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I've decided that today was a good time to do another Many Faces tribute about a member of Batman's rogues gallery, this time covering yet another enemy of Batman I've been fond of for about as long as I've been a Batman fan.

The rogue this picture covers is the various incarnations of Clayface, who stands out due to being one of the few enemies of Batman who has super powers (in this case, shape-shifting). If I had more room, I'd have included his Arkhamverse incarnation, so I guess I'll have to save him for honorable mentions.

In the comics, there had been several incarnations of Clayface. The original Clayface was an actor named Basil Karlo who became a costumed killer and went on a murdering spree because he was upset about one of his movies being remade without him in the lead role, the second Clayface was a crook named Matt Hagen who found a protoplasmic pool that enabled him to temporarily transform into a shape-changing mud-like mutant, the third Clayface was a deformed man named Preston Payne who injected himself with Matt Hagen's blood only to become liquefied, require a containment suit to stay whole and suffer a pain that would only be temporarily soothed by touching people and making them melt, while the fourth Clayface Sondra Fuller was given powers like Matt Hagen's by the terrorist organization Kobra.

After Matt Hagen was killed off during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Basil Karlo would later form an alliance with Preston Payne and Sondra Fuller to found a team called the Mud Pack, but that turned out to be a front towards copying the other two Clayfaces' powers to become the Ultimate Clayface.

The different incarnations of Clayface in other media have all had interesting twists to them.

1966 TELEVISION SERIES

Much like Two-Face, Clayface was established in tie-in media that came after the original 1966 Batman TV show ended production, but in Clayface's case, he was technically already present.

For starters, Clayface was shown among the villains Batman and Robin were fighting in the Adam West show's animated opening sequence. He, of course, never actually appeared in the original show because a clay-like monster with shape-shifting powers wouldn't have been possible to realize with the special effects of a low-budget live-action show from the 1960s.

The other reason why Clayface kind of was part of the 1966 television series after all was that the Batman '66 comic continuation took False-Face, a minor villain from the comics who was played by on the show by Malachi Throne in the episode "True or False Face"/"Holy Rat Race", and had him become the Clayface of the 1966 TV show's continuity. This creative decision was rather appropriate, as False-Face was a mundane criminal master of disguise who has lately been overshadowed by how Clayface is more versatile in how he disguises himself.

After a few stories where he appeared as just plain old False-Face, False-Face would become this continuity's Clayface in the story "The Quagmire of Clayface", where False-Face's real name was given as Basil Karlo and his origin was revealed to be that he was a career criminal who drank a potion that gave him the ability to modify his face to disguise himself. In the story's present, he steals and consumes another formula he hoped would reverse the effects, but it instead mutates him into a shape-shifting clay monster who splits himself into duplicates and is defeated when he unmasks Batman, only to be blindsided by Batman making himself up to look like Basil Karlo.

Clayface would later return in the main comic's final story, which was a deliberate homage to the original show's title sequence and even went to the trouble of retroactively identifying the generic criminals who appeared in the show's intro as established characters in the comics, who in fact were villains who predated the 1966 show (for example, the three criminals Batman and Robin punch at the start of the intro were revealed to be the Terrible Trio without their Fox, Shark and Vulture masks). Oddly enough, this story depicted Clayface and False-Face as separate beings, though that may be because of miscommunication between writers, as this final story was written by Mike Allred instead of the comic's usual writer Jeff Parker.

I've also heard that Clayface had a part in the Wonder Woman '77 comics, which have apparently established that the 1966 Batman show and the 1975 Wonder Woman TV show are in the same universe, but I can't say anything about what happened there just yet because I'm still not finished watching the 1970s Wonder Woman TV show, and I'd prefer to not be left in the dark before I start catching up on that show's tie-in comics.

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF BATMAN

Clayface would make his animated debut in The New Adventures of Batman, a 1977 animated series by Filmation not to be confused with Batman: The Animated Series' 1997 retool The New Batman Adventures that was Filmation's second Batman adaptation as well as the second animated series about Batman overall after 1968's The Adventures of Batman.

