Clayface
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Clayface is a name used by several DC Comics fictional characters, most of them possessing clay-like bodies and shapeshifting abilities. All of them have been enemies of Batman. Created by Bob Kane, the original Clayface, Basil Karlo, was a b-movie actor who began a life of crime using the identity of a villain he portrayed in a horror film.
In the late 1950s, Batman began facing a series of science fiction-inspired foes and Matt Hagen, a treasure hunter given vast shapeshifting powers and resiliency by radioactive protoplasm, became the new Clayface. He retained the title for the next twenty-five years of comic book history. After Hagen’s death, Preston Payne became the third Clayface. A scientist suffering from hyperpituitarism, Payne used Hagen's blood to create a cure but became a clay-like creature that needed to pass his condition onto others to survive. His condition was used as a metaphor for drug abuse and sexually transmitted disease.
Sondra Fuller, of Strike Force Kobra, used the terrorist group’s technology to become the fourth Clayface, also known as Lady Clay. She formed the Mud Pack with Karlo, Payne and a reanimated Hagen. During this era, Karlo used the DNA of Payne and Fuller to become the most powerful Clayface, often considered the current and ultimate incarnation of the villain.
Clayface has appeared in three animated adaptations of Batman, starting with the late 1970s-era The New Adventures of Batman, which featured a comedic version of Hagen. The 1990s-era Batman: The Animated Series featured a past-his-prime actor disfigured in a car accident who uses an experimental, addictive cosmetic to regain his appearance only to became a monstrous hunk of clay after a massive overdose of the substance. This interpretation, like the series’ Mr. Freeze, was applauded as a deeper, more sympathetic version of a sci-fi-era villain, and the comic book incarnation of the Basil Karlo Clayface was retooled after it. The 2000s-era The Batman featured a new character Ethan Bennett, who had ties to a young Bruce Wayne, as Clayface before introducing a version of Basil Karlo.
Clayface is also similar to Sandman, a villain in the Marvel Comics universe.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Basil Karlo
The original Clayface, Basil Karlo, appeared in Detective Comics #40. He is an actor who is driven mad when he hears of a remake of the classic horror film he had starred in, The Terror, even though he is to be one of the advising staff. Donning the mask of the film's villain, Clayface, he embarks on a murder spree among the cast and crew of the remake. He is foiled by Batman and Robin.
Much later, Karlo languishes in a prison hospital, when Sondra Fuller visits him out of curiosity. Karlo proposes an alliance between all living Clayfaces to kill Batman. Even though the Mud Pack, as the group called itself, is defeated, Karlo manages, by tricking his allies, to imbue himself with abilities similar to those of Preston Payne and Sondra Fuller. While literally sinking into the earth's crust when he loses control of his power, he manages to survive, and now his body sports crystals similar to quartz that endow him with greater powers.
During the "No Man's Land" storyline, Basil Karlo holds Poison Ivy, who is in charge of producing fresh vegetables for the remaining people in the city, prisoner in Robinson Park. Poison Ivy eventually battles and defeats Karlo, sinking him deep into the ground. It appears that the Ultimate Clayface is destroyed in this battle, but has resurfaced as a member of the Secret Society of Super Villains. Later, he seeks to increase his already formidable powers by absorbing Wonder Woman (a clay construct similar to him), giving him an amount of powers that bordered in invulnerability. While he is successful in absorbing the heroine, he is ultimately forced to release her.
[edit] Matt Hagen
The second Clayface, Matt Hagen, first appeared in Detective Comics #298. A treasure hunter, Hagen finds a mysterious radioactive pool of protoplasm in a cave. Immersing himself in it, he is transformed into a malleable clay-like form which could be shaped into almost anything he desires. This is only a temporary effect, however, requiring him to return to the pool periodically in order to maintain use of his powers.
He eventually copies the pool's protoplasmic jelly by chemistry studies, although the artificial proptoplasm only allows him five hours of Clayface powers compared to the full two days of the pool's.
Hagen is ultimately killed during the 12-issue limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths. During the "Mud Pack" storyline, the other villains who use the name Clayface gather Hagen's remains and make him a post-mortem member of their gang.
