Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes is a Congressman in Marvel’s THUNDERBOLTS*

Little has been revealed about Sebastian StanBucky Barnes, aka The Winter Soldier, in the next film Lightning*.

We know that he was separated from his best friend when Steve Rogers went back in time to grow old with his love, Peggy Carter, and that he was passed over for the role of Captain America when Sam Wilson/Falcon was given the job.

So where will we find him? Aside from a few set photos of Barnes in a suit, we didn’t know until Stan’s co-star accidentally spilled the beans at Comic-Con.

During an interview with CBM, Wyatt Russell (US Agent) and Stan were joking about Bucky washing his Vibranium arm in the dishwasher, which we actually got to see in the footage shown at Marvel’s Hall H panel. Russell and Stan joked that it’s because Bucky doesn’t have a lot of free time.

“At some point you have to make sure that things get clean, and so this is a very efficient way to do that quickly,” Stan joked. “It also uses a lot less water, a lot less water in the dishwasher.”

It was then that Russell let slip that Bucky is a congressman, a detail that was probably not meant to be revealed right now. Based on this revelation, it will be interesting to see if the Thunderbolts* are a government-sanctioned team working for Bucky.

The film stars Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier; Florence Pugh like Yelena Belova; David Port as Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian; by Hannah John Kamen like Ava Starr / Ghost; Wyatt Russell as John Walker / U.S. Agent; Olga Kurylenko as Antonia Dreykov / Taskmaster; Julia Louis Dreyfus like Valentina Allegra de Fontaine; and Lewis Pullman as Robert “Bob” Reynolds / The Sentinel.

Jake Schreier directs from a screenplay by Eric Pearson, Lee Sung Jin and Joanna Calo.

Lightning* It is scheduled for release on May 5, 2025. The film is currently scheduled to close out Phase 5 of the MCU.