>>3018310what really PMO abt the whole thing is like, putting aside the gay stuff for a moment, pre-2016 MCU was a literal godsend for Bucky Barnes.
it made him one of the biggest characters for the Cap corner, essentially Steve's predecessor and his driving force on the heroe's journey, like a badass echo fighter of him but with more skills on top, the strong guy Rogers leaned on for support, set up a character arc for the 3rd movie where Barnes would get development and come back stronger postbrainwashing and become the hardened war survivor who makes the tougher decisions when Rogers' idealism holds him back, but no, instead Bucky basically disappears from the MU after the Cap Winter Soldier movie.
Marvel execs saw Bucky actually getting decent treatment for once and remembered marvel's roots: treating his character like shit and demoting him from Rogers-equivalent A-tier into the C-tier depowered sidekick grunt story fodderpile where he repeatedly gets beat up by literal nonpowered humans in all mediums during the 2 seconds every year when they remember he exists.
