Given that the superhero genre has dominated the comic book medium for more than half a century, it’s not all that surprising that a history of Canadian comics would bear a subtitle stating that our strong, free country has “conquered the comic book universe.” Most Canadian comic fans already know that Superman co-creator Joe Shuster was one of us, as is Spawn creator Todd McFarlane. But Bell’s book also spotlights other Canadian comic book figures like Dave Sim (creator of the self-published Cerebus) and Svengalis like Bill Marks (creator of the Vortex series) and Chris Oliveros (publisher of Drawn & Quarterly), who have helped reposition and revitalize the medium by dragging comics out from under the cape of the superhero.

The book identifies seven historical phases of Canadian comicdom (the period from 1989 to the present being the most crucial). It also offers two “spotlights”: one on Canadian superheroes, the other on alternative icon Chester Brown (Louis Riel), chosen for his commitment to “new narratives” – fair enough, albeit a little fannish.

Though Bell writes with economy, his professional background (he is a senior archivist at Ottawa’s Library and Archives Canada) often betrays him, as lists of names, titles, characters, and companies bog down his narrative. Good thing this isn’t a comic book. Admittedly, there’s some nifty trivia to be found amid those endless lists, such as the fact that Canada’s very first superheroine, Nelvana of the Northern Lights, predated Wonder Woman by, well, months.

The book’s 60-plus images rightly place the spotlight on the art, and the vast majority of comic covers are run as full pages. Kudos to publisher Dundurn for using colour, fully remastered, for all images that originally used it, as well as for using heavy paper stock – there’s an almost tactile thickness to the images that gives them an impressive air of scrapbook solidity.