Ulysses Klaw was working as a physicist at the Technical University at Delft when he designed a sound transducer that was able to convert sound waves into physical matter. However, he needed an element known as Vibranium, which only existed in a small African country known as Wakanda. In order to obtain the needed amount, Klaw hired a group of mercenaries and traveled to Africa in search of it. He found the Wakandan tribe and their leader, T’Chaka, guarding the vibranium, which was part of their sacred mound. Klaw demanded that they give up the mound, but they refused and he ordered his men to kill T’Chaka. They gunned the chief down in front of his young son, T’Challa, who had never before witnessed gunfire. Klaw then used his superior weaponry to massacre the tribesmen and burn down their village. In response, T’Challa stole Klaw’s sound-blaster from one of Klaw’s men and turned it on him, shattering his hand.

Incensed by the Wakanda’s retaliation, Klaw returned to the Netherlands and vowed to return one day to exact revenge. To that end he created a sonic gun he called a force glove to replace his hand. Exactly ten years later, Klaw returned to Wakanda to find T’Challa in the guise of the Black Panther; ruling the tribe in his father’s place. With the help of the Fantastic Four and Wyatt Wingfoot, the Wakandans again repulsed Klaw. During the battle, the Panther fought Klaw face-to-face, eventually overloading his machines and left, believing him defeated.

In frustration, Klaw leapt into his own sonic converter in the hopes of giving himself the power to defeat his enemies. It worked and Klaw’s being turned to pure, living sound. Klaw later came after the Fantastic Four, trying to force them to bring him the Panther; but after a fight with the group, Mister Fantastic defeated Klaw when he radioed the Panther who sent him vibranium knuckles to absorb Klaw’s power, which Reed used to beat him into unconsciousness. The Thing then crushed his sonic-gun arm to disable him and they handed him over to the authorities. Klaw was freed from prison by the Crimson Cowl and invited to join the second grouping of the Masters of Evil. The new Masters of Evil eventually fought and captured the Avengers, but then were beaten and Klaw was again imprisoned, only to be set free and returned twice more.

Later, while traveling to Wakanda to attempt to steal a device that would strengthen the mental-disintegrating powers of Vibranium, Klaw was defeated by the Thing and the Human Torch, as well as the Black Panther. He was also briefly a member of the Frightful Four, invited by the Wizard. Klaw was defeated and thought destroyed many times afterwards, but every time he managed to rematerialize thanks to his body of living sound.