The Great White Northern Superhero!

Some comics just strike a nerve. Perhaps it's the specific content, but more likely it's the time and place in which you encounter it. I can remember where and when I first read Charlton's E-Man and likewise I remember where and when I first tumbled to the independent comic book Captain Canuck. My late wife and I were visiting her parents. They lived in what is rated as the poorest county in Kentucky, which is far from being the richest state in the United States. It's mostly an area limited in development because of protected forests and the remnants of company towns still mark that before that the people were preyed upon by leaders of commerce. In a little out-of-the-way stop and shop store I found a comic book I'd never heard of. It was the ninth issue of Captain Canuck written by his creator Richard Comely and drawn by George Freeman. It was Freeman's artwork that lassoed me first  but the story itself was an action-filled second half of a two-part yarn that had taken Captain Canuck into space and back down again. I was hooked. I got every subsequent issue I could find and scouted up the back issues, buying them from Comely's small operation. I joined the Captain Canuck club even. The series never let me down, save when it just up and stopped. 

Richard Comely is the co-creator of Captain Canuck and he is primarily responsible for both the story and artwork in the first three issues. These are tales of super-scientific espionage set in the then moderately distant time of the 1990's. Canada is asserting itself as a world power and Canuck along with his fellow C.I.S.O. (Canadian International Security Organization) agents Redcoat and Kebec fight for the protection of the land to the North and the greater planet as well. The artwork by Comely is marginal, with some flourish, but like so many independent efforts more amateurish than professional. The stories though are brisk and to my surprise each time I read them Canuck himself is pushed to the sidelines early and often. 

The fourth issue introduces the artwork of George Freeman (Freeman had assisted on the inks for the third issue) and with his coming the series begins to get some real heft. Freeman's art makes Comely's scripts look much slicker. 

For several issues we follow Captain Canuck as he chases his enemy the drug runner Mr. Gold who has his super-secret lair in a lost Incan city. Canuck rescues a lovely nurse and saves the world, but that's to be expected. 

My first issue was nine and it finds Canuck in the middle of a saga which took him into outer space. It had been revealed early on that Canuck got his powers (increased physical strength, speed and agility) from an encounter with denizens of a UFO. The series seems to be finally getting Canuck into the sphere in which he will thrive. 

But that doesn't mean intrigue doesn't offer good chances for entertainment. The tenth issue in which Canuck fights off Halloween disguised thugs is a real standout in the series. 

It's around this time that Captain Canuck gets a second title, albeit a one-shot "Summer Special". This one features three new Canuck tales, some featuring new artists and experimental page layouts. The sight of this book convinced me that Captain Canuck had found some footing in the marketplace and was going to be around a while. Alas I wasn't correct. 

The Captain Canuck story gets a major jolt from the trilogy of tales that run from issue eleven through thirteen in which Canuck leads the forces of C.I.S.O. and the rest of the world against a full on alien invasion. These invaders are in fact the ones who are responsible for Canuck's powers. Comely and Freeman throw some real storytelling curves into these issues with Canuck at one point being transported several centuries back in time to fight among the natives fending off Viking incursions along the Canadian coast. (This is tribute to the work of Hal Foster of Prince Valiant no less.) 

The team takes advantage of the time travel gag to shift the Captain Canuck story from the future to the then current day of the early 1980's. Apparently they felt it might give the character a firmer grounding, but frankly I loved the sci-fi setting myself. Canuck adjusts to his time shift knowing there's little he can do about it. There's also little he can do about the fact that fourteen was the last issue. The series was canceled much to my disappointment. 

There was one more classic Captain Canuck story produced, but it would be years before it saw print and I am pleased to have finally have gotten a copy of it in the collection from IDW. 

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Summer Fun!

The summer is in full swing and to celebrate this hot sticky time of the year (I'm an Autumn guy myself) I'd like to stay inside next to the refreshing air conditioner and read comic books. (I'd be doing that pretty much anytime of year, but it feels like an oasis this time of year.) After some heavy theme months, I'm looking to keep it a bit looser here for the month and read a variety of things, some I've read many times before and some for the very first time. 

On the docket is one of the great creations in the whole history of the form -- Joe Kubert's Tor. Created by Kubert when he and Norman Maurier were trying to ignite things at St. Johns Comics in the 1950's Tor has had a much longer life than the 3-D craze that defined it in its earliest days. 

And in the returning "The Sunday Funnies" spot, I will be taking at pleasant read of Roy Crane's classic full-color adventure series Captain Easy - Soldier of Fortune. 

I'll be taking another savory glimpse of some old favorites here at the Dojo such as Charlton's E-Man and The Rocketeer from Pacific and Dark Horse among others. 

I looking forward to a number of highly distinctive classics by creators noted for their particular and highly crafted way of approaching the comic book page. 

Look for the initiation of a new regular feature called "Crime Alley" which will focus on those comics having to do with hardboiled dicks and other gumshoe types. 

And yet another ongoing feature will be "Girl Fridays" which I hope will please those in the Dojo audience who like a bit of cheesecake now and again to enrich their diets. 

And I've got a classic lined up for "Showcase Corner". Metamorpho  is book that simmer in that Silver Age goodness DC was so very good at.

I want to take a belated look at some of those wonky Ray Dennis Steckler movies too. All this perhaps and whatever else occurs to me if I have time, but one I do know is that's it's cool to read comics and in July that's literally so. 

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War And Remembrance - Almost!