[edit] Preston Payne
The third Clayface, Preston Payne, first appeared in Detective Comics #478. Suffering from hyperpituitarism, Payne works at S.T.A.R. Labs searching for a cure. He obtains a sample of the then-living Matt Hagen's blood, and isolates an enzyme which he introduces into his own bloodstream. Although he is briefly able to shape his own appearance, this effect is short-lived: while on a date, his flesh begins to melt, and when he touches his horrified girlfriend, she completely melts. Payne builds an exoskeleton anti-melting suit to prevent himself from touching anyone, but he learns that he needs to spread his melting contagion onto others to survive (he feels pain if he doesn't melt anyone). During this time his mental health starts to slip as he falls in love with a wax mannequin he names "Helena", (appearing in Batman Annual #11) thinking she is the only woman immune to his touch. After another breakdown, he thinks Helena enjoys watching men "fighting over her" when he battles Batman yet again in front of the wax doll. Although he doesn't give her up, he keeps her in Arkham Asylum, saying "we're both too polite to admit divorce, but she can't live forever". He then meets Sondra Fuller. While with the Mud Pack, he brings the remains of Matt Hagen. He then falls in love with Sondra, producing a child named Cassius Payne, the fifth Clayface.
Preston acquires medicine to control his pain and now feels the "hunger" only in his mind. It is also revealed that he was abused by his parents.
[edit] Arkham Asylum
A stunted, emaciated Preston Payne appears in the graphic novel Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean. He is used to metaphorically represent sexually transmitted diseases.
[edit] Sondra Fuller
The fourth Clayface, Sondra Fuller, also known as Lady Clay, first appeared in Outsiders (volume 1) #21. She is a member of Strike Force Kobra who is transformed into a shape-changer by her employer Kobra's technologies, a process she agrees to become a subject of because she hates her own face.
She possesses identical abilities to those of Matt Hagen, but they are permanent, without the requirement for a source of protoplasm. She can additionally copy any special powers of the being she is mimicking. She is defeated by the Outsiders.
Later, after the Mud Pack forms and battles Batman, Fuller falls in love with Preston Payne and they have a child named Cassius. After Abbatoir kidnaps the child, the couple get into a fight involving Azrael/Batman.
[edit] Mud Pack
Before the appearance of the fifth and sixth Clayfaces, the third and fourth Clayfaces team up, breaking the original Clayface out of prison and reviving the second. Together the four form the "Mud Pack." Karlo later copies the others' powers by injecting himself with extracts of samples of the other two Clayfaces, becoming the "Ultimate Clayface". The three battle, and are defeated by, Batman.
[edit] Cassius "Clay" Payne
After the Mud Pack, Payne and Fuller fall in love and eventually have a child together named Cassius "Clay" Payne, who became the fifth Clayface. The boy is separated from his parents and held in a government laboratory. The full extent of his powers are unknown. The name "Cassius" is a pun on "Cassius Clay", the birthname of legendary boxer Muhammad Ali.
Currently, the bio status of Cassius shows that if a piece of him is separated from his body, it can grow a mind of its own, but it mostly thinks in a retarded form of what Cassius wants. If bonded with another human (i.e. Claything), the piece can give that human clayface-like abilities, such as become like clay, being able to withstand bullets and other harm, and could also manifest Payne's ability to melt objects, but all this person would have to do is just think it. It is unknown if a person can gain different abilities when bonded with a piece of Cassius.
In a recent issue of Batman: Gotham Knights, Cassius has now taken on the clay-like appearance of his mother and father, but he looks more like Basil Karlo than either of his parents. He can only stay in Clayface mode while awake.
[edit] Claything
The sixth Clayface, also known as Claything, appeared in Batman #550: "Chasing Clay". Claything is created when a skin sample from Cassius Payne comes to life and merges with a DEO (Department of Extranormal Operations) scientist, Dr. Malley. He has the ability to melt objects simply by looking at them. Claything is destroyed and his remains are stored at the DEO Headquarters.
[edit] Clayface VII
The seventh Clayface debuted in The Batman: Gotham Knights #60 (February 2005). Johnny Williams was once a normal firefighter in Gotham. A blast from within a chemical factory endowed him with the powers of Clayface. He worked with Hush for a brief time before his death.
[edit] Other media
[edit] Animated versions
[edit] The New Adventures of Batman
Clayface's first appearance outside the comics was in several episodes of Filmation's The New Adventures of Batman in the late 1970s. This show featured the Matt Hagen version of Clayface, and according to his first appearance he must drink his special potion daily to keep his Clayface powers. In this show he often uses his powers to take on the forms of animals.
