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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
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Bucky killed people. Even if he wasn't in control of his actions, he'd been triggered and went and killed even more people in the facility. That's kinda the point of Ross preparing to send another force after them right before Tony intervenes and offers to capture them himself.
Ross did not know about Zemo. So based on the info he did have, either Bucky was still killing people of his own free will, or his brain was so badly warped that he'd randomly started murdering people again just because. Either one sounds like a perfectly rational reason to put a bullet in his skull, particularly since he'd just busted his way out of the non-lethal confinement they put him in.
It's tragic and sad, but there's a reason they put tend to put down animals who have lashed out and attacked people.
edited 30th Oct '16 4:11:49 PM by comicwriter
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I meant Bucharest, but even in Berlin, you have the strangely missing psychiatrist and the conveniently timed failing electricity. Seems wiser to capture the guy who is most likely to tell you who or what triggered him. This was admittedly hampered by Steve and Sam making off with Bucky, but at that point they were beyond trusting anyone. Which from their POV makes sense.
Except Bucky was roofied by someone who hated both Steve and Tony's wife. I think this little metaphorical story got weird really fast.
edited 30th Oct '16 4:22:11 PM by hollygoolightly
I don't know about that, but I do know that Metaphorical bros don't let metaphorical bros sleep with their other metaphorical bros metaphorical wives.
It's just not classy.
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The "conveniently timed failed electricity" could easily been Cap or Falcon, given they'd already interfered with one attempt to get Bucky. And there's again the matter of him murdering people on the way out. That seems like a pretty justifiable case for putting him down at that point.
edited 30th Oct '16 4:30:55 PM by comicwriter
I agree with the sentiment that Tony was wrong for trying to kill Bucky, but it's understandable why he did. It seems like a textbook example of 'crime of passion'. I think the key is what he does after. In the next movie, now that he's had a couple years to think it over (since Marvel seems to space things in 'real time', with two years between movie releases also being two years within the movie-verse) he shouldn't still be out to kill Bucky. Heat-of-the-moment action is one thing; having that long to calm down, think, and look at all the facts and still going "nope, I'm gonna kill the bastard" would make him look like a legitimate villain. Indeed; the only difference between him and Zemo -or him and pre-Avenger Wanda, for that matter- would be the lack of collateral damage.
And since the next Avengers movie is Infinity Wars, I doubt Marvel is going to turn MCU Tony Stark into an actual villain. Although if the Russo's were in charge they could do it, and do it well. They could present him as objectively villainous, but have it be believable and understandable, rather than turning him into a parody of his worst traits.
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I actually have to defend Ross (Secretary edition) here, because he wanted to put Bucky down before, in Bucharest. He talks about that to Tony (basically verifying what Sharon told Steve before). Afterwards he actually wants to bring in everybody.
The electricity failure couldn't have been caused by Cap or Falcon, because at that point they were both in custody and had been since Bucharest. In fairness, we don't know if anybody bothered to further look into that, because the action moves away from the task force. It's possible that while Ross (Secretary edition) was busy yelling at Tony, the other Ross actually had his agents do some detecting.
edited 30th Oct '16 4:42:17 PM by hollygoolightly
Steve isn't a cop. Apart from that, it works.
Or he's still in service to Hydra. With the limited intel available at the time, there's no proof that Bucky ever stopped working with them. Hydra sending the Winter Soldier to take out King T'Chaka is a perfectly believable scenario.
Capturing the Winter Soldier assumes the presence of people capable of capturing the Winter Soldier. A nonlethal incapacitation is much harder than killing someone, and when your target is as dangerous as Bucky, coming at him with the plan, "Let's softball this and be sure not to harm him! The target's safety is our number one priority!" is tantamount to suicide.
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The presence of people able to capture the Winter Soldier can easily be guaranteed - sent in War Machine. He signed the Accords, and he has that huge baton-thingy which he later used on Wanda - I bet that would easily work on Bucky, too. And we know he could have been there in time, because he was there in time - they only called him in later than they should have done.
Leaving aside the issue of neither Falcon or Cap having the possibility to alert said allies, Ross could have assumed that. However, he still would have needed to have someone look into it.
edited 30th Oct '16 4:52:03 PM by hollygoolightly
Their allies found out on their own. There were other members of Cap's little squad that was there to catch Bucky who managed to evade police detection. Cap had a special hidden radio. Sam sent a messenger pigeon. Bucky left a trail of plums. There's probably dozens of ways.
edited 30th Oct '16 4:57:36 PM by comicwriter
War Machine doesn't exactly fit comfortably into a small apartment. As much as enclosed spaces handicapped Iron Man during the finale, putting Rhodey against Bucky in the cramped apartment would have been even more of a handicap. He could undoubtedly handle it, but with his arsenal, not those crappy stun sticks.
