Friday, June 22, 2018

Thift Store Find - The Legend of the Dark Claw!

Legends of the Dark Claw
Cover and Interior: Jim Balent and Ray McCarthy
Writer: Larry Hama

Way back in 1996, DC and Marvel had a crossover that led to a merged universe of combined characters under the Amalgam Comics brand.  Dark Claw resulted from that unholy union, a combination of Batman and Wolverine.  I wasn't able to score a copy back in the day but found one at the thrift store a few weeks ago.

Dark Claw hunts down his arch-nemesis The Hyena, a combination of The Joker and Sabretooth.  The Hyena heads for the roof and his goons open fire on Dark Claw.  Sparrow, Jubilee+Robin, Dark Claw's sidekick, shows up in a helicopter to fly him to safety.

Meanwhile, The Huntress, aka Carol Danvers, breaks into Logan Wayne's penthouse and discovers he is Dark Claw!  Dark Claw shows up and catches Danvers in the act.  Turns out Danvers was looking for Creed, aka The Hyena, and stumbled upon Dark Claw's identity by mistake.

Dark Claw and Hyena were created by the same covert project.  Dark Claw was the reject of the project since he was a killer with a conscience.  Dark Claw takes The Huntress to The Barrow, his secret headquarters beneath his apartment building. 

Dark Claw, Sparrow, and The Huntress figure out that the Hyena is planning on killing the president when he visits Gotham and spring into action.  This culminates in Dark Claw and Hyena battling on Air Force One!

Okay, first off, this is a very 1990s comic, meaning that it's full of action.  That being said, Larry Hama and Jim Balent did a hell of a job on it.  In one issue, they managed to create two characters and a mythology that felt surprisingly deep, combining aspects of Batman and Wolverine while still feeling fairly unique.  While I would have enjoyed it more at the time it was released, it's still pretty damn good for a nineties comic.

It's a shame the Big Two don't have the same relationship they used to.  They're leaving money on the table by not trotting out the Amalgam characters every few years for a nostalgia run.

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