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JOHN LAYMAN ON RED SONJA/CLAW
by Newsarama
As announced at WizardWorld Chicago last summer, Dynamite’s Red Sonja will both dust off and team with DC’s Claw the Unconquered in a four-part miniseries debuting in March. While Red Sonja is enjoying a resurgence in popularity lately, Claw…well…not so much. For the crossover then, a writer was needed who knew both Sonja and Claw.
Enter John Layman.
We caught up with the writer to learn how he landed on the project (which will serve to kick off WildStorm’s “Storm and Sorcery” line of titles revamping DC’s S&S characters), as well as a refresher on just who Claw is, why he’s named Claw, and why he’s referred to as the cursed barbarian.
Newsarama: So – from the start, how did you end up on this project? Was this some affinity to Red Sonja? To…Claw? the genre, what?
John Layman: The project was something that caught my immediate attention from the first moment I heard about it, which was when it was announced at last year’s Wizard World Chicago. I’ve always liked barbarian books, and at the time I’d been enjoying Kurt Busiek and Cary Nord’s work on Conan (and still am). And I knew Dynamite was gearing up to do Red Sonja, and I had high hopes for that (which Dynamite has since met and exceeded at every turn,) but for Red Sonja they already had a creative team in place.
I’ve spent most of the last couple of years writing superhero stuff, and an occasional weird, black-humored indy project. But I’ve started writing video games in the past year and writing a sci-fi game (Nintendo’s upcoming Metroid: Hunters) and a civil war shooter got me jonesing for more period stuff and/or genre fiction. And a barbarian book was too tempting to not try for.
NRAMA: What is it about Red Sonja that interests you?
JL: I’ve always liked Red Sonja. I mean, she really is one of the premiere figures in her genre, and certainly the premiere female barbarian character.
NRAMA: And Claw?
JL: As for Claw… well, a lot of people assume because of my boyish good looks, pixie grin, and perfectly chiseled abs that I am much younger than I actually am. In truth, I am very, very, very old. I remember Claw. I was there, man. And more than anything else, I remembered every issue you could count on Claw to go up against some cool and crazy-ass monster. As a lifelong Godzilla and creature-feature fan, being able to add Claw into the mix was irresistible.
So I put on my most seductive cologne whispered into the ears of some of the folks at Dynamite that this is something I’d be very interested in. Also, I still know a lot of the people at WildStorm. Since being an editor there I’d written a few things for them, including two Thundercats mini-series that were towering epics of staggering sophistication and profound literary merit. And, naturally, WildStorm was dying to work with me again. So we went back and forth on a pitch a few billion times, and hammered something out that finally everybody was more than happy with, and suddenly the book was a go.
Keep in mind, this was a book I was angling for before I knew it would have Alex Ross and Jim Lee covers. Or before Andy Smith got attached. All of these guys are great, and I probably would have begged to work on Radioactive-Dog-Poo-Man if I thought Alex or Jim was going to draw the covers. And Andy continues my winning streak of great artists. Oddly enough, my last three artists, Scot Eaton on House of M: Fantastic Four, Aaron Lopresti on the upcoming Sentinel Squad O*N*E, and now Andy on Red Sonja/Claw, are all ex-Crossgen. But they are also superb storytellers, and every one of them has taken my scripts and given me exactly what I ask for, while at the same time improving immeasurably upon them. And all three of these fine fellows are guys that I am dying to work with again.
NRAMA: Since you were there and are the Claw expert – for those who are younger than you, wizened sage, ground up –who is Claw? What’s his deal? Why’s he cursed?
JL: Like his name suggests, he’s a tragic barbarian with a cursed, clawed demon hand for an arm. If you don’t know Claw, that’s all you really need to know.
The people who remember Claw remember him fondly. But, you know, his book came out a long damn time ago, and there weren’t a lot of issues, so obviously I’m approaching it assuming the vast majority of readers are likely going to be new to the character.
The latter half of Claw’s run got sort of cosmic, with the revelation that his arm was a weapon in some interdimensional war between light and darkness, and he was actually an agent of light. But I don’t really read barbarian books for the cosmic stuff, so the Claw in this story is really back-to-basics.
That is, to put it in contemporary movie terms: A guy has his arm hideously mangled in a car wreck, and when he gets to the hospital the doctor tells him it’s too late for his old arm, but he’s got a donor arm he can sew on instead. So who’s arm is it going to be? Mother Teresa, or John Wayne Gacy? For my story, I’m not going to approach Claw’s malformed arm as a “force of good.” It comes out of a curse, dammit. It’s big, it’s hairy, it’s gnarled and ugly, and on the end of its fingers he’s got this dirty sharp nails perfect for gouging eyes, ripping out jugular veins and pulling still-beating hearts from chests. Chances are, having an arm like this is not a good thing, so I’m approaching the story from that perspective.
But this isn’t going to turn into “Idle Hands: The Barbarian Years” either. Here’s a guy with a demon arm that is super strong and ideal for killing things. This cursed arm urges Claw on, inflames his bloodlust, and makes him a much more formidable and deadly warrior as a result. In a real-world setting, this is clearly a bad thing, but in a barbarian world, it definitely has its advantages. This is a guy perfectly suited for murder, in a murderous world. But one of the central question of the book is can he remain good. He has tendencies that are trying to turn him into a monster, figuratively and literally. And the more he kills, the easier it is to give into the temptation and lure of his more monstrous urges.
NRAMA: Putting him in the same story with Sonja – what is it, a matching of equals?
JL: They are not quite equals. Claw has an advantage over Red Sonja, as his arm gives him a supernatural advantage when it comes to combat. But he is weak mentally, from years of fighting against himself and his base urges. Red Sonja is much stronger mentally and emotionally.
For reasons that become clear in the story, Sonja will take a protective role over Claw, as he continues to deteriorate. Claw, for his part, is grateful for someone who does not treat him as a monster, even as his actions become more and more monstrous.
NRAMA: Digging into their roles, how do you view Sonja in regards to her motivation and her…unique view of men?
JL: I see Sonja as both a product of her world, and an exception to it. As a female in a harsh man’s world, she has to be twice as deadly as someone like Conan to survive, because, as a female, she simply does not intrinsically get the respect a strong man with a sword does. And so Sonja has had to prove herself, and continues to have to, to the point where it has made her harder than most. But I think she is respectful to those who give her the respect she commands.
NRAMA: Let’s wrap with a tease - what gets things rolling, and how do they go from there?
JL: Red Sonja and Claw meet while Claw is on a downward spiral, where the evil in his body is threatening to consume him. They journey together to a land where Red Sonja’s where Red Sonja has a past, which just happens to be critical to Claw’s future. And, of course, there’s a lot of bad folks and weird creatures that are going to need a-killin’.
Sadly, by the end of the story, Claw is the one who may be the worst monster of all, and one who most needs to be eradicated.
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