Required by law to devote a certain percentage of their presentation to Canadian content, the media landscape in the Great White North is punctuated on occasion by homegrown creative efforts that sometimes... well, let's just say... hey, the name of this feature is "Stupid Comics", right? But blaming the CTRC for what we're about to see is missing the point entirely; you can't pin this one on Big Gummint. Instead, we have only ninjas to blame.
I'm pretty sure a Canadian Ninja, by law, should be holding a hockey stick instead of a ninja sword. But what do I know? I have neither a tight-fitting red-and-white ninja suit, nor am I the floating head of a pretty lady! All I know is that this is a story of 24 pages and how they came to be printed upon with the images of the story of the Canadian Ninja.
In July of what I assume is "1964", a "Japenese" family was sailing in their authentic Chinese junk, dressed in Chinese man cosplay complete with a coolie hat and a Fu Manchu mustache, when their Chinese-themed costume sailing expedition was interrupted by the sound of an explosion catching the attention of them.
The "Japenese" are always willing to help out Canadian travellers in distress! Like this one time we were trying to get on the Seibu line to get out to Oizumi Gakuen, and you know how confusing Ikebukuro Station is, and we got turned around, but the station attendants made sure we... but you don't want to hear about that. You want to hear about NINJASM
As chance would have it, our young lad was rescued by a super ninja family, who conceal him from the authorities and train him in all the myriad ways of the Ninja, until he has posed so many times in front of a dragon and the yin-yang symbol that he might as well be the placemat in a Chinese restaurant!
Here a young Alan Rickman and what appears to be one of the Golden Girls, or maybe Sabre CEO Jo Bennett after a particularly bad night of revelry, here they comfort Asian stuntman Al Leong. You know Al, you've seen him in "Die Hard" and the "Lethal Weapon" movies! But Al, I mean Master Ninja Nagasaki, he is worried, worried about an invasion of Lotan, Master Of The Evil. And who wouldn't be?
And wouldn't you know it, black ninja in Lotan's service attempt a surprise attack. Which is to be expected, that's what ninjas do, they are all about surprise attacks. If you want regular non-surprise attacks, don't hire ninjas.
Those sneaky ninjas, using their ninja 'gadjets'! Master Takashi has been felled by the cowardly ninja star. Late-period Elvis Presley is shocked!
With his dying words Master Takashi sends Bo back across the Pacific to Canada where he will meet Lotan in final battle, in what I can only assume is the year 1981, or 1984, or maybe 1987, or maybe 1989. It's hard to tell.
THCOUUUUUUU! Your flight is landing at Dorval, which now apparently is located smack dab in the middle of downtown Montreal, judging from the buildings at the end of the runway there. Convenient!
A fascinating thing about this comic is that no matter what direction we're facing, or what time of day it is, there's always some kind of weird puffy ball hanging low in the sky, radiating lines of some kind. Meanwhile, the robots of Japan Airways wish all their human passengers a wonderful stay in Montreal, especially the couple meeting-cute in Aisle 7.
Meanwhile in Japan at the secret headquarters of the secret evil ninja The Lotan -
you know, I realize this comic was written by someone for whom English was not their first language, and I'm trying to take it easy in pointing out the language errors, but this comic keeps giving me lines like "is your mission did?" and it's getting harder and harder to pass 'em by. I'm not made of stone.
Just like in Highlander, you have to cut off the heads of ninja masters, or else they transfer their spirits into their adopted sons! Everybody knows that!
Our ninja hero Bo Anderson is also a "comic book draughtsman" and is here in Montreal to look for whatever family he may have still in Canada who think he's been dead for 20 years. Also, he may not be aware of this, but he's about to have an amazing adventure with Customs & Immigration when he tries to enter the country. Seriously, the next time you cross the border, try telling the officers that you were declared dead and raised by ninjas and that's why you don't have a passport. Go on, try it!
On the plus side, Bo seems to be hitting it off with his attractive blonde travelling companion, so there's that.
Meanwhile on the Mount Royal- that's where we get "Montreal" from, you know! - meanwhile an evil Russian prepares to shoot someone or something while hollering loudly! If there's a better way to guarantee quality marksmanship I don't want to know about it.