He's not exactly optimized for nonlethal takedowns or enclosed confines. It'd be like plowing a tank through a restaurant in order to fire a taser mounted on the front of it.
edited 30th Oct '16 5:01:53 PM by TobiasDrake
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How responsible Bucky is depends on how HYDRA's brainwashing works. It makes him follow their orders, sure, but it's clearly not the sort of deal where they just control his body like a puppet. His missions required that he be able to use his own initiative and decision making skills out in the field, since there's not gonna be a HYDRA commander standing nearby directing his every movement, so he still has to maintain a certain amount of free will. Given the HYDRA techs made mention of regularly erasing memories, it's possible their brainwashing works less on the principle of overriding the subject's free will and personality, and more on the principle of rewriting the subject's personality so that they feel unwavering dedication to whatever HYDRA commands.
Of course, Bucky never asked for any of that. The version of Bucky who was captured by HYDRA was an innocent. But it's unclear how much of that Bucky still exists, and how much he's still the person HYDRA made him into, just in standby mode since everyone with the authority to give him orders is gone.
(Slightly rewriting this for clarity)
From what we saw in the movie, the wipes take away his memory, while the trigger phrase oppresses part of his personality and makes him obey the person who says them. They are not repeatedly wiping him to rewrite his personality, they have to because the serum causes his brain to heal the damage, meaning the longer he is not wiped the more likely it is his memories will return (seeing Steve plus hearing his name plus being out of cryo very long and not getting regular wipes = memories coming back), and he'll start "acting erratically", in the words of the HYDRA technicians.
We also see that when Bucky's not wiped and the trigger phrase wears off (or gets knocked out of him by hitting him on the head really hard, per Natasha's dealings with a brainwashed Clint), he feels horrified by the thought of what he may have done under influence and he repeatedly makes clear that on his own, he wouldn't act violently. So, the person right now, whether he still has much of the original Bucky left or not, doesn't want to be a murderer, and doesn't want to be forced to act as one, to the point where he lets himself be put on ice as long as there is still a chance for that. That isn't a murderbot on stand-by, that is a guy making clear moral decisions and acting on them.
And the guy inbetween doesn't really seem to have the facilities to make informed decisions. I'm pretty sure he'd be ruled as non compos mentis.
edited 30th Oct '16 5:38:36 PM by hollygoolightly
Wanda needs a movie of her own or paired up with another side main character (Hawkeye or Vision seem likeliest but imagine a Black Widow team-up movie. Wanda wants redemption. Natasha knows a thing or two about that).
Its subjective whether Wanda working for the Avengers meaningfully redeems her for what she caused, whatever her intentions. But that's the situation the movies set up for her.
With all the infinity warring thats going to be going on, I don't see Wanda getting a meaty subplot.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersSo Natasha and Wanda have very different backstories, but both ended up doing terrible things and then trying to atone for them.
Hell, are we sure it was Stark and not Stane who sold the bomb?
We see Natasha's training as the Black Widow in flashbacks one of which involves her killing a man. She discusses it again with Bruce later on. It's not much but it's more than Wanda gets.
I thought Natasha's crimes were glossed over.
Like what? I fail to see how Wanda's actions in South Africa weren't relevant but something like Steve/Sharon was totally necessary.
But actually, we don't know what Wanda wanted to do with the Hulk. It's entirely possible that she didn't set out to unleash him on the city, but rather the other Avengers and he simply got out of her control. You can't say that she meant to unleash the Hulk on Johannesburg, because we don't see the scene where she finds him.
Even if we go by your hypothesis, how does that make Wanda look better? "Oh, she didn't want the Hulk to attack Johannesburg, she just wanted him to attack and possibly kill his friends."
Also, what talk about tarnishing their name? I don't remember Ultron even saying that he wanted to tarnish the Avengers' name, only that he wanted to "tear them apart."
edited 31st Oct '16 12:05:39 AM by alliterator
The film mentions three previous events during which the Accords wouldn't have helped; The Avengers, Age of Ultron and Thor: The Dark World. the Accords aren't stopping collateral damage, they are about keeping the Avengers from acting like lawless thugs. Which they do several times. Wanda is very much relevant because even if she wasn't an Avenger then she is one now.
He is, however, a guy who was working with Wanda.
Seriously, at no point does Wanda even say she didn't want the Hulk to attack that city. Never mind that she actually sought him out. There's more evidence to support that the outcome was exactly the one she wanted.
So why is Zemo a bad guy in Civil War? After all he does the exact same thing as Wanda for similar reasons yet the movie treats him being locked up as a good thing. hell, Zemo has more reasons to target the Avengers as a whole than Wanda.
Makes me wonder how fans would react if someone who lost a loved one in Johannesburg went after Wanda.
edited 31st Oct '16 1:28:13 AM by windleopard
No, he doesn't. Wanda fights the Avengers and she only attacks the Avengers or people working for the Avengers/Stark industries. That one of her attacks results in the Hulk going on a rampage is one of the unpredictable consequences of one of her attacks, but that is not what she was going for. She is like a freedom fighter which realizes at the end of the movie that her path was the wrong one when her actions have a backlash and hit the people she was actually fighting for.
Zemo on the other hand deliberately kills innocent people to get what he wants. That is not the same at all.

I liked this analogy for Steve and Tony: Officer Steve and Officer Tony are both cops. Officer Tony finds out that Officer Steve slept with his wife. Officer Tony is perfectly justified in being pissed. He's not justified in pulling out his service pistol and trying to shoot Officer Steve dead.