I was looking forward to Captain Canuck but this story was just ok. The storyline was slow and didn't grab my attention like I hoped it would. The villain was a little underwhelming as well. I may continue with the next one but it's not on my 'must get' list.

This was my first encounter with Captain Canuck, it wasn’t bad. There were a couple minor annoyances (placed in the 80s, doesn’t really looks 80s.), some cheesy bits but that’s also why I enjoyed it. It has that classic super hero script. Good guys win, our hero lives to fight another day. Massive family issues that contribute to his personality as a dark, brooding character or a light, sweet, and endearing character... we got the light and fluffy hero, with a dark and brooding antihero... which is cool. All in one! I enjoyed the pace of the story, the timeline jumps, all of it forces you to be engaged. Everything a classic super hero story does. It’s something worth keeping up with. Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC, in exchange for an honest opinion.

This feels like just Canada. I loved the art style and the story. I am proud of Captain Canuck and proud to be a Canadian!

But in 2017, Captain Canuck made a comeback, with a new look and refreshed origin story. Of course, enhanced strength and speed along with an eidetic memory help fill out the hero profile too. As a callback to the 1975 original, Tom Evans is once again donning the red and white uniform of the great northern hero. And because he is working with Equilibrium, a “global crisis agency”, he has a team that’s perhaps reminiscent of the Avengers.

In this collection, Captain Canuck is put to work trying to save workers after some sort of accident in an oil sands refinery in Alberta. There he encounters a sentient liquid gold that attacks and turns people into zombies. Not surprisingly, a villain who goes by the name Mr. Gold is behind it and he abducts CC’s brother, Michael, who owns the refinery (and created Equilibrium). So yes, it’s a save the day sort of story, but you also get a back story on the brothers and how CC got his powers (hint: aliens were involved). It’s an action-packed ride that’s serious when it needs to be, but throws in some good Canadian humor along the way.

After a vacation with my family to Canada last year, we all got a bit hooked on some of the unique things Canada has to offer (beaver tails for the win)! My husband mentioned Captain Canuck to me before we left for the trip, and I naively thought he was kidding. When we got there, I became a full convert and have the tshirt to prove it! I also was able to get a special extended issue of Captain Canuck while I was there. Flash forward to recently when #Netgalley posted an ARC of Captain Canuck, you KNOW I had to sign up and read it ASAP. I enjoyed the fact that it was not a retelling of what I’ve now read elsewhere, but a full new story. I liked the art and storyline as well as some of the humor sprinkled in. This was a fun, quick read for me and I hope any other Captain Canuck fans out there check it out too!

It is so nice to read this relaunch of a hero you probably have never heard of. I have, and thankfully this launch is fresh, current, topical and interesting, in a fun way.
Welcome back!

'Captain Canuck Vol. 1: Aleph' by Kalman Andrasofszky with art by Leonard Kirk and Adam Gorham is a reboot of the 1970s series. It was much anticipated, but it's just a hot mess.

When we meet Captain Canuck and his support team, they are responding to an emergency call in a gold mining operation. When they get there, they find that people have been turned into some sort of gold zombies from touching the gold. Captain Canuck's suit protects him from this somehow. We find out that the villain behind this is Mr. Gold.

We also get flashbacks about Captain Canuck's origins. Sort of. It's all confusing as to what his powers are and what he does. He seems to be a sort of human shield that refuses to shoot anything, which is fine, but he has an ace sniper on his team, so that sends a weird mixed message. I'm hoping volume 2 clears some of this up a bit more.

The art is not impressive. It's blocky and not really fun to look at.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Chapterhouse Publishing, Diamond Book Distributors, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

I was excited when I heard Captain Canuck was being rebooted. Even though I'm not Canadian, I somehow had a couple of issues of the original series when I was a kid. Unfortunately, this was a confusing mess. I'm not even sure I could explain the plot if I wanted to. Captain Canuck fights this liquid gold that can animate the dead. First, they are at some kind of mining facility that has exploded. Captain Canuck's brother is kidnapped by the guy controlling the gold. Mr. Gold, of course! Then Captain Canuck and his militia head up north to whatever Aleph is to save his brother. Somehow aliens are involved. If that didn't make sense, well, neither did this comic. The art looks like it was just layouts in places. I wasn't even sure what some panels were depicting.

4 stars

Disclaimer: I am a reader, and as such, I am attracted to a story first and foremost. I have read comics and 1 graphic novel, but the story has to be interesting, and the art is secondary. So, I am going to review this a little differently than I would a plain novel.

