fairplaythings.com

Membership has its privileges

Though you’d be hard pressed to realize it, given my penchance for Transformer rants and after 185 Transformers of the Day (and counting), I actually have other interests that enter my geek-filled brain. Like super heroes and comic books. For the longest time, I’ve been a huge fan of patriotic heroes, those supers who literally wear their flags on their chest.

Of course, one of my favourite is Captain Canuck.

Before Transformers, comic book stores, collectibles, cartoons-as-toy-advertising and mass marketing, back when I was a wee lad happy to have a few bits of Micronauts with which to play and a couple of comics in my collection. Though I have thousands of the suckers now, lying dormant in filing cabinets testing the fortitude of the floor, I probably had about a dozen comics in my entire collection during the time.

Rotten potatoes and steak and fish...

One of the main reasons for this was not, in fact, my quarter allowance that required saving to get the latest 35 cent piece of paper joy. In fact, the problem was the limited distribution of comic books in Guysborough, Nova Scotia, a small town two hours north of Halifax. The one corner store was the only place that carried comic books and it only had four or five at a time. And, being a kid, I only got to the store every so often, usually when we were visiting the Macdonalds up the street.

(Now about fifteen clicks down the road there was a store that had a WHOLE RACK of comics that made my little heart flutter, to say nothing of mighty Truro, but those trips were even less frequent still.)

Clockwise from top right: elbow through explosion, a finished mystery, an unsolved crime and fool's gold

Maybe it’s because life is relatively repetitive or that kids are like sponges, or simply that there were so few toys and comics in my possession that each one was treated like the rarest and most special gem, but it is quite surprising the amount of detail my little six year old mind retained. So I can tell you for a fact that the first comic I destroyed was Micronaut #5 and that the damage was done from resting my elbow square on the cover when I fell asleep one Saturday afternoon. That the first time I ever managed to get a comic story spread across TWO ISSUES (those were the days) was the annual Justice League / Justice Society team-up in the Justice League of America #171-#172 (notable as well for the appearance of a certain Terry Sloan, whose heroics have some hand in this site). Of the frustration that came from never realizing the conclusion to the Fantastic Four / Dr. Doom fight begun in Fantastic Four #199. And that camping was made better with Hulk #241 and the discovery of a gold city that, if revealed, would have brought the gold market to ruin.

But I also remember Captain Canuck #4.

A princess, a catman and cylon raiders too!

One day after work, my dad came home with a copy of this comic book that was neither DC nor Marvel and vividly coloured. I didn’t realize at the time that it was a Canadian publication or that it would last just fourteen issues and a special. I was just happy to have another comic book in my collection and excited by this particular one, with its hues of red and white.

I won’t lie. I didn’t get the patriotism of the gesture at the time. I didn’t even understand the story all that much. But I do remember a hero without his mask, charging into battle with no shield and a head wound. And that was enough for me.

Thirty plus years later, IDW has provided a wonderful reprinting of issues #4 through #10, in hard cover no less! And though I don’t understand the rationale of starting a collection at issue #4 when the first three issues are important to the ongoing story, and wonder if the exclusion of the Catman backstory might be influenced by fears of another big name publisher, it’s still a beautiful book to add to the shelf. One that stands out in fact because of the care taken in recolouring the art and assembling the interior. Reading the forward alone, about how creator Richard

Reborn!

Comely painstaking scanned the original art from the Library and Archives Canada building just over the waterway in Gatineau, Quebec… I mean who knew the country cared so much about the comic book to feel justified in holding onto such a treasure…

Anyway, for the sake of national pride, we’ll overlook for now the fact that it took a U.S. publisher to bring us a Canadian superhero on pages printed in Korea. No irony there I’m sure. Check out the cover gallery here, and last year’s Canada Day munny here.