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The Red Guardian teamed up with the Winter Soldier to save Reed Richards’ life once, but the two share more than a mission in common.
WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Marvels #3 by Kurt Busiek, Yildiray Cinar, Richard Isanove and Simon Bowland, on sale now.
A team-up between two of Russia’s greatest weapons occurred in The Marvels #3. The Winter Soldier and Red Guardian joined forces on a covert mission to Sin-Cong to investigate the possible monsters located within their jungles. In the process, both men ended up saving the life of Reed Richards as he acquired some samples. But their time together drew a comparison for how Russia handled the training and use of two of their formerly best assets.
An investigation into the possible monsters living within the jungles of Sen-Cong sent multiple interested parties into the depths of the wilderness to recover samples and hopefully learn more about evolution on Earth. At least, that was Reed Richards’ hope. The men he was working with, as well as multiple unaffiliated groups, were clearly hoping to weaponize the monsters. One of those groups happened to be Russian, led by both the Winter Soldier and Red Guardian respectively. And as Reed Richards’ group got caught up in a battle for a sample, the two Russian soldiers observed from the background and only interfered to save Reed’s life twice.
But their brief time together drew a contrast not only to their origins, but also their personalities. The Winter Soldier was frosty for the most part. He maintained a professional stoicism that he was known for at that time and clearly aided in his ability to focus in battle. Countering this was the Red Guardian’s jovial nature, cracking jokes in an attempt to get the Winter Soldier to laugh or at least lighten the mood.
Despite their differences though, the two worked well together. Based on their personalities it would have seemed likely that the Red Guardian would be the first to engage in combat, but it was the Winter Soldier who took the first shot for reasons that eluded even him. But despite drawing them into the fray to save the life of an American, Red Guardian was not upset. In fact, he seemed to enjoy the chaos, arguing that saving Reed’s life was a good thing because he was just too crazy to let die.
It was definitely an examination into how these two operate when in the field. The Red Guardian is similar to Winter Soldier in many regards, but is different in a few significant ways. When he first debuted in Avengers #43 by Roy Thomas and John Buscema, Alexi Shostakov was one of the Soviet Union’s premier test pilots. His skills and loyalty were so well-known that Alexi became a hero of Russia long before he was chosen to become its newest costumed agent.
He was selected to become the second Red Guardian, his patriotism and prowess making him an ideal candidate for the program. They had him fake his death, separating Alexi from his wife, Natasha, who would later become the Black Widow. From there, Alexi became more and more ruthless as he undertook missions as the Red Guardian. So there are parallels to the Winter Soldier here. Alexi became one of Russia’s agents and became crueler as a consequence, but unlike Bucky, he chose to become the Red Guardian. Despite this, the code of honor he held still lingered inside him.
Then he finally got to confront his American counterpart, Captain America. During a joint mission between China and Russia to conquer the United States, Red Guardian fought and was bested by Captain America. But when his ally, Colonel Ling, attempted to shoot an unconscious Captain America, Red Guardian redirected Ling’s shot, triggering a volcanic explosion that supposedly consumed him and Ling.
So despite being intended as Russia’s answer to Captain America, Red Guardian proved that he had the same integrity that made Steve Rogers a hero. It’s just a shame that he didn’t have the time to examine what good he could do for his country by following his heart instead of his orders.
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