by L.A. Mood Comics and Games

By Dan Brown

This is my love letter to Captain Canuck, who in 2025 celebrates 50 years of battling aliens, evil businessmen, radiated monsters, neo-Nazis, and street-level crooks in the True North.

First appearing in 1975, Canuck has had a sporadic publishing history in the decades since but that didn’t stop the superhero from making a deep impression on me, as well as an entire generation of young comic fans in Canada.

I came on board when issue No. 4 showed up on the spinner rack in the variety store at Westown Plaza Mall (now Cherryhill Village) on Oxford Street. That would have been 1979.

Captain Canuck co-creator Richard Comely, who still appears at fan gatherings (most recently Toronto Comicon last weekend), has said the red-and-white-costumed do-gooder filled a niche that Marvel and DC weren’t addressing back then.

When I close my eyes and think about the Canuck of my childhood, what jumps out at me is . . . the colour.

Captain Canuck popped off the page. It was the first comic I had found in which the skin of white characters wasn’t a flat pink; it was pink mottled with all kinds of purples and reds. And I wasn’t a kid who read comics for the colouring or quality paper.

Yes, I was also a fan of Wolverine over in the pages of the Uncanny X-Men. But there was something about Canuck. Perhaps it was his modest powers – Tom Evans, struck by an alien ray, gains the strength of two, count ’em two, mortal men. 

Logan may have been an unstoppable killing machine, but Canuck was a real Canadian in that he was much more modest and realistic. I grasped that, even as a kid.

Even the odd touches wormed their way into my imagination. When Canuck is imprisoned by the underlings of the dastardly Mr. Gold in that fourth issue, he does what any superhero would do: He prays to God for help. In the ensuing panels, he spots a loose brick in the cell he’s housed in, and targets it to gain back his freedom.

I also loved the science-fiction look to the whole thing. Captain Canuck took place in the futuristic world of the 1990s, when Canada has fulfilled Wilfrid Laurier’s prediction that it would own the 20th century by becoming the most important country on the planet

How important was Captain Canuck? So much so, his series was the only one I got a subscription to, that’s how much I loved the George Freeman-drawn action. I couldn’t chance missing even one issue.

Smarter people than me have pointed out how Canuck seems to have a sense of occasion, with his 50th birthday coming at this particular moment in our nation’s history, when the U.S. president has been musing aloud about his wish for Canada to become part of the United States.

Comely has seized on the revulsion many Canadians are feeling right now, offering a variant cover with Canuck telling Donald Trump firmly to back off – not by smashing him in the mouth, just forcefully squeezing his arm.

Another cover on offer at Toronto on the weekend by Ty Templeton goes a step further, showing a reluctant Canuck giving a solid punch to Uncle Sam. “Please don’t make me fight you!!” he pleads as he lays out the star-spangled symbol of the American people.

Since those early days, there have been several different versions of Canuck. The character got stranded in the past just as the series went on hiatus, leaving us diehards moping about the fate of our favourite homegrown hero for decades.

But he came back, keeping the faith with his now grown-up fans who still remember the glory days.

Captain Canuck had originally appeared in the Me Decade in the afterglow of Canada’s year-long centennial celebrations. The hardscrabble 1970s, a decade of disillusion, brought Canadians back to Earth.

Canuck captured our hearts with his essential decency – even in the future time of 1993, Canadians were still the envy of the world, fighting for decency, using their influence to forward the cause of goodness.

So maybe his 50th anniversary is coming at just the right moment in the history of our dominion.

Perhaps everyone here and abroad needs a reminder of all the good things Canada has brought, and continues to bring, into this world.

That’s why Captain Canuck is always the right hero at the right time.

Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.