James Buchanan Barnes

An orphaned Army camp mascot, teenage James 'Bucky' Barnes stumbled upon Steve Rogers changing into his Captain America costume and was drafted into the role of his costumed partner, training rigorously to fight alongside Cap during World War II.

Few characters in Marvel's vast history can claim a Golden Age birth and still be making waves well into the 2020s, but James Buchanan Barnes is exactly that kind of enduring figure — debuting in All-Winners Comics #1 in 1941, courtesy of creator Carl Burgos, and accumulating an astonishing 354 catalog appearances across roughly 85 years of comics history. His home turf is unmistakably the Captain America corner of the Marvel Universe, with deep roots in Captain America Comics and Captain America: Sentinel of Liberty, and he shares his pages with some of the most iconic names in the business — Steve Rogers, Spider-Man, Tony Stark, and the Human Torch among them. With 17 key-issue appearances to his name, Barnes is the kind of character serious collectors keep a dedicated long-box for, a living thread connecting Marvel's wartime origins to its modern mythology.