James Buchanan Barnes was born in 1925 and had a rough early childhood—his mother died when he was young, and his father was killed in a training accident at Camp Lehigh just before Christmas in 1937. Rather than go into the system, the scrappy kid managed to convince officials to let him stay at the camp as a ward of the state, drawn to military life just like his father had been. He essentially became the camp mascot, and by World War II he'd set up a side business supplying soldiers with hard-to-find gear.
His real opportunity came when he caught the attention of military brass. Barnes trained extensively in hand-to-hand combat under renowned instructors William Essart Fairbairn and Colonel Rex Applegate, becoming a skilled operative. Some of this work may have connected him to Romulus, a shadowy figure operating in international espionage, though those details remain murky.
The pivotal moment came when he met Steve Rogers, a fresh private who'd recently been transformed into Captain America. Rogers was assigned a partner, and that ended up being Barnes—though he had no idea what Rogers actually did. One night he stumbled into Rogers' tent mid-transformation and got sworn to secrecy. Barnes jumped headfirst into this strange new world, joining Rogers for his first mission against the Red Skull, where they freed Nazi prisoners.
What followed was months of intensive training under Rogers, who became both his mentor and his closest friend. By the end of it, Barnes had earned his own costumed identity as Bucky and was formally designated as a propaganda counterweight to Hitler Youth. The government also used him for the shadier jobs—the missions they didn't want Captain America's public image attached to. Barnes was cynical where Rogers was idealistic, but that friction only strengthened their bond. His younger sister Rebecca had been sent to boarding school during all this and was separated from him, though that part of his life faded into the background.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
