"Winter."

The alien germ epidemic plot is a standard of sci-fi TV shows--I think TV Tropes just uses The Plague to cover it. Almost always it's serious business, with maybe a tiny percentage played for laughs: a character getting an inconvenient but not fatal alien disease maybe, like Wookie Mumps or something. (The latter is also a good way to bench a character off-screen for an episode or an issue: the Captain came down with Tellarian Monkeypox, so he's not going on this week's mission.) I wanted to play with the virus or whatever being contagious and dangerous--but also not life-threatening (for the patient, in itself) and temporary!

I haven't read the recent Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier series yet; but does it take place in space? Seems like about a third of Marvel's current books have story lines that are space-related, and that's before you get to the obvious ones like Silver Surfer or the Guardians books.

Fun fact: Space Iron Man was going to be in this strip, but he sucks and everyone hates him. That figure should've been labeled "Groot leg," since that's the only reason anyone bought it. I swear the Wal-Mart by my work has like twenty, still at full price.