Villain Profile: Clayface

A few housekeeping things before we get into the meat of this one. One, I would like to say goodbye to Alan Rickman. He was a fabulous actor, and he will be missed. Second, sorry I’ve been away for a bit. I’ve been transitioning jobs. “What?” I hear some of you saying, “Didn’t you just do that?” Yes, yes I did. But this time, I’ve gone from working part-time at Hy-Vee as a cashier, to working for the US Postal Service as a Mail Carrier. Kind of a major job shift; wouldn’t you say? Finally, I just want to say Thank You. Thank You to everyone one that’s taken the time to stop and read one of my posts over the last year or so. By the end of January last year, I had just over 450 views on my blog. And I thought that was a big deal. This year, we’re just over the hump of January, and I’m looking at 2000 views in a month. Biggest month to date, and we’re not done yet. So, again, thanks for reading.

Yeah, even Mom couldn't love that face. 

Okay, so I’ve been tossing a few ideas around in my head for what was the best DC character to do after my latest theme week. Some big names like Deadshot, and Mxyzptlk came to mind, as well as some laughably small ones, like Calendar Man. But in the end, I decided to take Alan Rickman’s passing as a sign of who I should do. And who better than a fellow actor, Basil Karlo, aka Clayface.

Basil is an old foe of Batman’s; he dates back all the way to the 1940s. He was originally a horror actor. His main claim to fame was, The Terror, where he played the villain of the film, the disfigured Clayface Killer. When the film was chosen to be remade, he naturally thought he’d be chosen for the role of Clayface again. I guess he was the Robert Englund of this universe. The monster from Nightmare on Elm Street. Unfortunately, he was passed over, and was only allowed to be an “advisor” on the film. This sort of snubbing seemed to caused Basil to snap, and he decided to destroy the film. How? Why, putting on the Clayface get up and murdering the actors. In order of how their characters died in the original film, no less. Basil’s nuts, but got to admire his passion for motifs. He was going to murder his replacement last, but was foiled by Batman and Robin. He was sent to a prison hospital, where he remained for years.

Years later, the current Clayface, Sondra Fuller, visited him in prison. She had wanted to hear the stories behind her predecessors, and was rather disgusted to find out where the Clayface legacy began. But, Basil was able to convince her to free him from prison and round up the other living criminals that went by Clayface to finally kill the Batman. The group consisted of Basil, Dr. Preston Payne (version III), and Sondra (version IV.) The second Clayface, Matt Hagen had died several years prior, but they gathered his remains, so he was with them spiritually. Or something. The group, known as the Mudpack, did their best to destroy Batman. Unbeknownst to two other Clayfaces, Basil had an ulterior motive. He stole genetic samples from the others, and mixed them together in a lab. Apparently he’d gotten a degree in molecular biology while in prison, or something. He injected himself with the foul mixture, giving himself the power of all Clayfaces. He goes on a rampage, but is ultimately defeated by Batman and an ally of his, Looker of the Outsiders. They are able to overload his new powers, causing Basil to melt into the ground. While he was temporarily imprisoned beneath the Earth’s crust, he’d return to menace Batman and his allies.

Anyone else think he looks a little like
Vincent Price?

Initially, Basil Karlo was just an actor. He had no superhuman abilities, or unusual training. Upon meeting his successors and creating the Mudpack, Basil found a way to gain power. Combining the DNA of the three other Clayfaces, Basil gained all of their abilities. Namely, shapeshifting from Clayface II and IV, and the ability to melt others by touching them from Clayface III. This combined with the original thespian training, makes it easy for Clayface to hide in a crowd, and thus makes it incredibly difficult to track him. When he’s not looking like a eight foot fall mud monster. Which he turns into when he wants to show off. Actors, am I right?

Basil has only been used a few times outside of the comics. While an interesting character, he usually loses the limelight to Batman’s more famous foes, like the Joker, Bane, or Mr. Freeze.

