What Was The Winter Soldier’s First Arm Made Of (Not Vibranium)

Warning: SPOILERS for The Falcon and The Winter Soldier Episode 2 – “The Star-Spangled Man”

Bucky Barnes’ (Sebastian Stan) prosthetic arm was made of a different metal before he got his current Vibranium arm in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Now that he’s a free man after receiving a pardon for his crimes, the ex-Hydra assassin has joined Sam Wilson/The Falcon (Anthony Mackie) in trying to put a stop to the European cadre of super soldiers who call themselves the Flag-Smashers.

Bucky lost his left arm when he was nearly killed during the events of Captain America: The First Avenger. In 1945 during World War II, Barnes and Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) led the Howling Commandos on a mission aboard a Hydra train, but Bucky fell and plummeted into a river far below. Barnes was believed dead by Steve and the U.S. Army but he was saved by the fact that Arnim Zola (Toby Jones) secretly experimented on him when he was a Hydra prisoner of war. Hydra continued their experiments, brainwashed him, and injected him with a variant of the super-soldier serum. Adding a new metal arm to replace the one he lost in his fall, Hydra transformed Bucky into the Winter Soldier, their most feared assassin. The Winter Soldier performed decades of black ops assassinations for Hydra before getting his memory wiped and being placed in cryostasis after each mission, which kept Barnes from aging.

The Winter Soldier’s original metal arm was made of titanium, which was the hardest metal Hydra had access to. It was still an extremely formidable weapon that was powerful enough to punch through brick walls and even catch Captain America’s shield. The fact that Bucky had a metal arm also impressed Spider-Man (Tom Holland), who thought it was “so awesome” when Team Cap and Team Iron Man fought in Berlin during Captain America: Civil War. However, Barnes’ prosthetic arm was destroyed by Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) when he battled the Winter Soldier and Captain America in Siberia at the end of Civil War. After Rogers and Barnes managed to escape, they made their way to Wakanda. It was here that Bucky volunteered to be placed back in cryo-sleep – to protect himself and those around him – until Shuri (Letitia Wright) cured him of his Hydra brainwashing. Bucky was then given a new Vibranium arm by King T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) before he joined the Battle of Wakanda in Avengers: Infinity War.

The Falcon and The Winter Soldier episode 2 revealed that Iron Man wasn’t the first to destroy Bucky’s original titanium arm. When Bucky took Sam to meet super-soldier Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), the Falcon was shocked to learn that Bradley was a super-soldier deployed by the U.S. Government after Steve Rogers was frozen in ice and presumed dead in 1945. During the Korean War, Bradley was deployed to go “deal with” the Winter Soldier. In 1951, Isaiah caught up with Bucky in a bar in Goyang; during their battle, Bradley got the best of Barnes and he “took half that metal arm“. Bradley then joked that Bucky “grew it back.“

Bucky’s bionic arm in the comics storyline is similar to that of the MCU. He’s given the bionic arm by the Soviets, who recover him after a similar fall and assumed death. The arm was intended to be replaced each time new technology was discovered or invented, and it was upgraded over time with new functionality. The composition of the arm in the comics is never spelled out, though it’s able to resist an attack from Black Panther’s Vibranium claws, suggesting a similar composition. There is another possibility in the Marvel Comics universe, though: In the comics, the X-Men and Adamantium weren’t split off from the main MCU. Adamantium, which also laces Wolverine’s skeleton, is stronger than Vibranium – and what’s even stronger is an alloy of the two, which makes up the comics’ Captain America shield.

There may be more instances yet to be revealed of the Winter Soldier’s titanium arm being destroyed and replaced in the MCU. It’s notable that Steve Rogers didn’t destroy his best friend’s metal arm when they fought, although he did trap Bucky’s prosthetic in a metal vice during Civil War until he was sure Barnes’ Hydra brainwashing activated by Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl) had subsided. But given the fact that Vibranium is purportedly the strongest metal in the MCU and is practically unbreakable, it’s unlikely that Bucky will suffer the indignity of losing his current arm as he had his previous prosthetics. Yet even Bucky’s powers as a super-soldier and his Vibranium arm may not be enough the next time he and Sam Wilson take on the Flag-Smashers in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.

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