Story: 3.5 stars
What I liked: I thought that the story was interesting, with some unique characters. I enjoyed the world building and learning how each character fits in to the team, and how they all came to be together. Captain Canuck is a little rebellious, and thinks that he is invincible, which makes for an interesting story when he finds out what exactly is going on.

What I didn't like: In some cases, the delineation between past and past wasn't as clear as it could have been, especially when it came to what was going on with the Captain's brother.

Art: 4.5 stars

What I liked: the art was strong, bold, and added to the story.

What I didn't like: there were several panels that were spread over two pages, and while this would be all right in a physical book, if it's happening in an ebook, it's a little confusing.

The art is really lovely, the colours are both suiting and pleasing to look which is something comics can struggle with. But everything looks very crisp and polished. The story isn't overly complex, but it's paced well and the reveals happen at the right time. I'm really looking forward to what comes next and I want to learn more about this interesting feature of their world. What is the thing Tom has, what happens when more aliens come, what do they want!? Is Michael gonna be okay, what about sniper lady? I could see rereading this comic. Overall I really enjoyed it, even the French I didn't understand

I only had two problems. When they're fixing Patel's leg they talk about her humerus and that's in the arm so.... And then they accidentally had a time period labeled wrong. But very minor things.

Before getting this book, I had never heard of Captain Canuck. I was glad to find such a patriotic, Canadian super hero.

In general, the story was interesting. The villain created a kind of gold that invaded and controlled people. It was very hard to remove from a person, and creepy to read about. I also liked the Toronto references. One of the final issues in the volume was even set right in the heart of the city, in Nathan Phillips Square beside the famous TORONTO sign.

There were a few problems with the story. I wish there was more of an introduction to the story. I wasn’t familiar with the characters so I would have liked to get to know them before being thrown into the story. One of the characters was French, which was an awesome inclusion of another aspect of Canada. However, there was a part where she was speaking French and there was no translation. I know some French, but these French passages really slowed me down. It would be difficult for people who don’t speak French to read that part.

Overall, this was a pretty good graphic novel. It’s great for Canadian superhero fans.

I enjoyed this graphic novel. It is well done and it got me hooked.
I do highly recommend

What can I say?? A bad ass Canada Superhero? YES, PLEASE! This is a reboot of the 70s comic Captain Canuck, and it's fairly well done! A clean, bold art style with just the right amount of campy action! A very fun read.

This wasn't bad, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. There's potential here, in the relationship between brothers, and some potentially interesting side characters. The art is also solid. However, for a first volume, the story doesn't have forward momentum, and all of the jumping around in time/people's memories makes this confusing, especially considering that it's supposed to be a reboot that appeals to both old and new Captain Canuck fans.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC.

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Captain Canuck evidently has a long history, but I was truly disappointed in this outing, which collects issues 1 through 6 and which was my introduction to this character. I should have realized from the cover image that it was going to be confused and unrealistic. Giant savage mutant polar bears are very much in the realm of fantasy and the disrespect for the polar bear itself was nauseating. As the name of the graphic novel suggests, this is essentially a rip-off of Captain America with sufficient changes made to avoid a lawsuit from meg-conglomerate Disney, and it was not a very good rip-off.

The artwork and coloring was fine enough, but the writing and the overall story was really and truly confusing. Worse, it was all violence and gore with no humor or humanity in sight. Even having read fifty percent of this before I gave up in disgust, I have absolutely no idea what this story was supposed to be about. Chapter one started out strongly with a man who evidently has no super powers but is augmented by technology, going in to rescue people from a burning oil facility. He encounters what appear to be zombies and as you know, anything like zombie is inevitably violent and irrational. This is a tedious trope.

if the man had no super powers, but merely uses technology, this immediately begs the question as to why there's only one of him! Why not train several people like this and make a team? That story would have had a much better dynamic than this one did, but that question (why only one of them) wasn't even asked much less answered.

This was clearly a comic designed for print and not for electronic distribution which begs the questions as to why the review copies are electronic. I'm about ready to quit reviewing comics unless I can get a print version or unless the comic is specifically aimed at the ebook market. Publishers and comic book creators simply have not got their heads around the ebook concept, and graphic novel publishers who ought to be all over it seem slower than other forms of publication for reasons which escape me.

Thus pages 11 & 12 are a double page, but there's no obvious indication of this, so I'd started reading straight down the page before I realized it went over two pages. The amusing thing was that it made just as little sense whether you read down each page individually or read right across both pages and then down, which involved a lot of swiping back and forth on a tablet reader.