In Clayface's first episode, Clayface is shown to be able to survive in water without dissolving (unlike later animated incarnations) by turning into a dolphin, but as Matt Hagen he does not know how to swim. His second episode pairs him up with Catwoman in a plot to steal oil. He is also one of the four villains featured in the two-part "Have An Evil Day", in which the alien Zarbor cons him, The Joker, Catwoman and The Penguin into teaming up against Batman and Robin as a diversion while Zarbor steals Earth's nuclear plants. In this series, Clayface was voiced by Lou Scheimer and Lennie Weinrib.
[edit] Batman: The Animated Series
In Batman: The Animated Series, several episodes featured a more tragic Clayface character, voiced by Ron Perlman, that combined aspects of several of the comic-book Clayfaces.
In the episode "Feat of Clay" he is introduced as Matt Hagen (a nod to the second Clayface), a past-his-prime actor (a nod to the first Clayface) who had been disfigured in a horrible car accident (a nod to the third Clayface). While recovering in a burn clinic, he is approached by corrupt businessman Roland Daggett, who makes him a test subject for a compound called "Renuyu" (pronounced "Renew You") that he promises will immediately restore his youthful good looks (a nod to the fourth Clayface). In exchange, Hagen must impersonate people in illegal roles for Daggett. He greatly resents this, but is forced to comply, as the Renuyu chemical is extremely addictive. Daggett has Hagen impersonate Bruce Wayne in order to obtain documents from Lucius Fox, who is inadvertently wounded; Bruce Wayne is arrested for assault and was in questioning. Hagen, attempting to steal a large quantity of Renuyu from Daggett's compound, is seized by Daggett's henchmen; they then try to kill Hagen by forcing him to ingest an entire canister of the compound. Rather than kill him, however, the overdose saturates every cell in his body, turning him into a bulky and misshapen clay like form who can, for short periods of time, shapeshift into anything or anybody he wishes. After trying to get revenge on Daggett, he is stopped by Batman and, upon being caught, fakes his death.
He reappears in the episode "Mudslide", in which his body began has began to deteriorate. He is restored to a semblance of health by a former medical adviser on his films, Dr. Stella Bates, who falls in love with Hagen. She sells her motel in order to raise funds for a laboratory in which to treat him. Batman tracks him down and prevents Dr. Bates' treatment of Clayface. He and Clayface then fight, but Hagen's now-unstable clay form absorbs too much rainwater to hold its cohesion, falls into the ocean and is destroyed once he dissolves.
[edit] The New Batman Adventures
In The New Batman Adventures, Hagen's character re-forms again in "Growing Pains," in which Robin (Tim Drake) befriends a lost, amnesiac little girl (whom he named "Annie" and looks similar to the character portrayed by Natalie Portman in the film Leon[citation needed]). The child turns out to be a portion of Clayface - who has returned to life by way of some strange chemicals - that has gained sentience and identity on its own, and in the end is re-absorbed into the main body of the villain, effectively "killing" the girl as a separate person. Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) is also shown battling Clayface in one segment of a Christmas-themed episode, "Holiday Knights," in which Clayface further expands his separative ability by posing as four separate children at once to shoplift from Gotham department stores at the height of the Christmas Eve rush.
[edit] Justice League
A more sympathatic Clayface makes his return to action in the Justice League series, where it is revealed that at some point, he had been captured, separated and sealed into several biohazard canisters by Morgan Edge. Gorilla Grodd and his newly-formed Secret Society attacks Edge's mansion, freeing Clayface and offering him a position in their group. Although Clayface is reluctant at first, Grodd promises to find a way to revert Clayface back to his human form. Clayface is defeated when the Flash plants fireworks in his clay body and Hawkgirl ignites them, blowing Clayface apart. He resurfaces in a later issue of the JLU comic.
[edit] The Batman
There are two versions of Clayface in The Batman:
[edit] Ethan Bennett
The first Clayface is Ethan Bennett, a detective in the Gotham City Police Department and Bruce Wayne's friend from high school. This version of Clayface is voiced by Steve Harris.
Clayface originates in the two-part episodes "The Rubber Face of Comedy/The Clay Face of Tragedy." After he inhales a dose of Joker's Joker Putty (after a session of extensive brainwashing, driving him to insanity), Bennett is rescued by Batman and his partner, Detective Ellen Yin. He is suspended by Chief Rojas after publicly denouncing the chief's claims about the Batman. At his apartment, Bennett mutates into a featureless gray-clay like figure, and tries to look for help, scaring away the locals. After many battles with Batman, it has become clear that he still holds a grudge against the Joker. In one of his latest appearance on the show, he impersonates Solomon Grundy in order to loot the city on Halloween.
