Marvel Cinematic Universe · What If...?: Season Three

What If... the Red Guardian Stopped the Winter Soldier? — S03E03

TV · 2024 · 32 minutes · Phase Five · alternate

In 1991, Alexei Shostakov (the Red Guardian) and the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes, are sent to steal a cache of super-soldier serum. When Barnes moves to carry out an assassination as planned, Shostakov intervenes, and the pair escape with only a single vial. Their handler Dreykov, viewing Shostakov as a liability, secretly orders Barnes to kill him, while the two continue chasing a spy known as the Rook to Las Vegas, pursued by Bill Foster. The Rook turns out to be Obadiah Stane, who sold stolen serum research to the Soviets to eliminate his business rivals; after a fight between the group, Barnes throws Stane out a window, killing him. With authorities and a Red Room strike team closing in, a Hydra agent named Karpov tries to trigger Barnes's Winter Soldier programming with activation words, but a recovered memory fragment from a day at Coney Island lets him resist just long enough to let Shostakov escape before Barnes is recaptured by Hydra. Shostakov goes on to live as an ordinary gym teacher until Bill Foster later recruits him, and twenty-one years afterward he fights alongside the Avengers during the Battle of New York.