The fact that some panels seem to run off the edge of the page is no guide because on page 12 there's one that runs off the edge and looks like it might go to a second page, but it doesn't! Logic? You're not welcome in this layout! Readability? Thou art banishéd! The same kind of thing happened on other pages. Clearly the designers were so focused on trying to make the individual pages look so 'edgy' and 'kewl' that they completely forgot that actual people have to read it and make sense of it. If they so obviously don't care about the whole reading experience, much less about the electronic version of it, why should I care about what happens in their comic? Really?

The story quickly became lost in itself, with Captain Canuck blundering around blindly trying to find the people he was supposed to be rescuing, little progress made towards any actual story-telling. Their only escape seemed to be down a toxic waste chute, which begged he question, what toxic waste? This was an oil refinery, They're so mercenary in such places that there is no waste. They use literally everything for something to reap every buck they can from the oil, and while oil and gasoline are toxic, it's not the kind of toxic that was suggested here. And any word on the environmental impact of such a fire? Nope. Who cares about the environment? And this is Captain Canada in effect? That was a bad miss.

Chapter two was worse. We got a confused flashback which brought the story to a screeching halt and contributed nothing to it except to add a meandering and unnecessary backstory. I detest flashbacks for that very reason. I plowed on gamely for another couple of chapters until I was halfway through this, but gave up because the story wasn't getting any better and it wasn't remotely entertaining. I cannot in good faith recommend this.

I'm sad to say that I was not a fan of this series opener. Despite reviews, I went in worth an open mind in hopes that is be able to follow the story better than others had but I was sadly mistaken. Despite reading it twice in a row (which I've never done before but wanted to really give this a fair shot) there are still many parts of this story that are completely muddy to me. There are a couple of good things but they are so bogged down in an insensible story that they're vastly outweighed. There's a lot of action and is really cool. The artist is awesome. That's about all I can really say to the positive though. A few pages are in French (which I do know a tiny bit of luckily) but those may even be easier to understand than some in English. There's swearing, innuendo and, of course, superfluous violence as well. Sadly, I would have to recommend you skip this one, unless it's necessary for the second in the series (an update on that later as I do have that one to read as well).

I would like to thank the publisher, author, and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a version of Captain Canuck that aims high, and for the most part hits the target. This Captain is a techno-hero who, with a crew of well-rounded supporting characters, battles threats both fantastic and real to achieve worthwhile ends that involve more than just punching villain in the face.
The writing here is solid. Motivations, dialogue and character arcs (mostly) make sense and the plot is plausible with some good dramatic beats. The accompanying art is well suited to the genre of the story and is just detailed enough to help sell the key moments in the story. The color work seems especially well done, giving just the right visual tone to the story.
All in all, this book is a worthy successor to Richard Comely's original creation and succeeds in giving a distinctive touch to a classic Canadian hero.

The book is fun, and the characters, even if a little bit shallow, are interesting enough (even if having the flashbacks is a tiresome and seen too many times way of giving us backbone story). However, the storytelling is messy, and it was difficult sometimes to see what was going on, in part because the plot jumps and introduces characters without giving much of a setting. The big bad is lame and zombies have been overdone. The ending is also too rushed and leaves the reader wondering why so much of a setting up for so little resolution. So, fun but not great and messy. The drawing style is nice (including the old-style extra story).

This is a pretty exciting reboot of the Captain Canuck series. Based on this issue, I'm excited to read more.

Getting to see current Canadian landmarks is a hoot (Toronto should be so lucky to be gilded). There could be a little more effort to "Canadianise" some of the dialogue (there should be far more apologising), but that's a pretty nit-picky assessment. I'm left with Questions about some of Captain Canuck's background, though - if he lived on "the Rez" in Flin Flon, are the Evanses Indigenous? Metis? If so, why is that heritage not reflected in the art?

On the whole, though, you're not going to notice those things because you'll be caught up in the story and the art, which is superb. Looking forward to buying all the new CC!

I was actually rather surprised by this read. The art was very good, the action well paced and excellently rendered, the story however was quite hard to follow. I appreciate that every superhero comes with a backstory and a mythos, I just wish Captain Canucks had been better laid out. The use of flashbacks was patchy and felt oddly disconnected. It was also hard to feel sympathy and concern for characters that hadn't been fleshed out. For a book labeled as Volume 1 I felt like I had been thrown in at volume 2 and was expected to know from the beginning all the information that akwardly dumped in the last half (and volume 2).
I love the idea of Canada getting its own branded super, and got a real kick out of seeing locations I was familiar with get name dropped, I just wish it had been better executed.