Klaw

Klaw battles the Fantastic Four on the cover of Fantastic Four #56 (Nov. 1966).

Ulysses Klaw is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Fantastic Four #53 (1966) and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. He is depicted as a human physicist who has been transformed into solid sound, and who wears a sonic emitter on his right wrist as a prosthetic device. He has often been shown in conflict with the Fantastic Four as well as the Avengers.

The character of Klaw is featured in other Marvel-endorsed products such as arcade and video games, animated television series, and merchandise such as trading cards.

Fictional character biography

Ulysses Klaw first appears in flashback in Fantastic Four #53 (Aug 1966) as a physicist working in the field of applied sonics. Designing a sound transducer to convert sound waves into physical mass, Klaw steals the metal vibranium - a substance known to exist only in certain meteoric deposits in the small African nation of Wakanda - to power his device. In doing this, Klaw comes into conflict with the Wakandan ruler/superhero T'Chaka, who Klaw murders in cold blood. T'Chaka's adolescent son T'Challa, who followed his father to watch him combat the invaders, then attacks Klaw to avenge his father, maiming him by costing the villain his right hand as Klaw escaped.

Years later, Ulysses resurfaces with a sonic emitter/gun on his right wrist as a replacement prosthetic device for his missing hand that can create whatever objects or creatures Klaw can conceive, out of sound. He also has created a device that turns him into a being of solid sound, making him immortal in the process. Klaw battles T'Challa (who has now officially become the newest Black Panther) and superhero team the Fantastic Four, but is defeated.

Klaw is imprisoned but freed by the Crimson Cowl, an alias of the evil robot Ultron. Joining the second incarnation of the Masters of Evil, Klaw and the other villains battle superhero team the Avengers. The Avengers, however, defeat them, with the Black Panther subduing Klaw. Klaw would attempt to reform the second Masters of Evil but his scheme would be foiled by the all-female team the Lady Liberators.

Klaw would continue to escape prison in order to continue his vendetta against Black Panther, the man who cost him his right hand. After several defeats, including one at the hands of the Impossible Man, Klaw found his powers waning, resulting in him having to manipulate a group of street youths into helping him gain the material needed to restore his power. With Black Panther's help, Klaw's scheme backfired and he found himself imprisoned within his own gun-hand, which was stored at research facility Project Pegasus. In Marvel Two-in-One #57 - 58 (Nov. - Dec 1979), Klaw is freed by fellow villain Solarr, although both are defeated by a group of heroes, including the Thing and Quasar.

Klaw's career would soon take a downward spiral, after an encounter with the mutant Dazzler resulted in his humanoid form being dissolved and his sound energy being blasted out into space. There it ended up being collected by Galactus and found by Doctor Doom, during the limited series Secret Wars. Doom restored Klaw to normal. Sadly, the loss of his physical form had repercussions; Klaw now had the mind of a child and was quite insane, as far as speaking in rhyme. Doom exploited Klaw's madness, convincing the villain to redisect him as part of a mad gambit to steal the powers of both Galactus and the Beyonder. However, the Beyonder possessed Klaw after losing his powers, resulting in him tricking Doom into giving up his stolen Godhood and teleporting the two back to Earth, where Klaw's mental state slowly healed.

Klaw fought Daredevil and Vision, before being recruited by the Wizard to join his latest incarnation of the Frightful Four. Attacking the Fantastic Four while the group performed a delicate scientific procedure on the Human Torch (whose powers had gone out of control), Klaw threw the Thing into the medical pod that was attempting to drain the excess radiation from Torch, resulting in Ben Grimm being returned to normal. Klaw and his teammates, along with the Fantastic Four, would quickly be captured by the rogue Watcher Aron, who ultimately returned Klaw and his fellow villains to prison after the Fantastic Four broke free.

Klaw's imprisonment would not last, as he would escape during the Acts of Vengeance storyline and ultimately be taken in by A.I.M., who planted a pain-control device into his gun-hand to control him. He was sent to attack the reformed supervillainess Volcana, in hopes of luring out her lover Molecule Man, but abandoned the battle when his gun-hand was destroyed. Klaw was later recruited by the "Pacific Overlords" group, led by Doctor Demonicus, but turned against the group, aiding the West Coast Avengers in defeating them when it became apparent that Demonicus had become a thrall of a dangerous demon. He later joined Justine Hammer's version of the Masters of Evil, fighting the Thunderbolts on several occassions.

Klaw was featured in the opening arc of the fourth Black Panther series, a flashback story that featured the origin of the title character. The character ultimately resurfaced again, having (through unknown means) successfully uploaded his sound based essence onto the Internet and was downloaded, via BitTorrent, by the Wizard to fight the Fantastic Four again as part of a new incarnation of the Frightful Four.

Powers and abilities

Courtesy of a vibranium-powered sonic converter, Ulysses Klaw was converted into a being composed of psionically "solidified" sound. The character is described as having superhuman strength, durability, and endurance. The sound generator that serves as a prosthetic appliance on Klaw's right wrist is able to perform a series of functions, including the projection of intense high-volume sonic waves and blasts of concussive force and the creation of mobile sound/mass constructs. Klaw can also sense his surroundings using sonar. When he fought Volcana while trying to abduct Molecule Man he demonstrated the ability to create "cohesive sound". This was essentially an entangling/crushing construct that absorbed ambient noise to increase it's size and strength. The noise from the target's struggles to remove the construct would make it larger and stronger. Volcana was only able to escape it by changing into her ash form.

The character later becomes a creature composed of sound waves, and while apparently more powerful has a susceptibility to vibranium, which causes his mass to deteriorate. In some appearances this new form was also susceptible to atmospheric vacuums (as sound cannot exist without a medium) but after being reconstituted by A.I.M. his "solid sound" body has different properties than normal soundwaves and is not affected by a vacuum. It was demonstrated that in this form that Klaw could generate and direct sonic attacks through physical objects without needing his emitter by merely touching the material.

Ulysses Klaw holds a Ph.D. in physics and is an expert physicist specializing in applied sonics.

In other media

Television

• Klaw appeared in the 1967 Fantastic Four cartoon series, made a cameo appearance in a Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode, appeared in the 1994 Fantastic Four cartoon series voiced by Charles Howerton, and in Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes.
• A. J. Buckley will voice Klaw for the upcoming The Super Hero Squad Show series on Cartoon Network.

Video games

• The character appears in the 1991 arcade game Captain America and the Avengers and is mentioned in the 2006 console game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance.

External links

• Klaw Bio on Marvel.com
• [http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix4/klawulysses.htm Klaw Bio on Marvel Appendix