Captain Canuck is a Canadian comic book superhero. Created by cartoonist Ron Leishman and artist/writer

Richard Comely Richard Comely (born October 9, 1950) is a Canadian comic book creator, penciller, inker, letterer, colorist editor, and publisher. He created and wrote the '' Captain Canuck'' comic book series which has been in and out of publication since it ...

, the original Captain Canuck first appeared in ''Captain Canuck'' #1 (July 1975). The series was the first successful Canadian comic book since the collapse of the nation's comic book industry following

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Three

characters Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

have worn the maple leaf costume of Captain Canuck. The first Captain Canuck patrolled Canada in the then-future year of 1993, where "Canada had become the most powerful country in the world". He was the costumed agent of the "Canadian International Security Organization" (CISO). In 1995, Captain Canuck was honored with a Canadian postage stamp, along with Superman,

Johnny Canuck Johnny Canuck is a Canadians, Canadian cartoon hero and superhero who was created as a political cartoon in 1869 and was later re-invented as a World War II, Second World War action hero in 1942. The Vancouver Canucks, a professional ice hockey ...

Fleur de Lys The fleur-de-lis, also spelled fleur-de-lys (plural ''fleurs-de-lis'' or ''fleurs-de-lys''), is a lily (in French, and mean 'flower' and 'lily' respectively) that is used as a decorative design or symbol. The fleur-de-lis has been used in the ...

and

Nelvana of the Northern Lights Nelvana of the Northern Lights is a Canadian comic book fictional character, character and the first Canadian national superhero, debuting in Hillborough Studios' ''Triumph-Adventure Comics'' #1 (Aug. 1941). She is also Superhero#Growth in diversi ...

. Like most

independent comics Alternative comics cover a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to mainstream superhero comics which ...

, Captain Canuck's adventures have been published sporadically.

Publication history

First published in 1975, Captain Canuck's original adventures were published on and off until 1981. There were several iterations since. Captain Canuck Reborn, Captain Canuck UnHoly War (also called West Coast Canuck) and Captain Canuck Legacy. In 2012

entered into a partnership with Toronto businessman
Fadi Hakim
to relaunch a new, updated and modern version of Captain Canuck, which was designed in part by

Kalman Andrasofszky Kalman Andrasofszky (born August 21, 1975 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada) is a Canadian comic book artist, writer, inker, letterer, penciller, and designer. Kalman is a native Torontonian and resides there still. Career Much of his work has been i ...

(

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing, publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Co ...

). An animated series was crowd funded and it aired between 2013 & 2014. A second series of the animated adventures was set to air between 2015 & 2016. The first episode of which premiere at

Hal-Con Hal-Con Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Comic Convention, commonly known as Hal-Con, was founded in the 1970s and revived in the 2010s. It is traditionally an annual weekend event held in Halifax, Nova Scotia in Atlantic Canada during the middle of Fall. Or ...

during Halloween.

Tom Evans

Canuck's first appearance was in 1975, published by

Comely Comix Captain Canuck is a Canadian comic book superhero. Created by cartoonist Ron Leishman and artist/writer Richard Comely, the original Captain Canuck first appeared in ''Captain Canuck'' #1 (July 1975). The series was the first successful Canadi ...

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749, ...

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

. The story followed Tom Evans, a Canadian secret agent who gained superhuman strength from contact with extraterrestrials. This first version of the Canadian superhero ran for three issues before going on hiatus in 1976. In 1979, it came back, with Comely being backed by CKR Productions, and publishing 11 more issues, plus a summer special, concluding in early 1981; it was drawn mostly by George Freeman, taking over from Comely, who did the writing and lettering. He was pushed out of CKR after issue #12 was completed and issue #13 and #14 were outlined. The completed issue #15 (written and pencilled by George Freeman and inked, lettered and coloured by Claude St. Aubin) was finally published in 2004 as a limited edition by Comely.

Darren Oak

Since the original, two newer incarnations of the Canadian icon have appeared: Comely launched a second version in 1993, under the imprint Semple Comics. Set in the present, ''Captain Canuck: Reborn'' featured a new Captain Canuck, Darren Oak, who fought a global conspiracy. This title lasted only four issues (#0–3) and was written and drawn by Richard Comely,

Leonard Kirk Leonard Kirk is an American-born comic book artist living in Canada. He has worked on such properties as ''Supergirl'', '' JSA'', ''Star Trek'', '' Batman'', and ''Witchblade''. Currently Kirk is exclusively signed for Marvel Comics.Richards, Dav ...

and

Sandy Carruthers Sandy Carruthers is a Canadian-American artist and retired graphic design instructor, known for his work as the first illustrator of the original ''Men in Black'' comic book series, and as creator of the webcomic series, ''Canadiana: the New Spirit ...

with inks by Éric Thériault. That incarnation continued as a newspaper comic strip for a short while.

