TRULY GONE & FORGOTTEN : CLAWFANG

While he dresses like a mutt, there's no arguing with his pedigree.

Clawfang the Barbarian is the product of Wally Wood on story and Al Williamson on art, and a lovelier post-apocalyptic society-returns-to-barbarism but-there-are-still-super-scientific-lab-parts-floating-around stories there possibly never has before been ...

Although he only ever appeared once, in Unearthly Spectaculars No.2 (December 1966), Clawfang packs a lot of detail into his single outing. The result of a barbarian society which emerges after a devastating nuclear war --- which itself was the product of society rebuilding itself after a devastating nuclear war, which itself was also the product of a society rebuilding itself after a devastating nuclear war, and so on and so on as though it were turtles all the way down -- Clawfang leads a desperate band of raiders against the all-consuming empire of the cat-like Felina (well, they say she's cat-like, she just looks like a Sixties glamour girl for some reason).

Uh, he HAS a name ... 

It's Felina 1 and Clawfang 0, though, as his men are defeated and - after some tense negotiation - he ends up becoming her slave, or warrior, or sidekick, or patient, or something. The story goes by pretty quickly and it's hard to say. They barely agree to the terms of the debate procedure when they're attacked by blind subterranean "norns" who drop them into a weird underground chamber.

Further interrupting their attempts at codifying their relationship is that they stumble onto a hidden laboratory, the owner of which sleeps in frozen slumber on a slab smack dab in the middle of it. All the advances of the future world, and he can't afford a sleep number bed. This is what happens when you defund science programs.

The scientist turns out to be a violent dick and Clawfang has to dispatch him through the back of an enormous futuristic whack-a-mole machine, leaving him to ponder what truly this world has become. I couldn't say, I never saw what it was before this.

The artwork in the story is gorgeous, naturally, although Wood's writing was never his particular strong point - it's all brooding men and constant violence, and while that has a certain appeal it still manages to wear out its welcome a bit after five pages. Still, Clawfang makes for an interesting footnote in the careers of both men, as the intersection of Wood and Williamson had the potential to be as revered a congregation as Simon and Kirby, if it had only found the venue ...

Heavy thoughts, Clawfang ...