By Todd Allen


In a surprise twist, Marvel has announced that Ed Brubaker is no longer writing Winter Soldier.  January’s issue #15 will see him replaced by Jason Latour.

When Brubaker’s departure from Captain America was announced, Brubaker said he was staying on Winter Soldier, so this is definitely a change in the original plan.  Does this mean Brubaker is going completely creator owned or that he’s been re-tasked for an as-yet announced Marvel NOW relaunch?  More to come on this front, definitely.

Winter Soldier is one of those titles, that while being a Marvel-owned book, still retains a huge amount of its creator’s voice.  Ed Brubaker _is_ the voice of the revived Bucky Barnes and I don’t envy Latour in having to follow Brubaker.

Latour has done art on a few issues at Marvel, notably some Wolverine. As a writer, he’s done a crime series called Loose Ends for 12-Gauge.

Based on Latour’s comments over at CBR, this is a fairly recent change:

In terms of plot and themes what is your initial “Winter Soldier” story about?

I’m hesitant to put a theme in stone, because I’m still in the process of writing the book — but Bucky’s looking for hope and on some level redemption, maybe a sense of completion. Those are very subjective motivations, though — hopefully we’ll test his perception of them and just exactly what he wants as we move along.

As they say, there will be more to come on this one.  Marvel hasn’t announced what, if any, art changes will be occurring on the book.  It’s not a new #1, so it doesn’t seem to formally be part of the Marvel NOW push.

12 COMMENTS

  2. You and me both, Ron. We’ll see if there’s another announcement at the Toronto convention. Brubaker’s Twitter feed is silent on the topic, so I’m expecting more news shortly.

  3. Hard to believe, given his past comments, that he’d give up Winter Soldier for another book, but maybe they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

    Seems likelier he’s jumping ship entirely for creator-owned stuff, which could be a big deal — lots of little guys have done that recently but the only top-tier creators I can think of are Kirkman, Millar, and Morrison. And Morrison hasn’t actually done it yet, and could still be working on various and sundry DC books for years.

    Don’t know, though; it’ll be interesting to see where this goes.

  6. Mr. Brubaker has given Marvel something that no one has done in the last 20 years: a successful, fully-realized NEW character found in the Winter Soldier. That is a remarkable accomplishment.

  8. I’m extra concerned about the new artist announcement. What happened to Butch Guice? The guy was great on the title, but Marvel is planning an upcoming artist announcement for Winter Soldier. That’ll be the true test of keep or drop for me…

  10. He has part of a point.

    Bucky was just a “Robin” character all these years. His “Winter Soldier” persona and identity is a Brubaker invention.

    There is a valid point to crediting Brubaker as at least “co-creator.”

  11. “Hopefully they compensate him fairly for that character if he shows up in the Captain America movies (or any other media).”

    Wishful thinking, guys!

    Does Marvel doesn’t do that, let’s face it. We all know this. Kirby/loads of Marvel creators etc created a whole bunch of characters and none of those people were compensated… so why should Brubaker be treated any different? This is Marvel we’re talking about!!

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