David Semple

A third incarnation (sometimes called the "West Coast Captain Canuck"), edited by Comely but written and drawn by brothers Riel and

Drue Langlois Drue is a name. Notable people with this name include: Surname * Kerry Drue, American lawyer * Thomas Drue (1586–1627), English playwright Given name * Drue Chrisman (born 1997), American football player * Drue Cressener Cressener (1642–1718 ...

, appeared in 2004 under the banner of Comely Comics, entitled ''Captain Canuck: Unholy War''. Yet another man,

RCMP The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal and national police service of Canada. As poli ...

Constable David Semple, adopts the guise of Captain Canuck, to take on a biker gang called the Unholy Avengers. "Unholy War" was slated as a three-issue mini-series, the third and final installment being published in January 2005. However, the series came out with a fourth issue (under the '

Hot Hail Comics Hot or the acronym HOT may refer to: Food and drink *Pungency, in food, a spicy or hot quality *Hot, a wine tasting descriptor Places * Hot district, a district of Chiang Mai province, Thailand **Hot subdistrict, a sub-district of Hot Distric ...

' banner) in August 2007, which fully concluded the character.

''Captain Canuck: Legacy''

A miniseries, written and illustrated by Comely, ''Captain Canuck: Legacy'', began in the fall of 2006. It contained two continued stories: One detailed the efforts of the second Captain Canuck to prevent illegal weapons from reaching Canada, whilst the second chronicled the continued adventures of the third (West Coast) Captain Canuck. While the series has remained in limbo for some time, the official Captain Canuck website stated that the remainder of the series would be completed in 2009. Captain Canuck Legacy 1.5 was published in August 2011 as a limited edition of 5,000 copies only distributed in Ontario.

Captain Canuck Collections

IDW Publishing published two volumes of collected editions of the 1975-1980 ''Captain Canuck'' series. Its first release in June 2009 contained issues #4–10. Volume two, released December 2009, contained the 1980 Summer Special. In November 2011, IDW released ''Captain Canuck The Complete Edition'' as a 375-page trade paperback with issues #1–15, the Summer Special, the newspaper strips, sketches and ''Captain Canuck: Legacy'' #1.5.

Proposed film

The Canadian company Mind's Eye Entertainment announced at Comic-Con International 2011 that it planned to develop a Captain Canuck feature film. No scriptwriter or director were attached. Mind's Eye announced at Comic-Con 2012 that it had selected

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

-based screenwriter Arne Olsen to script the feature. Olsen was chosen from a solicitation of pre selected, accredited Canadian writers, who submitted treatments. The final two choices submitted copies of sample scripts.

Web series

In 2013 Captain Canuck was reimagined for a five-episode animated

web series A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single in ...

by Captain Canuck Inc and Smiley Guy Studios. Kris Holden-Reid voices the Captain and Paul Amos his antagonist, Mr. Gold. Several other actors voiced roles in the series including

Tatiana Maslany Tatiana Gabriele Maslany ( ; born September 22, 1985) is a Canadian actress. She rose to prominence for playing multiple characters in the science fiction thriller television series ''Orphan Black'' (2013–2017), which won her a Primetime Emmy ...

as Redcoat and

Laura Vandervoort Laura Dianne Vandervoort (born September 22, 1984) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her roles as Sadie Harrison in the CTV teen drama series ''Instant Star'', Arla "The Bolt-Gun Killer" Cogan in the Syfy supernatural drama series '' ...

as Blue Fox.

2014–present

The success of the Web series allowed for a one-shot comic book, The 2014 ''Captain Canuck Summer Special'', which was released on Canada Day, July 1, 2014, at comic shops across Canada. This is the first time since 1981 that the Summer Special was released. In 2015 a ''Captain Canuck'' #0 issue was released on Free Comic Book Day, which is the first Saturday of May each year. This issue preceded the new ongoing ''Captain Canuck'' series published by Chapterhouse Comics, the first issue of which was available in comic shops worldwide on May 27, 2015.

References

External links

The Official Captain Canuck Page

at Don Markstein's Toonopedia.
Captain Canuck (Tom Evans)
at the International Catalogue of Superheroes

at the International Catalogue of Superheroes

at the International Catalogue of Superheroes {{Canadian comics Canadian superheroes Comics characters introduced in 1975 Comics characters introduced in 1993 Comics characters introduced in 2004 Culture of Winnipeg Fictional Canadian people

Canuck ''Canuck'' is a slang term for a Canadian. The origins of the word are uncertain. The term ''Kanuck'' is first recorded in 1835 as an Americanism, originally referring to Dutch Canadians (which included German Canadians) or French Canadians. By ...

Canadian-themed superheroes 1975 comics debuts Canadian comics characters