Number 1690: The Claw’s family ties untied

Even the supervillain Claw has some family. In this case it is an uncle in Tibet, who has a formula the Claw needs. But the uncle believes the Claw is the disgrace of the family. I would also be ashamed of a grotesquely ugly criminal nephew who can grow to 25 feet tall and tosses henchmen to their deaths for any old reason.



I am amused by the flights to Tibet (quoting the Claw: “I will be back shortly”), which are treated as if that faraway land is no further than a drive to the corner drugstore.



For a time in the forties the Claw, created by Jack Cole, was a supervillain in the Lev Gleason comics. He was on the side of America’s enemies (which accounts for his henchmen hailing him with “Heil, Claw!”) and pursued by a costumed hero called the Ghost. For some reason the mixture of a cartoon style and hideous villain seems to work. Well enough, anyway, that the caption in the splash panel, “This is NOT a true story!” doesn’t strike me as any kind of revelation.



This is from Daredevil #18 (1943), with writing and art attributed by the Grand Comics Database to Charles Biro’s co-editor, Bob Wood.

For another tale of the Ghost and the Claw go back eight years (yow!) to 2007, and this early Pappy's posting, and then to 2011 when the Claw shows up as a WWII training unit emblem!

Posted in: Pappy Comics