Red Sonja/Claw: Devil’s Hands #1

March 14, 2006

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: The Accursed

Claw returns – back-to-back with Red Sonja!

Writer: John Layman
Art: Andy Smith
Colors: Wildstorm FX
Letters: Travis Lanham
Editor: Ben Abernathy
Cover Art: Alex Ross (variant by Jim Lee & Gabriele Dell’Otto)
Publisher: DC/Wildstorm/Dynamite Entertainment

Well here’s an oddity for you: an inter-company crossover between a licensed character (Sonja) and a long-defunct character from the imprint’s parent company (Claw). Wildstorm is going to soon resurrect DC’s old fantasy character Claw the Unconquerable, and they’re kicking it off with a crossover with Dynamite Entertainment – and they’re actually doing quite well.

Red Sonja, of course, is the long-suffering barbarian woman (another product of Conan creator Robert Howard). Claw is one of many barbarian heroes that popped up in Conan’s wake – his gimmick is his hand. Cursed from birth, he wears a red gauntlet over his withered claw of a right hand, a demonic hand that craves blood.

As the miniseries begins, Sonja happens upon Claw who has been saved from a suicide attempt by the timely intervention of a barbarian horde that wants very much to kill him themselves. Joining together (I can’t believe Layman was strong enough to resist the urge to have them fight one another for no good reason), Sonja hears about Claw’s plight and offers to bring him to a sorcerer of her acquaintance who may be able to help.

Since most fantasy/barbarian comic book characters live in fairly generic fantasy/barbarian worlds, putting these two characters together doesn’t take nearly the leap of faith you need to mesh most superhero crossovers, and in fact, the story works very well. Layman handles both characters well, and Andy Smith’s artwork is great. It’s got a fine barbarian quality with just the right amounts of blood and gore to make the story work, but not so much as to make it over the top.

Bottom line – Red Sonja fans should be quite pleased by this miniseries, and as Wildstorm is clearly hoping that some of them will follow this to the upcoming Claw series, I don’t think they’ll be disappointed.

Rating: 8/10