bothhavesharpteeth:

YES! THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD WAYS TO DO THAT

1. Mark Waid’s Captain America: Man Out of Time is Steve Rogers 101, nobody nails Steve like Mark Waid does, and this miniseries is a perfect introduction to 616 Steve’s character, it’s self-contained, and it’s all around just a great, great read.
2. Captain America: Theatre of War by Paul Jenkins is a series of one-shot issues featuring stories of Captain America’s influence on soldiers in many different global conflicts.  A great, emotional read that gives you awesome insight into Soldier Steve.
3. Captain America & Bucky: The Life Story of Bucky Barnes by Ed Brubaker is really Bucky Barnes 101, a great abridged version of Bucky’s life story (including his time in WWII, as the Winter Soldier, with Natasha, and a peek at his life as Cap).
4. Ed Brubaker’s run on Winter Soldier (out in three trades: The Longest Winter, Broken Arrow, and Black Widow Hunt),as well as Jason LaTour’s follow-up (out in trade as The Electric Ghost).  These are twin efforts on the first volume of Bucky’s solo book – Brubaker’s gets a little problematic toward the end (BWH), but it’s almost worth it read it to get to LaTour’s run, which was an outstanding five issues of characterization.
5. Finally, of course, is Brubaker’s work on Captain America, Volume 5.  You can get a trade of the entire Winter Soldier arc (including his original introduction of Bucky as the Winter Soldier) here for astonishingly cheap.  This has all of the backstory and origin of the Winter Soldier, as well as the comics version of how Steve’s search for Bucky went down.

Carry on, my friend, rock on and read good comics.