Clayface returns in the fourth season episode "Clayfaces", Bennett seems to have finally reformed. He tracks down and captured the Joker, disguising himself as the Joker's henchmen, Punch and Judy. He hands him over the police without using excessive force, and turns himself in to Batman afterwards. However, Bennett has not completely regained Batman's (and Bruce Wayne's) trust. He is eager to leave Arkham and continue working as a police officer, although Batman refuses to consider this request until Bennett is fully cured.
When Basil Karlo begins wreaking havoc as the second Clayface, Bennett feels he was the only one who could defeat Karlo. Bennett once again requests a second chance, but after he is refused again, he resorts to escaping from Arkham. Bennett tracks down and battles Karlo with the aid of Batman and Robin. Bennett holds Karlo down while Batman administers the antidote. It is implied at the end of the episode that Bennett is cured, and that Karlo will take over the mantle of Clayface.
[edit] Basil Karlo
The episode "Clayfaces" introduces Basil Karlo (in his first actual appearance outside the comics) as The Batman's second Clayface, voiced by Wallace Langham [1] and later by Lex Lang. His first appearance is in the fourth season episode Clayfaces, where he is shown to be an ugly, untalented actor. He is seen repeatedly turned down in auditions for a dog food commercial when he hears that Bennett is about to be cured.
Karlo breaks into Wayne Industries and drinks a refined, purified sample of the Clayface mutagen Bennett was exposed to. This successfully turns him into Clayface. After being rejected once again for a dog food commercial, he snaps and uses his Clayface powers to attack the city. At first he believes this incident would be the death of his career, but he then sees that being a supervillain has made him a celebrity, covered on nearly every channel. At the last channel he stopped on, it shows his previous movie, The Revenge of The Atomic Clone.
After a battle with Batman, Robin and Ethan Bennett, Basil Karlo is injected with the Clayface antidote, seemingly restoring him to normal. However, the episode's final scene shows that Karlo has retained his powers.
He reappeared in The Batman/Superman Story, Part One where he, along with Bane and Mr. Freeze, was in the employ of Black Mask, who'd teamed up with Lex Luthor and kidnapped Lois Lane as bait for a trap to lure in Superman.
[edit] Live action television
[edit] Birds of Prey
Clayface also made an appearance in the 12th episode of the short-lived Birds of Prey television series portrayed by Kirk Baltz. In this series he is hired by the Joker to kill Catwoman. He has a son named Chris Cassius (a pun on Muhammad Ali, whose birth name was Cassius Clay) who turns people into clay.
[edit] Video Games
Clayface has made several appearances in video games featuring Batman. He appeared as a boss in The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Super NES, The Adventures of Batman & Robin for the Sega CD and Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu. Ron Perlman reprised his role as Clayface from the animated series for the latter two games. The Sega CD game features Clayface as the final boss, where he impersonates crime lord Rupert Thorne while the real Thorne is on vacation. He then uses Thorne's wealth to hire some of Batman's greatest villains (Poison Ivy, the Riddler and the Joker) to kill him, so that Gotham City would be his for the taking. In the end, Clayface tries to escape in a helicopter, but it crashes into the side of a bridge, causing him to fall into the harbor and dissolve.
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| Creators | Bob Kane · Bill Finger · Other writers and artists |
| Supporting characters | Robin (Tim Drake) · Nightwing (Dick Grayson) · Batgirl · Batwoman · Alfred Pennyworth · Lucius Fox · Barbara Gordon · Commissioner Gordon · Harvey Bullock · Azrael · Huntress |
| Villains | Bane · Catwoman · Clayface · Harley Quinn · Joker · Killer Croc · Mad Hatter · Mr. Freeze · Penguin · Poison Ivy · Ra's al Ghul · Red Hood (Jason Todd) · Riddler · Scarecrow · Talia al Ghul · Two-Face · Ventriloquist |
| Locations | Arkham Asylum · Batcave · Gotham City · Wayne Enterprises · Wayne Manor |
| Equipment | Batarang · Batmobile · Batcycle · Batsuit · Utility Belt |
| Miscellanea | Publications · Storylines · Alternate versions of Batman · Batman in popular media |
Categories: Wikipedia articles with incorrect tenses | All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since October 2007 | Video game bosses | DC Comics supervillains | Fictional monsters | Fictional shapeshifters | Fictional characters with accelerated healing | Fictional actors | Golden Age supervillains | Fictional amorphous creatures | Fictional murderers
