Warning: full episode spoilers follow.
Picking up from the fallout of last week's "Code Red," this week's installment of Earth's Mightiest Heroes continued the focus on Captain America, Winter Soldier, and Red Skull. With the addition of the long-absent Nick Fury into the mix, "Winter Soldier" explored the darker, more espionage-influenced portion of the Marvel Universe. At least until Red Skull's giant super-mech shows up to stomp all over the US Capitol.
The writers offered no further explanation than the previous episode did as far as why Bucky was suddenly able to shake off his decades of brain-washing. Instead, this episode dived right into his current mission, which we eventually learned was trying to dispose of Red Skull's Hydra drones before his fail-safe activated. This was another area where the plot felt a little flimsy. If Red Skull had these gigantic, nearly indestructible drones lying in storage, why did he waste years infiltrating the US government when he could have caused more immediate and significant damage with these?
In any case, the episode delivered some brief but interesting flashbacks to Winter Soldier's early missions. Seeing a younger Fury and his S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in action was a nice bonus. We even learned that Bucky was responsible for Fury losing his eye. It's a shame this material wasn't expanded upon more, particularly with Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine making a silent cameo appearance. Marvel's live-action S.H.I.E.L.D. series can't happen soon enough.
"Winter Soldier" generally handled the title character well. His origin was pretty similar to the one established by Ed Brubaker in the Captain America comics, with the only major difference being that Skull was responsible for his "resurrection" from the beginning rather than stealing the assassin from his Russian handlers. He showed he had the skills to both defeat Fury in open combat and take down Red Skull's giant robot with sheer force of will (again, that fierce willpower should have been reflected more last week). By the end of this episode, Bucky's emotional arc was properly completed and the door was left open for more from the character. The problem there being that the series is ending soon, and it's still not confirmed whether Avengers Assemble will be a reboot or a continuation of Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
The final battle sequence wasn't quite the spectacle it could have been, but at least we got to see Cap and Bucky team up once again to punch Red Skull in the face. It offered a nice counterpoint to the tragic flashback sequence of Bucky's death we've seen multiple times during the course of the show. Unfortunately, Hulk and Yellowjacket were both conspicuous in their absence during the fight. It's been disappointing to see so many weeks pass without a return appearance by Hank Pym. His size-changing abilities might have lent an extra bit of flourish to the battle with Mecha Red Skull. Perhaps "Yellowjacket" was intended to take place after this one chronologically, but then why air it out of order?
On the bright side, at least next week's episode will finally bring Hulk back into the fold. The character was written out of the series just as his stock skyrocketed in the wake of the Avengers movie. Let's hope EMH can still run with that momentum as we inch closer to the big finale.
Jesse is a writer for various IGN channels. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following Jesse on Twitter, or on IGN.
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