Review: Keeping The West Weird With ‘Carmen Red Claw #3’

Welcome to the table,

It’s a little wild and a little strange when you make your home down on the range … or however that theme song goes. I’m a fan of the “Weird West.” Dark Horse Comics’ Carmen Red Claw from Mike Mignola and Rae Allen, with colors by Michelle Madsen and letters by the always working Clem Robins, has had my attention since it exploded into the scene for just that reason. 

Issue #3 of this Curious Objects series is packed with action beats and historical relevance to the well-storied world that contains Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.

We join the adventure with Carmen, having just jumped onto a moving train that contains an occult scientist, a railroad tycoon, a land owner, a dog, perhaps some cows, some goons, and a really worrying baby I have not trusted since issue #1.

Carmen engages with some of the goons on the train, and we get treated to not only her seemingly supernatural gunplay skills, something even she does not seem to be fully in control of, but also some flashbacks about her ancestor, the ruthless privateer El Bogavante. Bogavante first appeared in Mike Mignola, John Arcudi and Tonci Zonjic’s 2014 comic Lobster Johnson: Get The Lobster featuring iconic 1930s crimefighter, the Lobster.

Carmen’s hesitation for harming cowboy goons who are trying to kill her adds a really humanizing element to the character. The seemingly mystical ability her bullets have to ricochet off surfaces to kill the aforementioned goons rather than just wound them, seems to be a subtle nod to the fact this bloodshed and death that surrounds her is more of a curse than a biproduct of skills she may be trying to employ to dispatch those who come up against her.

It has a very “sins of our father” feeling, and I dig the way that plays out within the running narrative, giving a real “edge of your seat” vibe to Carmen running and gunning through the train.

We learn that I have been correct this whole time and that dang baby is awful and some kind of horrible toad monster who can suck things into its big maw that serves as a gateway to a small, surreal pocket dimension where all the stolen cattle have been rustled off to.

I was fully expecting some kind of fae-child or something. Instead, it’s this weird toad-thing with a pocket dimension within it. It contains fields, strange starless skies, clouds, and the cattle. Also, the cowboys who captured them, and some wagons filled with toothsome foes who mix it up with Carmen before she uses some radical arrow magic to grow a tree. That tree bursts forth from the weird baby-turned-frog creature’s mouth and returns her back to the known world. There, she finds herself on the back of a now floating train that has flown off it’s tracks thanks to the occult scientist’s weird glowing cube science-magic.

Carmine Red Claw is so beautifully unhinged. The art is fast and frantic, and colors that are wild and liquid-y. The characters feel intentional with backgrounds that show us as much information as we need, but fade away when action is paramount.

I feel we are rocketing towards a really cool conclusion that hopefully sets up the next adventure with Carmen, but only time and the next issue are going to tell me, I would guess.

Until next time, this story has been super satisfying and I can’t wait for more.