Lesser-Known Ladies: Bring Out the BIG Guns

 

Continuing our series of more obscure ladies in animation, I dipped into the DCAU, who has no shortage of overlooked females to draw attention to.  This one comes from Batman: The Animated series in the hard-bodied form of the villain, Red Claw.

Red Claw was always an interesting specimen, mostly for her physique.  Being a muscle girl in animation was pretty much as unheard of in the 90s as it is now, which is why she caught my attention.  I've always been a sucker for something even mildly original.  Also, as a new character created exclusively for the animated series, she also came as a blank slate, which granted her limitless potential.  But she faded into the background pretty much as quickly as she faded in.

Sure, the blame could be placed on the fact that she was overshadowed by another "then-exclusive-to-the-show" character, on whom the writers and fans lavished much more attention (*coughs* HARLEY!).  But it didn't help that no one seemed to know exactly HOW to flesh her out in any meaningful way.  After all, for someone who was labeled as a "terrorist" Red Claw never seemed to be fighting for any cause or agenda other than money.  The two times she appeared, her plots amounted to nothing more than ransom demands (something almost every other Batman villain had tried on multiple occasions throughout the series), but ransom for what?  If money was the end unto itself and wasn't intended for anything else, then it would have been more accurate to simply call her an elaborate extortionist.

But I digress.  Apparently, as of last year, she's made her official debut in the actual comics (better late than never, I guess), so hopefully someone will be able to do something interesting with her.

In the meantime, enjoy this image of Red Claw in all her muscled glory.  As always, I hope you like what you see.  And know there is more to come. ^_^