From Russia, With Love: James and Natalia, Part 1

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Since it's Valentine's Day, a salute to my favourite current couple at Marvel Comics, James "Bucky" Barnes and Natalia "Natasha" Romanova.


Their story begins in Captain America #27, three issues into the "Death of Captain America" story arc that I covered in an earlier series of posts (this first post is basically just the relationship-related stuff from that).



They fight:



Bucky: not afraid to hair-pull. He eventually wins and takes the shield. Natasha warns Stark about this, and indulges in a few expository flashbacks:




This is in the middle of Bucky's whole "kill Iron Man" phase, which inadverently leads to him getting captured by the Red Skull; Black Widow and Falcon rescue him:



Once there, Bucky has his obligatory fight with Iron Man, and an arrangement is reached:




Incidentally, I was always a bit disappointed that "Secret Invasion" happened shortly after this story ended, because the interactions between Bucky and Tony here were really good, and it would have been interesting to see that dynamic play out a bit more.

Anyway, the arrangement includes Natasha as his minder. They're a good team, and she provides more than a few invaluable assists, such as this one:





At the end of this particular episode, SHIELD activity comes under particular scrutiny, necessitating that Natasha not be seen as openly with him for a bit.



And that was the first that anyone in this book had smiled in months. But despite that, she doesn't stay gone for long:



They save the day, New Cap becomes a big media star, and Natasha blackmails a corrupt senator into resigning.




That's the 50s Captain America there, incidentally (star of the recent teabagger controversy).

So that's how they got back together.
 
Scans taken from various issues of Captain America in #27-42 range.