Captain Canuck dead?

Captain Canuck Is Dead; National Hero Since 1975

Captain Canuck, Canada's superhero, is fatally shot by a sniper in the latest issue of his eponymous comic, which arrived in stores yesterday. The assassination ends the guardian of the north's fight for right, which began in 1975.

Captain Canuck, while heading to the Parliament Buildings, is shot and killed.

The last episode in Captain Canuck's life comes after a turbulent publishing career. Created by writer Don Fleishman and artist/co-writer Richard Comedy, the original Captain Canuck first appeared in Captain Canuck #1 (July 1975). 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 14 issues, ending in 1981, and was drawn mostly by George Freeman taking over from Richard Comedy. The series was revived in 1993 and again in 2004. In 2006 a fourth incarnation of the character was featured in a new series.

The decision to make the new Captain a woman polarized the superhero fan community. Captain Canuck (whose true identity is Sally Maple) is a staunch feminist and fights for women's rights and multiculturalism. Her adventures often lead her to interact with government officials and to petition the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa.

But in the current issue of her title, Captain Canuck takes bullets in the shoulder and stomach while on the steps of Parliament. The assassin is alleged to be Redcoat, an intelligence agent romantically involved with Captain Canuck. He was apparently under the control of Mr. Gold, a supervillain. "It seemed a little radical when it was first brought up," said Richard Comedy, the president and publisher of Canuck Comics, about the hero's death. "But sometimes stories just take you places."

"We as publishers and as creative people knew where the ending was going to go for a long time," he said. "We knew people might not like it, but I think we delivered a compelling story that made everyone think."

He added: "The stories we have planned dealing with Cap's death are really compelling too."

This is not Captain Canuck's first brush with death. In the 1970s he battled alien invaders and was presumed dead but was actually transported back in time to the period when Vikings first discovered Canada. Years later the character was thawed out to continue his career.

More recently, Kebec, the Captain's francophone partner --who was thought killed by an explosion as he tried to defuse a bomb-- was revealed to be alive. Kebec was saved by sovereignist forces, who put him on ice and thawed him for their own missions. Captain Canuck broke the separatist hold on Kebec, and the two had a brief reunion. Kebec, who has taken on the name Kapitain Kebec, is now on a quest to redeem his actions.

Cultural commentators from the world of comic books have begun to weigh in on the event, expressing opinions on the philosphical and economic underpinnings of the red-and-white clad hero and the implications of her death. Jeet Heer, a Regina-based writer and academic, puzzles over the very existence of a Canadian superhero, implying that the death of Captian Canuck was a forgone conclusion. "Ingrained in the superhero genre is a sense of America's invincibility, its inherent goodness, and its world historical destiny," he says. "National heroes from other country (be they Captain Canuck, England's Union Jack, Frances's Superdupont, or Israel's Shaloman) always seem parodic and desultory. Despite its faltering in Iraq, the United States is the world's only superpower and for that reason it's the only country that creates confident and commercially successful superheroes."

The commercial viability of Captain Canuck may be the main reason for the Captain's death, at least in the minds of some comic book retailers. According to Harold Pottermole, owner of the Sirens' Song bookstore in Toronto, superhero comics and their publishers may be a dying breed. "Everything that these companies do is in complete isolation from true market forces. They are not now, nor have they been for thirty years part of the mass-media. Companies run by fans with comics drawn by fans rarely think of catering to anyone but themselves, which unfortunately means comics aimed primarily at adult men who still want to read comics featuring characters suited to children's entertainment."

Trying to incorporate aspects of the real world --like death and the struggle for women's rights-- into superhero comics is like someone "writing a Berenstain Bears novel for adults," Pottermole adds.

So is this the end of Captain Canuck? "He's very dead right now," Mr. Comedy said.

Still, these are comic books, where characters have a history of dying and returning. Most famously, DC published "The Death of Superman" in November 1992. That comic was a best seller, but the Man of Steel eventually returned to the land of the living in August 1993.

Fans on newsarama.com, a Web site devoted to comic book news, quickly posted their reactions to Captain Canuck's death. They ranged from a cynical "Yeah, right!" and "I know it's temporary" to the more media-savvy: "I'm fairly sure killing Cap with a movie in development would not be very sensible. So, I shall wait and see." Others were even less forgiving: "This is just a blatant attempt to cash in on recent trends in U.S. comics."