If you consider yourself to be a veteran of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Masters of the Air may be more to you than “Band of Brothers in the sky.” By a cruel twist of fate, this show is chock-full of Stucky jump scares.
It’s all about the wartime setting coupled with the nicknames. Major John Egan, the character played by Callum Turner, goes by Bucky in the show. That alone would be enough. I’m already thinking about Steve and Bucky catching up at a European bar in The First Avenger, or Brock Rumlow saying, “Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky,” in Captain America: Civil War. But it doesn’t end there. Egan’s best friend, Austin Butler’s character in Masters of the Air, Major Gale Cleven, is called Buck. Why? Because Bucky told him that he looked like his friend back home named Buck. (Never mind that it’s also essentially his name.) And as Cap fans will tell you, Steve often shortens the nickname to just Buck, as well. So on this show, there are two of them.
The wildest thing about this is that it’s a true story about real people. Egan and Cleven were actually pilots in World War II, and they really were nicknamed Bucky and Buck respectively. It makes sense, if you think about it. No well-respected television writer would dare risk confusion by giving characters such similar names. It had to be something that happened IRL.
And before you ask, neither was the inspiration for James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes in either Marvel Comics or the Captain America films. Bucky Barnes got his nickname from a childhood friend of comic book writer and Captain America co-creator Joe Simon named Bucky Pierson. Were there really guys running around calling each other Bucky left and right in the 1940s? Maybe!
I hope I’m not alone in feeling some kind of way watching this. Every time Egan and Cleven pal around and call each other Buck and Bucky on Masters of the Air it reminds me of The First Avenger. Because of that, I’m not not shipping their dynamic! War stories are inherently homoerotic. That’s how we got Stucky in the first place. Male friendship + high stakes + high emotions = shipping from the safety of our homefront couches. While I’m not a real-person shipper most of the time, these are fictionalized versions of Cleven and Egan, after all.
So here I am, eying the inseparable nature of Buck and Bucky’s relationship through an AO3 lens. Not only does Callum Turner’s character name Austin Butler’s character after him, but he also serenades him and loooves to point out how his best buddy doesn’t seem all that interested in girls or sports. Pretty sus! Pretty romantic! Buck and Bucky forever! We don’t even need a Steve.
(featured image: Apple TV+)
