Canada in its Jammies: The Promotional Self-Mockery of Richard Comely’s Captain Canuck

Abstract

ABSTRACT Domestically produced Canadian superheroes face an uphill climb in their bids to be taken seriously. A domestically produced Canadian comic is one that is authored and published within Canada or within a territory on what is called Canada. Canada’s troubled sociopolitical relationships with nationalism, colonialism, federalism, and separatism, merge with notorious Canadian stereotypes—like national inferiority complexes and apology culture—and serve to unnerve and disarm the Canadian superhero. While psychosocial in nature, these feelings, unconsciously nationalized, are rooted in cultural economics where imports from Britain or the United States are perceived to have higher financial and social value. These unsettlements continually prompt Canadian readers to question whether they can—or should—identify with a domestically produced Canadian superhero in le neuvième art. The answer tentatively seems to be yes, but only if they are humbled, satirized, or taken down a peg—knowingly or unknowingly, or only if these heroes are, in some manner, reflectively self-deprecating. Richard Comely’s early run on the Captain Canuck franchise, particularly in his promotional pre-Captain Canuck no. 1 paratexts, root the character in deprecation as the hero is mocked and satirized by the citizens of his own comic. This fate is uniquely applied to Canuck while other nationalist and provincial superheroes—such as Pierre Fournier’s Les Aventures du Capitaine Kébec (1973) and Mark Allard-Will’s and Elaine Will’s Saskatch-A-Man (2015)—engage in self-mockery without accidental patronization.