Thunderbolts* | Trailer 3

Stan elaborated on his time as the Winter Soldier in an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast with Josh Horowitz. He mentions that Captain America: The Winter Soldier was his personal favorite project and that he wishes that they explored more of the actual Winter Soldier character. Stan also brings up the fact that Bucky wasn’t as completely brainwashed in the comics as he was in the films, having moments where his memories came back to him. Fans are shown some moments of that in Bucky’s current MCU history, but the scenes weren’t very prominent.

The Winter Soldier reveal in Captain America 2 remains one of the MCU’s most tense moments as Steve is caught completely off guard. Though Bucky is the key to that film, the actual Winter Soldier assassin scenes were rushed because the focus was on Steve and HYDRA’s downfall. Some later projects did touch on Bucky’s assassin past, such as Captain America: Civil War and The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, but the focus was on Bucky’s redemption and recovery from his trauma. As Stan expressed, there wasn’t actually much time dedicated to the Winter Soldier’s actual life as an assassin.