While its predecessor had Batman and Robin voiced by Olan Soule and Casey Kasem (who would later reprise their roles in The New Scooby-Doo Movies and most of Super Friends), The New Adventures of Batman notably had Adam West and Burt Ward reprise their roles as the Dynamic Duo from the 1966 television series (and it wouldn't be the last time Adam West played Batman in animation, either, as he'd eventually replace Olan Soule for Super Friends' final two iterations Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show and Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, in addition to him and Burt Ward again returning to their roles as Batman and Robin in the 1966 show's animated tie-in direct-to-DVD movies Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders and Batman vs. Two-Face).

The New Adventures of Batman wasn't that fondly remembered because it happened to be the animated debut of Bat-Mite, who was depicted on the show as a pest who kept bothering Batman and Robin with his misguided attempts at helping them on capers. I didn't really mind this incarnation of Bat-Mite much, but I can't tell whether it's because I'm biased due to already being fond of Bat-Mite to some degree or if I simply found his annoying antics tolerable due to Batman and Robin being very clear about their irritation at his antics as well as how he often was subjected to comedic misfortunes. His infatuation with Batgirl did get creepy at times, though, even with Batgirl apparently reciprocating with an occasional kiss.

Anyway, the Clayface that appeared in this continuity was the Matt Hagen version, who, like in the comics, was a normal human being who needed to take a formula regularly to use his powers and uniquely had his own shape-shifting vehicle. He was voiced by Lou Scheimer for most of his appearances and by Lennie Weinrib for his last speaking role, and primarily used his powers to take on the form of animals (which was done with a cheap wipe effect since 1970s cartoons were typically on a low budget).

The episodes featuring Clayface were "Dead Ringer" (where he coerced a lookalike for Dick Grayson into helping him frame Batman and Robin for various crimes), "Curses! Oiled Again!" (where he teamed up with Catwoman to steal oil), the two-part episode "Have an Evil Day" (where Zarbor, a villain from Bat-Mite's home dimension Ergo, united him with fellow Bat-villains Catwoman, Penguin and the Joker to distract our heroes from thwarting his plan) and "This Looks Like a Job for Bat-Mite!" (where Bat-Mite shows his picture to Batman and Robin to try and break them from Zarbor's brainwashing, in addition to a boxing dummy bearing his likeness appearing in the gym at Wayne Manor).

DCAU

The DC Animated Universe incarnation of Clayface made his debut in the Batman: The Animated Series two-part episode "Feat of Clay", where he was essentially a composite of the first three Clayfaces in the comics. He was an actor like Basil Karlo, he had the name and shape-shifting powers of Matt Hagen, and like Preston Payne he was disfigured before he got his powers and he was unable to return to his human form after he became Clayface.

Matt Hagen was voiced by Ron Perlman and his origin here was that he made a deal with corrupt magnate Roland Daggett to get access to a substance called Renuyu to mold his face to how it was before his scarring accident in exchange for some odd jobs. Daggett eventually decided to have his men kill Matt Hagen by having him overdose on Renuyu, but instead Hagen was mutated into Clayface and tried to get even with Daggett for what he did to him.

His debut episode ended with Clayface appearing to die, but it later turns out he faked his death and the very last shot was a woman walking by turning out to be him in disguise and laughing maniacally.

Clayface's final appearance in the original Batman: The Animated Series was in "Mudslide", where his body was starting to break down and he tried to get help from an old flame named Stella Bates to stabilize his condition and get a cure. Unfortunately, Batman intervenes and Hagen decides he'd rather die than turn himself in and let Batman help him on his terms.

Clayface was among the villains to resurface in the New Adventures retool, first appearing in the Christmas episode "Holiday Knights", which was adapted from a one-shot of the tie-in comic The Batman Adventures, but had a few changes (one of the most notable being that they omitted Mr. Freeze's story). Clayface's story here was that he attempted to shoplift while the citizens of Gotham were doing their Christmas shopping by splitting himself apart and disguising himself as young boys to hide stuff inside his body, but Batgirl ultimately thwarted him and the only unpleasantness after that was Harvey Bullock having to retrieve the stolen loot from Clayface with his bare hands.

