If Rachel Richey were a superhero her origin story would have taken place in 2010.

It was then, while working as an intern at the Library and Archives of Canada, that the lifelong comic book fan came across an uncatalogued collection of comics that opened her eyes to a part of Canada’s history fallen by the wayside: the Golden Age of Canadian Comics.

Richey was surprised to learn that, at a time when the Second World War deprived Canadians of the latest adventures of Batman and Superman, popular American heroes were replaced by the likes of Canada Jack, Johnny Canuck and hundreds of other Canadian superheroes.

Because of the rarity and fragility of the collection, Richey wasn’t able to read the copies and the original stories were never reprinted.

“It was the greatest tragedy of my life when I went to try to read these comics and literally got brick-walled,” she said.

Now, through a successful Kickstarter campaign that she co-founded with friend and colleague Hope Nicholson, one of those fallen heroes will make her way back into the hearts of the Canadian public.

Dressed in a fur-trimmed minidress with knee-high boots and a cape, Nelvana of the Northern Lights was Canada’s first national superhero. Armed with the powers of the Northern Lights, the Inuit demigoddess made her debut in 1941’s Triumph Adventure Comics, defending people of the North from Axis powers and spies. She is also North America’s first female superhero, predating DC Comics’ Wonder Woman by nearly four months.

Having met their $25,000 goal five days after the campaign’s Oct. 1 launch, the two Toronto-based comic book historians plan to restore, reprint and redistribute Nelvana’s 31-issue run, both in print and digitally, for the first time since the late 1940s.

A number of prominent Canadian comic book artists helped Nicholson and Richey with their campaign, including Jeff Lemire, Francis Manapul, Marco Rudy and Michael Walsh, providing original artwork both as incentives for donors.

“The Canadian comic scene itself is very small, but the actual amount of Canadian artists and talent is quite large,” said Ramon Perez, an award-winning artist who will be in charge of the book’s design. “Something this historical and significant I just wanted to be apart of.”

Nicholson and Richey estimate there are fewer than 10 issues of each Canadian Golden Age comic book. They managed to secure multiple copies of Nelvana through Library and Archives of Canada and private collectors across the GTA.

However, because of the comics’ age and decay, they are unsure how long it will take to capture and restore the nearly 300 pages but aim to have the book completed and shipped by April 2014 at the latest.

Any additional funds received in the Kickstarter campaign will go toward printing extra copies of the comic and promoting it at various comic book conventions.

“Giving us something to call our own is definitely our incentive because one of the recent things I felt frustrated about was the Superman coin and stamp that are being republished,” said Nicholson. “Seeing characters like Nelvana go overlooked is something that’s very frustrating.”

Like Richey, Nicholson had no idea about Canada’s rich comic book history until six years ago, when she did a university project on Canadian forms of media. Now, the 26-year-old Winnipeg native is a producer on sLost Heroes, a documentary set to air on Super Channel later this year, which explores the history behind Canada’s Golden Age superheroes.

“It’s a part of history that has been completely forgotten,” says Nicholson. “How many times can you resurrect something that is so fundamental to a part of history that people have just completely forgotten about?”

In an attempt to preserve the country’s economy during the Second World War, the Canadian government implemented the War Exchange Conservation Act, which banned the import of U.S.-made luxury goods.

A number of Canadian publishers began creating hundreds of original comic book characters to fill the pop culture void left by Batman and Superman’s abrupt departure.

Companies like Vancouver’s Maple Leaf Publishing and Toronto’s Hillborough Studios sold thousands of Canadian whites — black and white comic books printed on newspaper print with coloured covers — which mostly featured Canadian superheroes battling the Axis powers.

“The production quality for these comics was fairly low,” said Richey. “The art and the stories themselves were very high, but comics were printed on newsprint with a very basic system.”

Created by Adrian Dingle, Nelvana of the Northern Lights was one of Canada’s most popular superheroes during this time. However, not even a Canadian goddess could compete with her flashier American counterparts once they were allowed back in the country after the war: May 1947 marked Nelvana’s last print appearance.

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“Most of the publishers died out because the quality of American comics was superior to Canadian comics,” explains Richey. “They were a lot more glamorous, so most Canadian comics at that time fell by the wayside.”

Richey and Nicolson says they’d be willing to explore reviving other Canadian comic heroes, but only when the Nelvana project is done.

“I want (people) to take away the fact that there’s no reason why, if we wanted to create a good superhero, that we couldn’t,” said Nicholson. “Canadians don’t think that our products are very good and it’s such a myth.”