Wednesday, March 16, 2022

NEAR MYTHS: "THE COMING OF THE YELLOW CLAW" (YELLOW CLAW #1, 1956)

 Following up on my post about "Marvel's" first Yellow Claw, I looked over the four issues devoted to the 1956 version, presumably the first Asian villain to get his own title at that particular company (previously "Timely," changed to "Atlas" in the 1950s). In the previous essay I speculated that it was probably Stan Lee who remembered the title of  the Sax Rohmer novel YELLOW CLAW and *possibly* from the Captain America story that re-used the name, which Lee edited whether he wrote it or not. This speculation is somewhat supported by an anecdote on this message board, where one poster claims that credited writer Al Feldstein did not brainstorm the 1956 Claw, but simply took the job as another assignment. It's also possible that Lee decided to center a title around the adventures of an Oriental mastermind because he'd heard that Rohmer's devil doctor was going to get his own syndicated TV show, THE ADVENTURES OF FU MANCHU, which would air in September 1956. YELLOW CLAW #1, dated October 1956, probably appeared on newsstands two or three months prior to that cover date.




Lee probably had the idea to emphasize the new character as a mysterioso figure whom hostile Chinese Communists attempted to unleash upon the democracies-- little knowing that the Claw, an immortal man and a master of strange powers, planned to dominate every government on Earth. Possibly Lee had read Rohmer's 1948 SHADOW OF FU MANCHU, in which the devil-doctor first established Fu's animus toward Communist China. Later post-1956 Rohmer novels included a few scenes in which Fu Manchu used the Communist Chinese for his own purposes-- though it would appear that the Yellow Claw got the idea first.



Since all of the Chinese characters in the story are colored yellow-- as well as being given realistic depictions by artist Joe Maneely-- there seems no particular reason for the main villain to be styled "yellow." The Claw is also drawn realistically, with no special emphasis on the longness and boniness of his fingers, as one sees in many other Asian villain-depictions. The story meanders somewhat as it sets up the intersection between the Claw, his grand-niece Suwan, and modern FBI agent Jimmy Woo, with whom Suwan falls in love.



The restrained depiction of Asian physical characteristics suggests that Lee, Feldstein and Maneely were consciously avoiding the old stereotypes, and the depiction of Jimmy Woo clinches the deal. Woo is to all intents and purposes a "regular American Joe" who just happens to be Asian, and to a small extent he represents a trope in which a modern Asian opposes the archaic evil of China, a trope which the MASTER OF KUNG FU comic mined so impressively.

Since the FU MANCHU show was not a great success, it's no surprise that YELLOW CLAW tanked by the following year. Neither Feldstein nor Maneely contributed to the last three issues; instead, Lee assigned Jack Kirby to both write and draw all of the Yellow Claw stories.  Kirby made precious little attempt to emulate either Sax Rohmer or even just generalized "Asian menace" stories. Instead, he simply used the villain as a conduit through which assorted wild and woolly sci-fi menaces manifested-- a giant Mongolian warrior (actually a robot), a naive alien called "UFO the Lightning Man," a microscopic army. These stories might be seen as precursors to Kirby's CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, which had a similar orientation, but clicked better with readers. 

Next up: the Silver Age Claw.



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