Winter Soldier #10

Now here's a series that's been picking up some major steam the past few issues.  Even though I didn't review it due to my vampirism, I'd have given issue #9 a very high score, probably something between 9 and 10.  Let's see if we can keep that momentum going here.

Winter Soldier #10

Summary: We find out that Black Widow was indeed still brainwashed by Leo and that upon seeing Nick Fury(the old one, not the new one) on the Helicarrier, her brainwashing kicked in all over again and she went to kill Fury.  While she managed to wing Fury, Agent Sitwell sacrificed his life and saved Fury, who managed to shoot Widow, causing her to rabbit from the carrier before it went into full lockdown.  After learning all of this from Maria Hill(who is still acting SHIELD director), Bucky demands to speak to the scientist who brainwashed Widow for Leo.  The scientist admits that there was a second layer of brainwashing that Leo wanted inside of Widow(which is how she fooled everybody until she was on the carrier), and he also tells Bucky that Leo had all of Widow's memories of Bucky wiped out too...  Ouch...  With the Black Widow, one of the most deadly women in the Marvel U, working with Leo, SHIELD brings Captain America in to assist with the mission.  Cap takes Hawkeye and Wolverine along as well(since both men have a personal connection to Widow), at which time Hawkeye and Wolvie learn that Bucky was indeed alive.  From there the heroes plan, while Leo and Widow head to a weapons designer and tell him he was working for them now.  This issue ends with Hawkeye locating Bucky, who was deep in thought about his time with Widow, to tell him that Widow had been spotted in New York...

Thoughts: This was yet another really good issue of this series.  As usual.  Ed Brubaker is one of those writers who once he gets rolling is probably better than anybody else.  Sometimes it takes Brubaker's stories a little time to develop, but once they do...  Pure awesomeness.  This storyline is no exception.  The way Maria Hill went over Widow's attack in the beginning of this issue was fantastic, because you really had no way of knowing how the attack ended, which built up the tension.  Brubaker's pacing of those scenes were great.  Agent Sitwell's death was very well done, and I actually felt a pang of sadness for him since I'd been enjoying Sitwell in this series.  Hawkeye and Wolverine being brought in to hunt for Widow made 100% perfect sense due to their connections with her, and Leo continued being an evil bastard, and is rapidly climbing up the ranks of my favorite villains for 2012.  If I had any complaints it would be how underwhelming Wolverine and Hawkeye's reactions were when they saw that Bucky was alive, but then I guess in their line of work seeing somebody you thought was dead standing in a room probably isn't that jarring.

Score: 9 out of 10.

"Oh, so Bucky's alive.  Meh."