How he came back from his apparent death in "Mudslide" was later explained in "Growing Pains", where Tim Drake met an amnesiac girl he dubs Annie, who it turns out was a separated portion of Clayface and was eventually absorbed back into Clayface's being, which the DCAU's second Robin did not take well. Batman actually had to restrain Tim from killing Clayface in retribution.

Not counting the dubiously canon tie-in comics, Clayface's only other appearance in the DC Animated Universe was in the Justice League episode "Secret Society", where he was among several villains recruited by Gorilla Grodd and was last seen being blown apart by the Flash and Hawkgirl.

One notable impact the DCAU version of Clayface had on the comics canon is that Matt Hagen's backstory was emulated wholesale for the New 52/Rebirth incarnation of Basil Karlo.

THE BATMAN

The Batman stands out as one of the most divisive adaptations of The Dark Knight, whether it's due to Batman being more inexperienced and amiable than most incarnations, the established characters having drastic creative liberties taken with them, or even the unfortunate fact that Warner Bros. enforced a Bat-Embargo at the time that restricted certain Batman-affiliated characters from appearing in more than one adaptation at the same time, which made it so that the show's very existence prevented Justice League Unlimited from using any notable Batman characters besides the Caped Crusader himself.

To be fair, The Batman itself was affected by this absurd mandate, as the Christopher Nolan movies prevented the show from using Scarecrow, Two-Face and Ra's al Ghul (though somehow the Bat-Embargo did not prevent both continuities from using the Joker and Bane). While character-restricting mandates aren't a problem anymore with today's animated DC adaptations, it is apparently still an issue with live-action DC media, and I'm simply never going to let go how this unnecessary and idiotic restriction hindered The Batman and Justice League Unlimited's potential. The sooner WB realizes that there's no point to limiting which DC characters can be used with which continuities because they have control over ALL the adaptations and audiences are not too stupid to understand the concept of different continuities, the happier I'll be.

One notable aspect of The Batman is that it was the first adaptation where an original character became Clayface as well as the first adaptation to have more than one Clayface.

The first Clayface in this continuity was Ethan Bennett, a police detective voiced by Steve Harris who also had elements of Crispus Allen (in being a bald African-American cop in Gotham City who is partnered with an equivalent to Renee Montoya) and Two-Face (in that he is a close friend of Bruce Wayne's who ends up becoming a deformed criminal as a result of another criminal's attempt on his life, in addition to Bruce Wayne holding onto hope that his friend isn't lost and can be brought back to the side of good).

Initially appearing to be just another Gotham City cop, Ethan Bennett became the first Clayface of The Batman in the two-parter "The Rubber Face of Comedy"/"The Clayface of Tragedy", where exposure to Joker's Joker Putty caused him to transform into living putty and tormented by everyone seeing him as a monster to be feared instead of trying to help him, which was made worse by the fact that he was initially unable to articulate properly in his Clayface form.

It was a long struggle, and for a while an attempt at reformation ended with Ethan doubling down on being a shape-shifting criminal, but eventually Ethan Bennett was able to live a normal life again by "Clayfaces", which also introduced this continuity's second Clayface.

This second Clayface was the animated debut of Basil Karlo, who was significantly younger than he was in the comics and had trouble getting a job because he just wasn't a very good actor. He was initially voiced by Wallace Langham, but in subsequent episodes would be instead voiced by Lex Lang. He exposes himself to a sample of the mutagen that gave Ethan Bennett his powers thinking this will help him get a part in a dog food commercial, but when that doesn't work he decides being a supervillain will be the better path towards fame.

Ethan Bennett ended up working with Batman to lure Basil Karlo into a trap where both Clayfaces were given an antidote. Ethan Bennett was permanently cured of his powers, but it later turned out that Basil Karlo was unaffected by the antidote.

BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD

The last incarnation of Clayface we'll be going over that can be seen in this picture is his incarnation in Batman: The Brave and The Bold.