I stumbled across this a few weeks ago at my local comic book store. I almost never take a flyer on random comics anymore, but I made a concession for this for a very simple reason -- Don Simpson. I am a huge Don Simpson fan, so much so that in the 90's and going forward I was nearly a completist on his work which has been kindled mostly in the Indie world but also has roots at DC and Eclipse and Image and elsewhere. Once upon a time Simpson was a major talent in the field, but in more recent years has chosen to withdraw to some degree. He put his characters, Megaton Man is the most most famous, online relatively early and once in a while will get something in print.

Now he's drawn this, or most of it. This is the fourth issue of a series which I thought had long ago withered away. War of the Independents (from Red Anvil Comics) sought to bring a higher profile of sorts to a mob of Indie characters and creators by slamming them all together into a Crisis-like event which sprawls across countless comic book universes and plays havoc with any attempt at what once was lovely dubbed "continuity". I don't care about that if the comic is fun, but alas this latest entry (I only ever got the first and third issues of this run because of E-Man and Captain Canuck) is an absolute mess.

Simpson's art is, as always, grand but the story is just a hapless series of micro-events which don't really appear to have any narrative momentum. It's just a huge bunch of characters doing some stuff for a period of time, and then the book stops. Simpson does get to play out his long-running notion that Megaton Man and The Tick are visually identical, but even that gets somewhat humdrum by the end. There's an idea that more of this series will come, but unless the artwork is worthy, I won't be sampling it. Given how long it is between installments, I likely won't remember I said that though.

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Red, White, And True!

When I discovered Captain Canuck in a lone grocery store way back in 1980, the comic was a breath of fresh air, a rousing adventure with a completely novel character in a much underused environment by a completely new company.

I jumped aboard immediately and sought out all the issues as they arrived at the comics stands and ordered the back issues and even some of the swag. I joined the Captain Canuck club and still have my membership card around here somewhere. I thoroughly enjoyed the well-crafted stories. But then it stopped just like that.

1993 Revival

2004 Revival

No more was heard until the 90's and after a spate of revivals which to greater and usually lesser degrees failed to catch the magic of the original series which blended superheroics with just the right spice of sci-fi and even a hint of fantasy to make a heady brew. Successive attempts seemed to ground themselves too tightly into reality and felt somehow more viscerally violent. And none of them had the great George Freeman on art.

Then a few years ago Richard Comely, the good Captain's creator authorized through IDW, a reprinting of the adventures including a story by Freeman originally done in the 80's in which he battles an alien dubbed "The Stygian". The story ended on an abrupt note.

Now at last we get the next part of that yarn as part of last year's latest attempt to breathe life into this concept. The 2014 Captain Canuck Summer Special can be read in all its glory online by going to this site. The pdf comic also features a fun story drawn by Claude St. Aubin. Both the stories here have a fun vintage feel.

Also at the site you will find an rather entertaining series of webisodes which introduce yet another new rendition of Captain Canuck, with a few new toys and a somewhat more smart-aleck attitude. They are pretty cannily crafted and wonderfully paced. 

All these goodies I discovered when I went looking for information on this Free Comic Book Day offering due out the second day of May. I definitely want to check it out, and if it's any good at all, I might well sample the upcoming series if it actually develops. With this character it's always best not to count your "Canucks" until they hatch.

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The Real Canuck!

Above is the actual cover to Captain Canuck - The Complete Ediiton. It's a piece by Richard Comely, Canuck's co-creator and the man who has kept the good Captain up and running all these decades. It's a decent enough cover, but depicts the modern Captain Canuck and the not the character in the classic stories under the cover.


Included at the back of this robust color collection (only the originally unpublished issue fifteen is in black and white) are the pages from Captain Canuck Legact 1.5 a Comic Con giveaway from this summer heralding a new Captain Canuck series.

One thing missing from the collection is even a single page of comment or historical context for the series. I'd have loved to see some information on the early days and how this publishing venture got started. Sure all that stuff is available online, but to make almost any reprint package seem complete it's needed.

There is a comprehensive cover gallery including the covers of the more recent versions of the character by other creators.

All in all it looks to be a very handsome and rugged volume. I'm already four issues into the storyline. The first few issues are really quite amateurish but bristle with enthusiasm. The comic looks more and more professional as it progresses. This read will go very quickly I suspect.

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The Complete Canuck!

George Freeman
It's not often I get thrilled when I check out the new comics for the day. But I have to say I was genuinely excited, and I'm downright eager to get through my work day so I can grab a copy of Captain Canuck - The Complete Edition. This volume from IDW reprints the entire fifteen-issue run of the original comic along with some comic strip material and the Summer Special issue.

I still remember finding a copy of Captain Canuck #9 in a small town next to the Tennessee border in 1980. Here was a brand new comic from a brand new publisher I knew nothing about, but what I did know was that it was well crafted and rather exciting to read. I was immediately taken with the comic and the whole Captain Canuck universe. I gathered up back issues as quickly as I could, I joined the Captain Canuck club to get the cool extras, and I waited for each new issue.


George Freeman and his artwork was the showstopper on this book. He was at least as good as John Byrne at the time, who was then at the very top of his game. The story of Canuck was filled with adventure and good sized doses of sci-fi and that made for a heady brew.

The comic spiraled like a fireball and then sputtered out. I never found the fifteenth issue, even when it was belatedly released in 2004, so I've never ever read the entire saga. I have followed some of the revivals, but they've been notoriously hard to round up and frankly have been disappointing. The original series was the real deal, slick and modern with a great pulp adventure vibe.

I haven't dug my issues out in ages and as I said I've never read the fifteenth and final issue. I'm more than ready to give these wonderful stories another diligent going over. I can't wait.

To help stave off my giddy eagerness, I've put together a little Captain Canuck gallery.
















Here's the cover of the lost fifteenth issue.


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