LGP Late Winter / Early Spring Solicitations

I like to post the Captain Canuck solicitations as they are made public, but I held off for a bit when I came across the publisher's recent announcements. 

As far as trade paperback reprints are concerned, I've added the most recent attempts at publishing this past material down the right side of the page. This includes the original series from the 70s and 80s separated over two volumes, Lev Gleason Publications' (as Chapterhouse) own mini series featuring the original Captain, and the "West Coast Captain Canuck" mini series from the mid 2000s.

That done, let's look ahead. The following book is scheduled for late April.

Lev Gleason Presents #1

Lev Gleason’s Comic House returns to super-hero publishing after 75 years with Lev Gleason Presents #1. 

This series jumpstarts with Silver Streak: Season 1 Issue 1 by Keith Champagne (Stranger Things) and Stefan Tosheff (Minerva’s Map); Freelance: Season 2 Issue 1 by Andrew Wheeler (Wonder Woman) and Juan Samu (Black Panther); Captain Canuck: Season 5 Issue 3 by Ho Che Anderson (KING) and Felipe Cunha (Cult Classic); plus a classic archive adventure featuring the Golden Age Silver Streak! 

Each mega-sized issue will contain a brand-new #1 issue as well as at least two NEW 20-page stories continuing from the Comic House shared universe! Included in each issue are download codes for digital copies of each issue featured.

Captain Canuck's third issue of season five is included in this?  What if I don't want the rest of the content? Am I "stuck" paying the $9.99 suggested retail price for the one book I do want? 

Apparently not, according to Keith WTS Morris in this interview with First Comics News. 

Yes, standard 32-page single-issue comics will always be for sale for collectors and readers through our demand edition program, Never miss a back issue! Exclusive variants and Retailer programs as well all available through levgleason.com.

All right...Presumably there will be announcements specific to individual issues being released because it doesn't sound like they will be included in regular solicitations. Or if they will, they have yet to, anyway. 

Here is the solicitation for the second issue of LGP, available at the end of May. 

Lev Gleason Presents #2

“The Greatest Name in Comics” Daredevil: Season 1 Issue 1 by Kenny Porter and Iñaki Azpiazu; Freelance: Season 2 Issue 2 by Andrew Wheeler and Juan Samu; Canuck Beyond: Season 1 Issue 3 by Adrien Benson and Esteban Calvi; plus a classic archive adventure featuring the Golden Age Daredevil!  

Blue Fox!! 😀

I think at the end of the day, this gives us a little flexibility. I'll be blunt, I have zero interest in Freelance. Where the good Captain is concerned, I prefer individual issues over trades. I think I would just as soon wait on his own issues to be made available for purchase if that's part of LGP's strategy.

Good for me, but anyone who wants to know pretty well all that's going in the Captain's "universe" can keep up through the "Presents" book for relatively low cost. Makes sense, if my understanding of LGP's strategy is sound. 

Finally, the best news I received was the coming novel by D.K. Latta, also scheduled for late May. 

When Captain Canuck and his team are called to Lunartown to oversee the Space Needle’s completion, what should have been a simple job unearths a plan to sabotage the Needle’s launch. Suddenly, the mysterious disappearance of Captain Canuck reveals a scheme of alien origin. Now, Captain Canuck must choose between duty to his country and possibly the chance at a normal, everyday life. The Space Needle must be finished at all costs!

I'd be interested in any Canuck content, but I have read a couple of Latta's stories in anthologies and found them to be outstanding, so I look forward to reading an entire novel from him. In fact, based on that work and his long-standing interest in the character, if I'd been asked to select one person to write a book about the Captain, D.K. would have been the easy and quick choice. 

He wrote about his upcoming book recently and mentioned that a re-edited version of Neil Dougherty's The Terror Birds is coming down the line at some point. That's good, because that book had huge editing issues. Some sentences are outright nonsensical. It was like a first draft was mistakenly released rather than the final version.

The story itself has potential but it got lost in all the errors. I believe Neil is a better writer than that book suggested, and that a cleaned up version will demonstrate that. 

LGP February 2021 Solicitations

Only one Canuck offering in February.

With the Brotherhood of Light hot on their trail, Canuck and his new found allies must work fast to rescue the captured Fen, and uncover of the mystery of how the planet Beyond came under the control of the mysterious Aguirre.

The book is written by Adrien Benson and drawn by Esteban Calvi.

The other book being released next February (both are scheduled for the 24th) is a compilation of the Beyond back up story from the original Captain Canuck series from the 70s, with new material. So if you're looking to find out more about the setting in which the current book takes place, that'll be an opportunity to do so.

Chapterhou...huh...Lev Gleason Publications January 2021 Solicitations!

That's right, Chapterhouse has indicated that they would be changing their name.

This has probably in the works for some time. The 2019 Free Comic Book Day issue included brief appearances by several characters from the original Gleason books, such as Daredevil, Silver Streak and Captain Battle and judging from promotional material, there's far more to come. Battle was a big part of the 2020 FCBD offering and the publisher has released a biography of Lev Gleason himself. Those things may not lead one to conclude that they'll rebrand completely but the change didn't really come out of nowhere, either.

They'll have a press release about that later but for now let's take a second to record what we can hopefully expect come the new year. We'll be leaving 2020 behind (finally) with the second issue of Captain Canuck, season five. 

As Michael Evans’ new universal power plants begin to go online, he has suddenly gone missing. Where is he and what do Con-13, the paramilitary group outfitted with alien tech, know about it? Kebec and Captain Canuck must investigate. But protecting the world and building a better one through science might be too much for any partnership to handle.

The first issue of season five was solicited for November and in December, as far as new material is concerned, only the first issue of Canuck Beyond was solicited.

My guess then is that they will both be bi-monthly by design and swap out months. "Beyond" will be included in the February solicitation, then the third issue of season five in March and so on.

Wait...I never did post the solicitation for Canuck Beyond, did I? A little late in the game now but here it is:

Tom Evans, known to the world as Captain Canuck, died saving the planet from an alien invasion… or so we thought. Having been flung through an inter-dimensional space engine he now finds himself stranded on an alien world deep within the universe someplace… Beyond. Brought to you by award-winning writer/director Adrien Benson with art by soon to be fan-favorite artist Esteban Calvi.

That is planned for release on December 16th. 

For what it's worth (which is nothing), I love this idea. The new look and setting freshens up the character once again while allowing for the Darren Oak version to be pushed in season five. It's a good way of going about it. Having Tom Evans dormant while the Oak version gets his exposure would serve little purpose. Why not have both active?

There are more reprints of the original 70s and 80s series on the way soon but I want to find out more about them before I post any information.

It feels like this stuff has been published a dozen times already but I believe that's partially because some past attempts to do so have been scuttled and Gleason (that will take some getting used to...) are now following through.

The interesting part of that is that an ad in the 2020 FCBD issue displayed compilations of Captain Canuck Reborn and Captain Canuck Legacy as "coming soon". If you're unfamiliar with those, check out the "Alternate Versions" page above.

The original series fills volumes one (Earth Patrol, at right) and two (to be called "Ruse") of these new "archives" books. Archive number three is expected to be the Reborn series from the mid-90s and archives volume four is Legacy (from 2006 or so).

Much of the material from Reborn and Legacy was hard to track down so having them in trade paperback form, presumably with new material, will be a treat. If Earth Patrol is scheduled for January then hopefully the others aren't far behind.