Now Cat Claw is a comic book heroine with a very different pedigree. Inspired by Spider Man, and with definite nods to both Black Canary and Huntress, Cat Claw, whose true identity is Carol Conor, an aspiring student in biology, was the creation of Serbian illustrator Branislav (later Bane) Kerac, and writer Svetozar Obradovic. The pair responded to an advert from a Belgrade comic publisher looking to emulate US super hero comics and were eventually commissioned in 1981, although by this time Kerac was the sole author.
Set in New York, the adventures feature Carol, a university student desperate to pass her finals, and who while attempting to gain an edge by visiting her tutor, Dr Bruce Baker, in his laboratory, is scratched by a wild cat. Unknown to Carol, the professor’s experiments include trying to establish whether lycanthropy has any basis in fact. After being accidentally exposed to one of Dr Baker’s experimental “sigma” rays, Carol wakes to gradually discover she is possessed of superhuman strength, night vision, extraordinary agility and the ability to extend her fingernails into claws. In other words, Carol has been endowed with the meta human abilities of a cat. After using her powers to rescue her flatmate from an attack by a group of muggers, Carol takes on the identity of Cat Claw and seeks to become a costumed crimefighter. In addition to combating the usual array of crooks and gangsters, Cat also encounters super-powered villains, including Dr Baker himself, who has unsurprisingly become a werewolf. Like Spider Man, Cat’s relationship with law enforcement remains uneasy due to her violent vigilantism.
Kerac’s story was eventually marketed in Europe and the US and in 1990 an eight issue series was published in the States by Eternity Comics, running until September 1991, although Kerac continued to produce Cat Claw adventures for another four years. The series was given an “adult” warning due to Kerac’s propensity to show naked female breasts in his story, and the occasional use of the f-word in the dialogue. This made Cat Claw a more edgy comic perhaps, but it may also have limited its reach. Certainly the violence on display was no more graphic than than often seen in the Silver Age Batgirl comics, and Kavic sent up the titillation a little too - Cat’s costume included fishnet stockings which invariably got ripped to shreds during her fights. Derivative she may have been, but with dynamic artwork, varied storylines and an understated feminism at play, Cat Claw is well worth checking out.
The page featured above appears in the story Cat Among The Pigeons, published in Cat Claw #2 (December 1990).
Sources: Cat Claw Wikipedia page for the detail; zipcomic.com for the comic page.