With the exception of the tie-in comics, the original show didn't really use any version of Clayface besides one episode featuring a portrait of the Preston Payne version, but the shortcoming of Clayface never appearing was rectified in the Scooby-Doo direct-to-video crossover film Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and The Bold, where Scooby and the gang teamed up with Batman and the other heroes to investigate a mystery involving a teleportation experiment.

The monster disguise for the movie was the Crimson Cloak, who was voiced by John DiMaggio and passed himself off as the ghost of the disappeared Leo Scarlett, but it turned out he was actually Clayface, who was voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson. He was working with the Riddler to try and get a cure for his destabilizing condition, which made the gang feel bad for his plight after the case was over.

HONORABLE MENTION

Because I didn't have enough room to draw him, I'll devote the last part of this description to talking about Clayface's incarnation in the Batman: Arkham video game series, where he was voiced by Rick D. Wasserman (at least when he's not pretending to be someone else).

The Arkhamverse is one of my favorite Batman adaptations for many reasons, and I especially appreciated Clayface's involvement. Hearing about his involvement made he excited about the original game, but I was disappointed that we never actually got to fight him, since his status as a shape-shifter meant that there were many ways he'd make a cool boss fight. And at the risk of getting stones tossed at me, it's my honest opinion that the Arkham games are proof that the first game in a series isn't always the best (for me, the original game's biggest fault is the lack of variety with the boss fights, as the majority of them are against brutes mutated by Titan serum).

Fortunately, Clayface was given a boss fight in the first sequel Arkham City, where he was even the final boss, and I'm proud to say that the boss fight he had here made up for not getting to fight him in the original game. Clayface ended up in a Lazarus pit, but his fate afterwards remains unknown. By the game series' conclusion Arkham Knight, no one really knows whether he's alive or dead. It is after all hard to determine whether someone like Clayface can possibly be killed for good, since there are few things an amorphous being can't survive.

That's all for now. Only time will tell if I do another one of these.

Batman and all related characters (c) DC Comics

Description

Made with DeviantArt muro

I've decided that today was a good time to do another Many Faces tribute about a member of Batman's rogues gallery, this time covering yet another enemy of Batman I've been fond of for about as long as I've been a Batman fan.

The rogue this picture covers is the various incarnations of Clayface, who stands out due to being one of the few enemies of Batman who has super powers (in this case, shape-shifting). If I had more room, I'd have included his Arkhamverse incarnation, so I guess I'll have to save him for honorable mentions.

In the comics, there had been several incarnations of Clayface. The original Clayface was an actor named Basil Karlo who became a costumed killer and went on a murdering spree because he was upset about one of his movies being remade without him in the lead role, the second Clayface was a crook named Matt Hagen who found a protoplasmic pool that enabled him to temporarily transform into a shape-changing mud-like mutant, the third Clayface was a deformed man named Preston Payne who injected himself with Matt Hagen's blood only to become liquefied, require a containment suit to stay whole and suffer a pain that would only be temporarily soothed by touching people and making them melt, while the fourth Clayface Sondra Fuller was given powers like Matt Hagen's by the terrorist organization Kobra.

After Matt Hagen was killed off during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Basil Karlo would later form an alliance with Preston Payne and Sondra Fuller to found a team called the Mud Pack, but that turned out to be a front towards copying the other two Clayfaces' powers to become the Ultimate Clayface.

The different incarnations of Clayface in other media have all had interesting twists to them.

1966 TELEVISION SERIES

Much like Two-Face, Clayface was established in tie-in media that came after the original 1966 Batman TV show ended production, but in Clayface's case, he was technically already present.

For starters, Clayface was shown among the villains Batman and Robin were fighting in the Adam West show's animated opening sequence. He, of course, never actually appeared in the original show because a clay-like monster with shape-shifting powers wouldn't have been possible to realize with the special effects of a low-budget live-action show from the 1960s.

The other reason why Clayface kind of was part of the 1966 television series after all was that the Batman '66 comic continuation took False-Face, a minor villain from the comics who was played by on the show by Malachi Throne in the episode "True or False Face"/"Holy Rat Race", and had him become the Clayface of the 1966 TV show's continuity. This creative decision was rather appropriate, as False-Face was a mundane criminal master of disguise who has lately been overshadowed by how Clayface is more versatile in how he disguises himself.