And we smash cut right from the hollering Russian gunman to the kissing of Bo and Francesca who, after a few time, only look one another, as Cupidon hits. And we all know how painful that can be.
AND we smash cut right back to a masked man who we are assuming was the guy the hollering Russian was shooting at. We're told the masked man had no chance against a weapon with ultraviolet sights, which is a really useful thing to have if you're trying to see if your hotel bedspread is all stained and gross. For shooting people with a rifle, however, ultraviolet is pretty much useless.
Dizzy from the transitions, we are back with Bo and Francesca on the airport tarmac as two military officers approach Francesca, whose father is a Canadian Air Force general. Francesca won't be back before two hours, however!
I don't think these guys are real officers at all, thinks Bo, and suddenly his full martial arts ninja fury erupts into ninja action! Which is good because this comic is half over and nobody's been kicked in the face yet! Dislocate those hips and let's get to some kung-fu fighting!
The sham sergeant presses the X and Y buttons while holding down the L button and thereby attempts an ultimate attack, which in layman's terms, means hitting that super ninja in the jaw with an old-fashioned Canadian punch.
But Bo counterattacks with the secret ninja gadget of a chain with balls that is thrown until it wraps around your victim's throat and instantly transforms them into Stephen Tyler from Aerosmith, obviously a fate worse than death.
VLAN! Exciting new sound effects are created as NINJA POWER defeats these two villains. And there's Francesca, showing us that sisters can do it for themselves by hitting a guy with her purse.
Not far from there, General Mustache arrives to help explain this comic book to us, the confused readers.
Turns out General Mustache is not only intimately involved with the dead masked man shot by the hollering Russian, but he's also Francesca's father, and is using valuable Canadian Armed Forces personnnel to pick up his daughter at the airport.
Okay, General Mustache, when I said earlier you were here to explain this comic book to us, I was joking! But no, you're really into it! That's cool.
Back on the airport tarmac, the furious ninja kung-fu battle is over, and like all furious ninja-kung-fu death duels that happen at airports, it has attracted the attention of pretty much nobody. I am happy to see one of the fake officers use the "Scooby Doo" line about "we would have gotten away with it if not for you meddling kids", though.
Spotting a general with a mustache, Bo instantly knows he's Francesca's father. Ninjas are trained to recognize relatives of new aquaintances at distances of up to a thousand yards!
"This guy has been failed the kidnapping. Our men were under arrested by the military's police and that was due by a young boy. OK camarade, spy on him but won't come back with your hand off. It is capital to keep the Wato's life. One week again and I will rule the North America. The Canada and the United States even won't be something with that! They will just die!"
I know we like to make fun of Google Translate, but yeesh.
Crazed with murderous intent, our talkative Russian secret agent utilizes every bit of his secret agent spy training in clandestine operations as he drives his car right at everybody while shooting at them. That's some good secret agenting there fella.
General Mustache knows the best way to handle this dangerous situation is to hand his pistol to a complete stranger! Bo shoots the driver right in the head - super ninja training includes handgun marksmanship, of course - and the out of control car plows through a few innocent pedestrians. Hey, what do you expect? He's a ninja. Conflict de-escalation is not what they're about.
BAUM! Just park that thing anywhere, fella. Stay tuned for the next exciting CANADIAN NINJA adventure - MANHUNT - as super ninja Bo Anderson continues his quest to defeat the evil Russians, destroy the evil Master Lotan, and mangle the English language! And when we say 'stay tuned' we mean just that, as issue #2 and subsequent issues never appeared. But I wonder... I wonder what those issues would have been like? I think they would have been a little something like this...
Can't say there weren't thrills and action galore waiting for us in future issues of CANADIAN NINJA! I was particularly looking forward to "Pakistan: Land Of Narcotics". But sadly, it was never to be, and the fate of the CF-18, General Mustache, the evil master Lotan, and the free world itself continue to remain unknown, wrapped in the magic, the mystery, the beer, the poutine, and the empty Tim Horton's cups of the CANADIAN NINJA.
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