One of his earliest appearances was in Batman: The Animated Series. He appears in the two parter “Feat of Clay,” and is portrayed by Ron Perlman. This Clayface is a composite of Basil Karlo, and his immediate successor, Matt Hagen. And by that, I mean his name is Matt Hagen, but he’s an actor like Karlo. Everything else seems to be original material. Hagen was a famous actor, but was horribly disfigured in a car accident. Cosmetics Mogul, corrupt businessman, and all around bad dude Roland Daggett gives him a solution. Daggett’s new compound “Renuyu” allowed Hagen to reshape his features like they were made of Clay. The catch, it only lasts for so long. To get more of the stuff, Hagen is forced to do some illegal favors for Daggett. Mostly impersonations and thefts. After botching a job of stealing some Wayne Tech secrets by posing as Bruce Wayne himself, Daggett tells his henchmen to kill Hagen. They force feed “Renuyu” down Hagen’s throat. Rather than killing him, it turns him into the hulking Clayface. Consumed by thoughts of vengeance, he sets out to kill Daggett. Batman does his best to stop Clayface, and promises to try to help him reclaim his humanity, but has no luck. Batman tries to pull the “show insane actor his previous roles” bit, but that just enrages Hagen. As an actor, I assume he was wise to the cliché. Clayface is electrocuted during the fight, and loses control of his powers. The police come in just in time to see him shifting through all of his looks, including the Bruce Wayne look, which helps clear Bruce’s name. In the final moments of the episode, Batman experiments with some left over Clayface goo, and notes that electricity doesn’t destroy it. He points out that Hagen’s last words included “Death Scene,” and surmises Clayface escaped. He menaces Batman in several episodes, but is always foiled.

Wonder what's freaking Batman out more, the thought of
being smothered, or that he's being smothered in man-clay?

He returned in Justice League. In “Secret Society,” the evil Gorilla Grodd forms a league of supervillains to oppose the Justice League. They learn that Hagen had been captured and separated out into different Biohazard containers by gangster Morgan Edge. The Secret Society frees Clayface, and Grodd promises to return him to normal. They fight the Justice League, but Clayface is defeated along with the rest of the group. The Flash and Hawkgirl stuff him with Fireworks and set them off. It’s not pretty.

The firsts time we see Basil Karlo as Basil Karlo’s Clayface was in The Batman. A bit of background, there was one other Clayface in this series. The original is former detective Ethan Bennett, ally of Batman and friend of Bruce Wayne. He gets a face full of gas that turns things into a putty like goo, a Joker creation, goes insane, and starts terrorizing Gotham as Clayface. He later tries to reform, and turns himself in. Back to Basil. He appears in “Clayfaces.” This version of Basil is a very ugly man trying to be an actor. His acting is worse than his face, but he thinks it’s his ugly mug that’s holding him back. He hears about Bennett, and he’s about to be “cured” of his Clayface abilities. Thinking it’d be a waste to lose those powers, he breaks into Wayne Tech, and drinks a super concentrated form of the “Joker Putty” Mutagen. This, of course, mutates him into a New Clayface.  He uses his new powers to…try out for a dog food commercial. The same commercial he’d been turned down from before. Sigh… this Basil is pretty stupid. When he’s turned down, again, he goes on a rampage. He’s stopped by Bennett, who breaks out of prison to fight him. While the Clayfaces battled, Batman is able to inject them with the cure. Both revert to normal. Bennett claims he’s going to finish his sentence, and Basil is shown to still have his clay powers. He returns a few time to menace Batman.

The last one I’ll mention is his appearances in the Arkham Asylum series of video games. He has a cameo in one of the levels of the first game. He’s behind a plexiglass window, where he shapeshifts into different characters as the player watches. He appears in Arkham City. Spoilers, if you haven’t played the game and want to, don’t complain to me if you read the rest of this paragraph. A major plot point in Arkham City is that the Joker is dying. It’s a negative side effect from the Titan formula he OD on in the previous game. He looks like death warmed over. But, suddenly, partway through the game he’s fit as a fiddle again. It’s ultimately revealed that this is Basil Karlo, posing as a healthy Joker. When Batman asks Karlo why he’d do such a thing, Karlo exclaims “It was the Role of a Life Time!” and the final boss fight commences. It’s a meh boss fight, but a good game overall, I suggest getting it on Steam if you want to have a go.

Clayface is just an okay character for me. I’ve seen a couple iterations of the shapeshifting pile of some kind of silicon. It’s a pretty common supervillain power. I’ve also seen a few versions of “My superpower made me a freak, I must cure it,” story too. Again, pretty common among supervillains. But, given the choice between him and Marvel’s sandy shapeshifter “want cure” supervillain, Sandman, I’ll take Clayface. The theater background, and classic movie connections make him the more memorable of the two characters. The Basil/Hagen version of the character from Batman: TAS is the best version of the character that I’ve seen. I highly recommend the “Feat of Clay” two parter, and heck, the rest of Batman: TAS to anyone who hasn’t seen it. He’s the deranged thespian, the shapeshifting pile of goo, the shifty Clayface. Next time, I’m finally doing Deadshot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clayface#/media/File:Clayface-Batman.jpg

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