After a few stories where he appeared as just plain old False-Face, False-Face would become this continuity's Clayface in the story "The Quagmire of Clayface", where False-Face's real name was given as Basil Karlo and his origin was revealed to be that he was a career criminal who drank a potion that gave him the ability to modify his face to disguise himself. In the story's present, he steals and consumes another formula he hoped would reverse the effects, but it instead mutates him into a shape-shifting clay monster who splits himself into duplicates and is defeated when he unmasks Batman, only to be blindsided by Batman making himself up to look like Basil Karlo.

Clayface would later return in the main comic's final story, which was a deliberate homage to the original show's title sequence and even went to the trouble of retroactively identifying the generic criminals who appeared in the show's intro as established characters in the comics, who in fact were villains who predated the 1966 show (for example, the three criminals Batman and Robin punch at the start of the intro were revealed to be the Terrible Trio without their Fox, Shark and Vulture masks). Oddly enough, this story depicted Clayface and False-Face as separate beings, though that may be because of miscommunication between writers, as this final story was written by Mike Allred instead of the comic's usual writer Jeff Parker.

I've also heard that Clayface had a part in the Wonder Woman '77 comics, which have apparently established that the 1966 Batman show and the 1975 Wonder Woman TV show are in the same universe, but I can't say anything about what happened there just yet because I'm still not finished watching the 1970s Wonder Woman TV show, and I'd prefer to not be left in the dark before I start catching up on that show's tie-in comics.

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF BATMAN

Clayface would make his animated debut in The New Adventures of Batman, a 1977 animated series by Filmation not to be confused with Batman: The Animated Series' 1997 retool The New Batman Adventures that was Filmation's second Batman adaptation as well as the second animated series about Batman overall after 1968's The Adventures of Batman.

While its predecessor had Batman and Robin voiced by Olan Soule and Casey Kasem (who would later reprise their roles in The New Scooby-Doo Movies and most of Super Friends), The New Adventures of Batman notably had Adam West and Burt Ward reprise their roles as the Dynamic Duo from the 1966 television series (and it wouldn't be the last time Adam West played Batman in animation, either, as he'd eventually replace Olan Soule for Super Friends' final two iterations Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show and Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, in addition to him and Burt Ward again returning to their roles as Batman and Robin in the 1966 show's animated tie-in direct-to-DVD movies Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders and Batman vs. Two-Face).

The New Adventures of Batman wasn't that fondly remembered because it happened to be the animated debut of Bat-Mite, who was depicted on the show as a pest who kept bothering Batman and Robin with his misguided attempts at helping them on capers. I didn't really mind this incarnation of Bat-Mite much, but I can't tell whether it's because I'm biased due to already being fond of Bat-Mite to some degree or if I simply found his annoying antics tolerable due to Batman and Robin being very clear about their irritation at his antics as well as how he often was subjected to comedic misfortunes. His infatuation with Batgirl did get creepy at times, though, even with Batgirl apparently reciprocating with an occasional kiss.

Anyway, the Clayface that appeared in this continuity was the Matt Hagen version, who, like in the comics, was a normal human being who needed to take a formula regularly to use his powers and uniquely had his own shape-shifting vehicle. He was voiced by Lou Scheimer for most of his appearances and by Lennie Weinrib for his last speaking role, and primarily used his powers to take on the form of animals (which was done with a cheap wipe effect since 1970s cartoons were typically on a low budget).

The episodes featuring Clayface were "Dead Ringer" (where he coerced a lookalike for Dick Grayson into helping him frame Batman and Robin for various crimes), "Curses! Oiled Again!" (where he teamed up with Catwoman to steal oil), the two-part episode "Have an Evil Day" (where Zarbor, a villain from Bat-Mite's home dimension Ergo, united him with fellow Bat-villains Catwoman, Penguin and the Joker to distract our heroes from thwarting his plan) and "This Looks Like a Job for Bat-Mite!" (where Bat-Mite shows his picture to Batman and Robin to try and break them from Zarbor's brainwashing, in addition to a boxing dummy bearing his likeness appearing in the gym at Wayne Manor).

