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“Marvel Zombies”\u00a0is an interesting alternate-timeline reimagining in which the Earth has been taken over by a zombie apocalypse, but the Disney+ animated series is conspicuously missing one Marvel Cinematic Universe character who you’d expect to do extremely well in a setting like this. Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, aka the Winter Soldier, is very good at what he does in the “What If…?” episode “What If… Zombies?!” Despite his proven survival skills, he’s nowhere to be seen in the show that the episode inspired.<\/p>\n
There’s a reason for that, though:\u00a0As “Marvel Zombies”\u00a0showrunner, director, and co-creator Bryan Andrews said during an appearance on Brandon Davis’ “Phase Hero”<\/a>\u00a0podcast, Bucky isn’t present because the character’s planned season 1 side story was simply too big and awesome to include in all its glory:<\/p>\n “We know what’s going on with certain people that didn’t even appear in this thing.\u00a0The story we were writing was so big and there was so much that there was no way to put it all in, and we didn’t want to short-change some of the cool stuff. So, there is this whole side Bucky thing that I won’t go into detail, but we know exactly what’s up. […]\u00a0We just couldn’t get it in there. So instead of short-changing him \u2014 because the stuff, I\u00a0felt, was really cool, it’s like we don’t want to short-change \u2014 it’s like maybe it’s best if we just move it off to the side.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n Fortunately for Bucky fans,\u00a0the ending of “Marvel\u00a0Zombies”<\/a>\u00a0is a cliffhanger that’s pretty openly angling for a season 2 renewal. Should the show get to continue its story, there’s a chance that the\u00a0Winter Soldier will receive his side arc after all.<\/p>\n\n