the obvious. It isn't his fucking decision to make! It would have been perfectly understandable if Natasha did not want to subject herself to unconventional methods of memory restoration. She would have had some agency. But no, Bucky got all "protective," and apparently everyone decided to humour him at Natasha's expense.
Natasha had a good showing throughout the arc. Her skill and her cunning were both on full display, and she was very lethal. However, this was undermined by her not being in full control of her actions. Her agency had been subverted. I don't know if I can call this a fridging per se, but I'm hard pressed to think of any other way to describe it.
I don't know why Brubaker did this. I sense editorial, but I don't want to cast stones without being certain. Maybe he didn't want to do it, or maybe he wanted Natasha to choose not to get her memories back. I don't know. I do know is that somebody made a lousy decision at some point (or at some points), and that is bullshit. It is also sadly typical.