Four rather cool pieces of possibly legitimate conceptual artwork from three of Marvel Studios’ forthcoming Phase Two movies have leaked online, giving us a greater idea of the expanded scope and design Marvel is bringing to this next huge step in their total conquest of comic book cinema. Below is some concept art for sequels Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Thor: The Dark World, as well as for Guardians of the Galaxy.

First we have an image from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, depicting Cap (Chris Evans) battling it out with the titular villain, a resurrected Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan).

Winter Soldier #1
Written by Ed Brubaker
Art by Butch Guice
Color Artist: Bettie Breitweiser
Letters by VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover by Lee Bermejo
Marvel Comics
Release Date: February 1, 2012
Cover Price: $2.99

For decades, we all thought that Bucky Barnes was one of the two characters in the Marvel Universe who WAS dead and would actually STAY dead. After reading Winter Soldier #1, I’m sure glad that surviving death is a regular occurrence in the Marvel U.

Here’s where Ed Brubaker‘s years of writing Bucky and Captain America pays off. Yes, it’s paid off for several years now, but this is different. If it was anyone else but Brubaker writing this series, it might not go over so well. But, Brubaker knows this character like the back of his hand and it shows. It almost feels like you’re reading an issue of Captain America where Bucky takes over as the central character.

Marvel has released a new image from the forthcoming film Captain America: The First Avenger showing Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) and his sidekick Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) walking against a crowd of soldiers on a U.S. Army base.

Whenever I hear the word “sidekick” mentioned within a superhero movie I immediately tense up and have horrible images of Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin flash through my mind. Fortunately, having seen the war-hardened expression on Stan’s face made me breathe a sigh of relief.

It seems director Joe Johnston has taken care to see that Bucky has none of the campy, cartoonish stigma we’ve come to expect from sidekicks.

Click the thumbnail above to see the enlarged image and then let us know your thoughts in the comment section.

Many names were reportedly in consideration for the role of Captain America in The First Avenger: Captain America. We were told of quite a few of them toward the end of February (Read: Want To Know Who’s In The Running To Become Captain America?), but ironically, it’s now two candidates that were not part of that list who have won the lead roles.

It’s being reported that Sebastian Stan, who was at one time a possible choice to become the Captain himself, has been cast in the role of Bucky Barnes. He joins Chris Evans, who of course was recently offered and accepted the job to play the highly coveted superhero role.