In the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which released before Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Nebula gives Bucky's arm to Rocket as a Christmas gift. Although it's meant as a callback to the Infinity War and GOTG 1 jokes, it created some confusion about how exactly Nebula got the arm.
How did Nebula get Bucky's arm in Holiday Special?
Nebula simply wrestled the arm off Bucky in the name of Christmas. Gunn also confirmed that the Guardians of the Galaxy purchased Knowhere, the planet where part of the special is set.
The movie confirms that Nebula's new arm is an upgrade provided by Rocket. As cool as Nebula's new arm is, there is no mistake that this is not Bucky's arm that she stole. The design is completely different, as are the powers it gives her.
How, exactly, she procured (stole) the arm has yet to be shown, but the consensus is that Nebula wrestled the arm away from poor Bucky as an illegal but well-intentioned gift for Rocket after seeing how he reacted to Bucky's arm during the fight against Thanos.
According to Gunn, Nebula's new arm was manufactured by Rocket (Bradley Cooper), which makes sense, given he serves as the Guardians' resident weapons master.
In the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, which released before Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Nebula gives Bucky's arm to Rocket as a Christmas gift.
Why does the Nebula look so different in Guardians of the Galaxy 3?
In Vol. 3, Nebula has a more human response to her interactions than in previous films and was intentionally made to look more humanlike as well. In fact, her makeup plays into part of Rocket's backstory, which was a note from director and writer James Gunn.
Bucky Barnes, like Steve Rogers, has lived for several decades due to cryogenic freezing and the super-soldier serum. Bucky's life expectancy could potentially surpass Steve's 116 years, depending on circumstances. Despite outwardly aging at the same rate as Steve, Bucky can still live for at least another 80 years.
In December 2025, Nebula went to Earth specifically to steal Bucky Barnes' vibranium arm from him. After defeating him, she succeeded in removing his arm and took it with her back to space, intending to give it to Rocket Raccoon as a Christmas present.
The fact of the matter is, the arm still functions as a part of his body. The superpowered enhancements do not change the fact that he will still naturally experience pain when his body is put under such stress, especially when the arm is attached to so many nerves that could've been damaged from losing his actual arm.
His family is long dead, he has to wear gloves to cover his vibranium murder arm, and even his friendships are rooted in a desire to atone for past sins. Obviously I have never experienced what the Winter Soldier has, but I do find my own trauma is often exposed on first dates.
The shot fired by Drax the Destroyer caused Nebula's entire body to be damaged, but her cybernetic implants helped to repair her within moments, twisting her arm and jaw back into place, although she winced in pain as the organic parts of her arm still hurt.
In a fit of rage, Iron Man attacked them both, while Cap continued to fight for his friend. In the brutal brawl that followed, Iron Man blasted Bucky's cybernetic arm off, before he in turn was defeated by Captain America, who disabled his armor, before escaping with Bucky.
That said, screenwriters Christoper Markus and Stephen McFeely came right out on Movieweb to state that was merely a coincidence; "Sometimes unintentionally you can create a connection and then play with it later - even if you didn't mean it that way in the first place!
With all this armstory between them, when fans saw Nebula had a new arm in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, they suspected it might be related to Bucky's stolen/borrowed limb. But James Gunn has confirmed that is not the case. Nebula's arm is not Bucky's; instead, it is its own creation.
What happened to Bucky's arm in Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special?
In the 2022 Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, each member of the team gets a personalized gift. Rocket, following his tradition of collecting metal body parts, is unexpectedly given Bucky's arm. More impressively, it's actually the newer black and gold vibranium arm that Bucky got from Wakanda.
As a villain, it made sense to present the Winter Soldier as unstoppable, to make him a better foil for the heroes he fought. With his reformation comes an increased vulnerability; physically weakening him helps the audience better identify with him and ensures he can't simply knock out opponents with one punch.
Never one to tolerate failure, Thanos ordered Gamora to leave Nebula behind, with only a sharp blade to free herself. Nebula was forced to amputate her own arm in order to escape the netting.
Given to him by Hydra after he lost his original left arm falling from Arnim Zola's train in Captain America: The First Avenger, Bucky's metal limb was one of his greatest weapons until he lost it fighting Iron Man in Captain America: Civil War.
Surely they should look around the same age? No, that's because Bucky was kept on ice in between his assassination missions. Steve Rogers didn't actually age until he went back in time and instead of being frozen for 40 years he lived out his life with Peggy Carter.
We see that he's deprogrammed 6 months before the snap in FATWS. He's then snapped away and comes back 5 years later. FATWS takes place 6 months after he comes back. So Bucky is likely 33 physically while chronologically being 107 (FATWS takes place in April 2024, so Bucky's wrong about being 106).
Taking the experimentation, cryogenic freezing and time skips into consideration, Bucky is physically somewhere in his mid-30s by the time The Falcon and the Winter Soldier takes place, making him appear seventy-some years younger than his chronological age.
Thanos never cared much for Nebula, even going so far as to say in Guardians of the Galaxy that Gamora was his favorite. That could be because, to Thanos, Nebula was nothing more than a means to spare Gamora while still obtaining the Soul Stone.
A Galactic Antagonist. As a youth, Nebula grew up in a torturous environment created by Thanos. Having the Mad Titan as a parental figure would have been bad enough, but she was also constantly compared to her surrogate sister Gamora. Thanos openly favored Gamora, which drove Nebula mad with jealous rage.
While Thanos raised them as sisters, he repeatedly made them fight each other to test their strength. Every time they sparred, Gamora would win, and Thanos would "upgrade" one of Nebula's body parts, claiming that he was attempting to make Nebula Gamora's equal, so she could win next time.
