Just when you thought Superman had some weird relatives, turns out the big-blue-boyscout of The Marvel Universe has some bizarre family members too. Case in point: Rikki Barnes, the girl who went from being Bucky to being Nomad and along the way had a heavy life. So let's see what this Z-Lister has to offer.
Rikki was created in 1996 by Jeph Loeb and-surprisingly-Rob Liefeld in the pages of "Captain America #1 Vol. 2". This character's story didn't start in the main Marvel Universe, but rather in a pocket dimension called "Heroes Reborn". To simplify the whole story, Franklin Richards (son of Mr Fantastic and Invisible Woman) witnessed the death of his family at the hands of X-Men villain Onslaught and used his reality-bending powers to create a universe where that never happened. In that alternate universe Rikki Barnes appeared as the granddaughter of Bucky Barnes and teamed up with Captain America to defeat The Red Skull. Under Cap's guidance Rikki became Bucky and formed her own team called The Young Allies. She also made use of Cap's military training and Vibranium armor.
"Heroes Reborn" would soon tank in sales and so the old MCU was recreated with all characters killed by Onslaught revived. However, during the events of "House of M" Onslaught was reformed and sought out Franklin Richards. Franklin tried using heroes from the "Heroes Reborn" universe-which he kept as a little green ball-but could only pull Rikki out in time to push Onslaught into a part of space called The Negative Zone through a portal in the Fantastic Four's base. With Onslaught stranded and Rikki stuck in the main Marvel Universe she sought out this world's John Barnes who was her brother in her world.
Rikki Barnes would use a different last name and forge some papers to attend high school with John Barnes. Rikki knew Steve Rogers was "dead" at this time, but wanted to meet the new Captain America. Black Widow tracked Rikki down and instructed her to stay away from the new Cap, she also left Rikki a costume in the style of "Nomad" an identity Steve Rogers used for a brief time. As her series continued she discovered this world's version of Rikki Barnes died during child birth and that John had formed romantic feelings for Rikki. Again, John didn't know he was her brother on the other world. When Rikki refused John's affections he joined a brainwashed council of students. With the Young Avengers help Rikki was able to save John and the school.
After her time on the new Young Allies, a battle against The Bastards of Evil, and a team-up with Captain America (her alternate grandfather Bucky Barnes), Rikki had been lured to the base of The Secret Avengers where it was revealed by a returning Onslaught that the real Rikki Barnes had died in The Negative Zone and that she was only a psychic construct created by Onslaught. Onslaught created her based off the dead Rikki to infiltrate the Marvel Universe and grow in psychic energy so that she would act as an anchor for Onslaught to drag himself back into the Marvel Universe. Onslaught succeeded and possessed the body of Rikki, but Rikki pleaded her teammate Gravity to kill her and stop Onslaught. So he did.
Rikki is a character with a lot of plausibility to her. When you're dealing with a time displaced character like Steve Rogers or Bucky Barnes you're likely to get a situation where the hero meets his descendents. Why, in the Ultimate Universe Steve's descendent becomes The Red Skull! But Rikki is cool too! The prospect of a female Bucky is as cool as a female Robin, but her time as Nomad also represented her not being at home in the main MCU. She was a immigrant of another world, a world trapped in the 1990's no less! It's sad she turned out to be a ruse. Rings a lot of familiar bells, ya know? And yet Marvel still went out of their way to create Captain America 2099 and Miss America. Dick move. If there is any hope of Rikki Barnes returning somehow I'd like it to happen. At this point The Captain America Family is turning into an army. Appropriately enough. So now would be the time to bring this star-spangled kid back to the pages of Marvel Comics. Heh. I made funny only DC Fans will get.
Thanks for reading!
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