Captain Canuck Season 1: Aleph

Captain Canuck Season 1: Aleph (2015-2016): written by Kalman Andrasofszky with Jason Loo; illustrated by Kalman Andrasofszky, Leonard Kirk, Jason Loo, and Adam Gorham: Created by Richard Comely and Ron Leishman, Captain Canuck's first comic book appeared in 1975. This reboot's first issue arrived in 2015. 40 years!

The first storyline offers competent and sometimes inspired storytelling without throwing out the original series' idea that Canuck works for a non-partisan peace-keeping agency (here dubbed 'Equilibrium') or that Canuck tries to use non-lethal force when battling his foes. 

The comic also emphasizes the Captain's reliance on his team, with more focus on those coordinating things back at the Nunavut base and on fellow operative Kebec, now a female French-Canadian sharpshooter.

Kalman Andrasofszky offers a solid script and occasionally shaky but mostly solid art, with Leonard Kirk taking over art duties a couple of issues into the run. Kirk is also perfectly competent, though there are a few pages in which it's somewhat unclear what's happening in some panels, a problem that may lie at either the script or art level. I'd prefer sharper inking of both artists in the mode of classic X-Men Terry Austin on John Byrne. The story seems to cry out for a crisp line.

Many of the enjoyably wonky aspects of the original Captain Canuck return here, including super-villain Mr. Gold (now with vastly enhanced powers!) and the Captain's alien origin for his more-than-normal strength (a crashed UFO in the Arctic). This is still a comic of the moment, however, complete with an opening rescue mission/battle set in Alberta's tar sands.

Captain Canuck is his usual humble, hyper-competent self. His brother is now much more of a factor in the story, his motivations questionable for much of the book. Some of the back-and-forth between Canuck and the non-super-powered members of his tactical team recall Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.. And like Hellboy, Canuck really doesn't want to let people die, even his enemies. The Deadpool-like hilts on Cap's back aren't swords -- they're non-lethal Taser batons. Cap's major other power, besides enhanced but not ludicrous super-strength, is a personal force field. Yep. A CANADIAN SHIELD!!!

Well-played!

The back pages of the graphic collection reveal that Chapterhouse, the Captain's new publisher, has ambitious plans for him and a number of other Canadian superheroes new and old. None of these new books are out yet, however, though the creative teams for the books appear in the back of the volume. Too ambitious? We'll see. 

Shared universes are fine, but it's good to get the first book off the ground, and promptly, before plotting out a whole group of interconnected titles. While the second story-line (Season 2) of Captain Canuck has begun in the 'floppies.'* it has been two years between series and counting.

But I hope Captain Canuck, at least, is a success. Chapterhouse may be too ambitious, but at least it has a comic-book-loving Canadian celebrity as its front man (Jay Baruchel). Recommended.


* Traditional 32-page comic books.

Captain Canuck!

Captain Canuck: The Complete Edition: written by Richard Comely and George Freeman; illustrated by George Freeman, Richard Comely, and J.C. St-Aubin; Captain Canuck created by Ron Leishman and Richard Comely (1975-1981; collected 2011): Canadian superhero Captain Canuck originally appeared in 1975. He would ultimately star in about 15 issues of his own comic book before finally vanishing in the early 1980's; later, there would be revivals, but this volume collects that first run.

Richard Comely would write and draw the first published adventures of Canuck. In those issues we met a hero who'd gained super-strength from an encounter with mysterious aliens. As he was a Mountie at the time, he would end up becoming a sort of super-Mountie for the growing world power that was Canada in the far-flung future of...the mid-1990's!

OK, so the book got technological and social changes really, really, really wrong. So it goes.

Comely was (and still is, I believe) a One-World Conspiracy adherent, and some of that creeps into the pages of Canuck (though not nearly as much as it did into another Comely project from the same time, Star Rider and the Peace Machine). For the most part, though, the book sticks to superheroics, often in vaguely James-Bond-like situations in the first few issues.

Where Captain Canuck really takes off is with the addition of writer/artist/colourist George Freeman and artist/colourist J.C. St-Aubin to the creative team. The colouring on Captain Canuck was markedly better than the mainstream offerings of DC and Marvel right from the start; Freeman and St-Aubin would make the book look remarkably good from a production standpoint. Freeman was also a much better, cleaner cartoonist than Comely.

By issue 9 or so, Captain Canuck looked great, and the stories had begun to flow more smoothly -- and to 'pop' as well with odd situations and characters. Not many comic books in any time period would have had the desire and the skilful creators to pull off an homage to (Canadian) Hal Foster's Prince Valiant; Captain Canuck does.

All things end, of course, and given the difficulty in securing adequate distribution, Captain Canuck was probably always doomed -- especially in a world in which comic shops were just starting to become the primary means of comic-book distribution. The book ends on a cliffhanger. So it goes. Recommended.