Created by writer Al Feldstein and artist Joe Maneely, the character first appeared in Yellow Claw #1 (cover-dated October 1956), published by Atlas Comics, the 1950s predecessor of Marvel.

[citation needed] He is both a genius in biochemistry and a brilliant scientist and inventor in many fields, in addition to being an expert in mysticism, alchemy, and the martial arts.

Following his Nick Fury appearances, artists have depicted him with an unusual jaundiced-looking, yellowish skin tone, possibly as a side effect of his life extension elixirs.

However, the Claw was continually foiled by FBI agent Jimmy Woo and betrayed by his sole living relative, his grandniece Suwan, whom he could not bring himself to kill.

Decades later, after severing all of his ties with the People's Republic of China, the Claw fused Suwan's spirit with that of the conquest-minded ancient Egyptian Princess Fan-le-tamen.

[9] The Yellow Claw then took part in the Black Lama's War of the Super-Villains, apparently killing his major rival for world conquest the Mandarin and battling the superhero Iron Man.

[11] A later plan to father sons by various genetically superior women, then sterilize mankind and rule the world, was foiled by the superhero team the Avengers.

[14] Sometime after the 1950s events, an entity believed to be the Yellow Claw sent troops to invade Liberty Island and activate a powerful device there, but Nick Fury and Captain America foiled his plans.

All his schemes to "conquer the world" had the secondary purpose of giving Woo an Asian menace to fight against and establish his credentials as an American hero.

He has access to specialized technology, including an id paralyzer that creates slaves subject to his telepathic control and a mind-amplification helmet that harnesses the psychic energies of his mind-slaves as a destructive force.