Claw, claw, bites

Had a chat with Doyce on Sunday regarding claws. He mentioned he’d heard that they “looked better” in CoV than CoH, and I mentioned I thought they did, that the “pad” they extruded from in CoH was gone in CoV. He disagreed that such a “pad” existed.
Well, I was both right and wrong.

You can see the “pad” I’m talking about on the CoH claws (left/bug) . Unlike, say, Wolverine, the claws do not actually extend from the skeleton, but can be either seen as a separate external (semi-)device or as ninja-style “tiger claws.” The visibility of the pad varies by character (which may be part of the confusion here). I believe claws scale (my old Selene character had very large ones), and on some characters I’ve played with the power the pad has been much more visible.
My initial impression of the CoV claws (right/cat) was that they extruded more cleanly from the hand, but the picture here of Very Bad Kitty belies that, Instead, they are more … um … spikey. They do look better — more pointy and claw-like than the blades in CoH (note that Marvel has never been consistent with Wolvie’s claws, either), but they’re not internal, nor do they look like “real” claws.
Anyway, there you go. I will say that, as a Stalker, claws are a great weapon.