Jack Reacher (Amazon Prime series) is turned into the Winter Soldier instead of Bucky Barnes (MCU). How does the rest of the MCU change?
Thanks to a freak accident involving time travel, Jack Reacher the former US Army MP turned drifter, is accidentally sent back to 1945 Europe during the events of Captain America: The First Avenger. More specifically, he arrives at this scene in the film (prior to Bucky's fall and capture by HYDRA).
Reacher knows the following things right off the bat:
- He recognizes the date as 1945, which means he knows he's in the final year of the Second World War, a war his own mother fought in.
- All he's able to figure out regarding his surroundings is that he's in a parallel universe where the Nazis somehow got technologically more advanced than the Allies.
Being the Patriot that he is, Reacher decides to join the fight, with the intention of investigating the advanced tech so he can figure out how the Nazis got their hands on it.
In the process, Reacher gets captured by HYDRA and is brainwashed into becoming the Winter Soldier in Bucky Barnes' place. Everything that happened to Bucky following his capture by HYDRA now happens to Reacher (He gets brainwashed with the memory suppression machine and the Winter Soldier book, he gets the prosthetic arm, etc.).
How does having Reacher turned into Winter Soldier instead of Bucky alter the rest of the MCU?
Battle assumptions:
- For this scenario, we will be using the Amazon Prime incarnation of Reacher, portrayed by Alan Ritchson.
- Assume he has no idea what HYDRA is.
- Assume Reacher has never met Steve Rogers or Bucky Barnes.
- This scenario uses Marvel Cinematic Universe Time Travel rules, meaning Reacher's capture and brainwashing into the Winter Soldier merely creates a branching timeline, while everything that happened to Bucky in the MCU Canon Timeline is unaffected.
Battle parameters:
- Reacher's scenario begins a few hours before Captain America and Bucky board the HYDRA train.