DRAGON’S CLAWS #7: NO MERCY!

As I mentioned last month the cover for this issue of Dragon’s Claws caught my eye. Finally, I’ve been able to take a closer look at the first guest artist cover and it’s none other than Dave Gibbons. Dave’s work has featured on the blog before, namely in the hilarious Superhero’s Day Off in OiNK, written by Lew Stringer which lampooned the comics Dave would draw. This is a great Dragon’s Claws cover, but does the inside match up to this first impression?

The Fastfax catches us up on the secondary plot from last issue which spills over to become our main story this month, with Mercy stopping herself from falling to certain death by grabbing a power line, nearly dislocating her shoulder and ploughing through a barber shop window! The Fastfax sums up the whole “criminals who operate about the law” Knight Rider-esque vibe of the people she used to hunt and who her copycat is now killing.

We also get a quick introduction to the L.W.J., the League of World Justice which is investigating the World Development Council, the organisation behind The Game and the bosses of N.U.R.S.E. Will the LWJ prove to be just as corrupt in this future Earth of 8162? Will we find out more in the next three months?

For now, Mercy is not as down-and-out as we think as she springs back up to confront her copycat, Scourge.

Simon Furman is paying homage to the Marvel UK series that made him

Hmm, last month in Dragon’s fact-file a previous Claws member was called ’Megaton’ and now this lady is called Scourge. I don’t think these are coincidences somehow, so either writer Simon Furman can’t think of any new names or he’s paying homage to the Marvel UK series that made him, namely The Transformers. Clearly, I think it’s the latter.

Scourge is hunting a villain named Judden, a small, fat slimy guy who reminds me a bit of Penguin. He was cleared of all charges but Scourge is convinced the system is corrupt and that he bought his freedom. (Now we know the Fastfax was laying some groundwork.) Interestingly, it’s never revealed if he’s innocent or not. Perhaps it was to be picked up on in a later issue but his story isn’t the point here.

Scourge is very much a mirror image of Mercy before she accidentally killed an innocent woman and joined the Claws, now fighting from the right side of the law. Scourge even carries the same Black Dagger symbol Mercy used. Meanwhile, while assessing the mess at Dragon’s farm in Norwich, Stenson mentions someone called ‘Matron’ for the first time, giving the smallest of clues to the real boss.

Scavenger’s mutt also gets an easier name to roll off the tongue than ‘Lady Killer’. Scratch will end up playing an important role in this issue’s story, more important than any of the other male members of the team. Then a couple of pages later we catch a glimpse of this Matron person and how the all-important Stenson is really nothing more than another gopher, another cog in the machine.

It’s all very cloak and dagger and I hope we have time over the next three months to get some answers. Having the head of N.U.R.S.E. called ‘Matron’ and wearing what appears to be a nurse-like hat behind the shadows has me intrigued as to the real nature of this organisation. Obviously the Claws are key to her plans but what is this empire she’s built up? What is N.U.R.S.E. really? What do they control already?

Mercy easily tracks Scourge down to the roof of a shopping mall as she’s basically living Mercy’s earlier life. Knowing she’d need a place just like this to rest, recuperate and stash weapons, Mercy reveals she killed an innocent woman during her revenge spree, that she’d become a murderous menace just like those she was fighting against. But it falls on deaf ears as Scourge is just as entrenched in her vendetta as Mercy was.

Accusing Mercy of being brainwashed a fight ensues and once again our heroine finds herself falling off another tall building. At least this time the landing is much easier on her. Meanwhile, the “guest” referred to is Ambassador Golding of the W.D.C., who Dragon’s Claws rescued from a rebel group gone rogue in #4. Back then he got to speak to the group and Dragon promised him he had a lot more to find out.

It appears he’s done so. He tells Stenson while inspecting the Claws’ HQ that N.U.R.S.E.’s independence has come into question, that there are fears of the Game team being misused against their knowledge and he demands to meet Matron. Stenson objects but then Deller pops up for the first time after last issue’s shoot-out, ready and willing to be questioned. I’m finding all of this particularly fascinating but for now it’s just ticking over until it can be addressed further in an upcoming issue (I hope).

Back to the action and the object of Scourge’s revenge is having a night out at a club so the Claws are assigned to undercover protection detail, although Dragon’s more concerned about the whereabouts of Mercy and why she didn’t talk to the team about what’s going on. Distracted, they miss Scourge, who’s easily able to identify the team in their weak disguises and sets off the fire alarms with a smoke bomb.

Among the chaotic evacuation she grabs Mister Judden and takes him to a back corridor to force him to confess to some previous killings. Adamant that he’s innocent, Scourge doesn’t care, she wants a confession to justify what she’s about to do. As I said, we don’t find out if he’s innocent or not but that’s not the point, judgement has come first and the evidence will bend to it rather than the other way around.

After this page comes my only disappointment with this chapter when the final confrontation isn’t even seen! Although, story-wise, I can understand why the fight between Mercy and Scourge happens off-camera (as the phrase goes) it still feels like an anti-climax. The Claws come to her rescue to find Judden saved but Scourge lying dead. Mercy just tells Dragon she’s faced some of her own demons that day and walks off. As she leaves a confused Dragon turns to Steel who simply says, “There but for the grace of God”, pointing out how Mercy could’ve shot to wound.

Mercy’s fact-file essentially ruins all of the drama surrounding the character

A cliffhanger involving the return of a newly assembled Evil Dead takes second place to this temporary (I hope only temporary) end to Mercy’s development as the most interesting of the Dragon’s Claws team. It has expertly answered some questions and opened her up a bit while at the same time leaving plenty of mysteries (and adding new ones) to solve in the future. That is, until we come to the next page in the comic which somewhat ruins that brilliantly written ending.

Mercy is the star of this month’s fact-file and while it starts off with some interesting background, such as her father being of Irish descent and the tragic loss of her mother to cystic fibrosis, it goes into far too much of her own mysterious background which I’ve enjoyed being drip fed in these past two issues, essentially ruining all of the drama surrounding the character. In fact, by the time I finished this page it felt like there were no more mysteries to be discovered!

This feels like a very strange thing for the comic to do. Why give the game away for so much of her character in an extra page separate from the strip? Maybe as a kid I’d have enjoyed getting these insights but all I can think of now is that the intrigue is completely gone. Not through intelligent, enjoyable storytelling like the other characters either, but in a chunk of text instead. It’d also mean any graphic novel reprint would most likely leave readers unaware of these details. Strange, indeed.

On the letters page a reader asks how Digit ended up with a computer instead of a human brain and the answer given is that this will form the basis of a future storyline. Seems rather unfair on Mercy to be honest, unless of course a future Digit fact-file spoils this for us too. Anyway, not wishing to end on a sour note I’ll leave the final words to Mercy who got the whole back page to herself as a nice extra and tell you that the date for the review of Dragon’s Claws #8 will be Sunday 7th January 2024.