DCAU

The DC Animated Universe incarnation of Clayface made his debut in the Batman: The Animated Series two-part episode "Feat of Clay", where he was essentially a composite of the first three Clayfaces in the comics. He was an actor like Basil Karlo, he had the name and shape-shifting powers of Matt Hagen, and like Preston Payne he was disfigured before he got his powers and he was unable to return to his human form after he became Clayface.

Matt Hagen was voiced by Ron Perlman and his origin here was that he made a deal with corrupt magnate Roland Daggett to get access to a substance called Renuyu to mold his face to how it was before his scarring accident in exchange for some odd jobs. Daggett eventually decided to have his men kill Matt Hagen by having him overdose on Renuyu, but instead Hagen was mutated into Clayface and tried to get even with Daggett for what he did to him.

His debut episode ended with Clayface appearing to die, but it later turns out he faked his death and the very last shot was a woman walking by turning out to be him in disguise and laughing maniacally.

Clayface's final appearance in the original Batman: The Animated Series was in "Mudslide", where his body was starting to break down and he tried to get help from an old flame named Stella Bates to stabilize his condition and get a cure. Unfortunately, Batman intervenes and Hagen decides he'd rather die than turn himself in and let Batman help him on his terms.

Clayface was among the villains to resurface in the New Adventures retool, first appearing in the Christmas episode "Holiday Knights", which was adapted from a one-shot of the tie-in comic The Batman Adventures, but had a few changes (one of the most notable being that they omitted Mr. Freeze's story). Clayface's story here was that he attempted to shoplift while the citizens of Gotham were doing their Christmas shopping by splitting himself apart and disguising himself as young boys to hide stuff inside his body, but Batgirl ultimately thwarted him and the only unpleasantness after that was Harvey Bullock having to retrieve the stolen loot from Clayface with his bare hands.

How he came back from his apparent death in "Mudslide" was later explained in "Growing Pains", where Tim Drake met an amnesiac girl he dubs Annie, who it turns out was a separated portion of Clayface and was eventually absorbed back into Clayface's being, which the DCAU's second Robin did not take well. Batman actually had to restrain Tim from killing Clayface in retribution.

Not counting the dubiously canon tie-in comics, Clayface's only other appearance in the DC Animated Universe was in the Justice League episode "Secret Society", where he was among several villains recruited by Gorilla Grodd and was last seen being blown apart by the Flash and Hawkgirl.

One notable impact the DCAU version of Clayface had on the comics canon is that Matt Hagen's backstory was emulated wholesale for the New 52/Rebirth incarnation of Basil Karlo.

THE BATMAN

The Batman stands out as one of the most divisive adaptations of The Dark Knight, whether it's due to Batman being more inexperienced and amiable than most incarnations, the established characters having drastic creative liberties taken with them, or even the unfortunate fact that Warner Bros. enforced a Bat-Embargo at the time that restricted certain Batman-affiliated characters from appearing in more than one adaptation at the same time, which made it so that the show's very existence prevented Justice League Unlimited from using any notable Batman characters besides the Caped Crusader himself.

To be fair, The Batman itself was affected by this absurd mandate, as the Christopher Nolan movies prevented the show from using Scarecrow, Two-Face and Ra's al Ghul (though somehow the Bat-Embargo did not prevent both continuities from using the Joker and Bane). While character-restricting mandates aren't a problem anymore with today's animated DC adaptations, it is apparently still an issue with live-action DC media, and I'm simply never going to let go how this unnecessary and idiotic restriction hindered The Batman and Justice League Unlimited's potential. The sooner WB realizes that there's no point to limiting which DC characters can be used with which continuities because they have control over ALL the adaptations and audiences are not too stupid to understand the concept of different continuities, the happier I'll be.

One notable aspect of The Batman is that it was the first adaptation where an original character became Clayface as well as the first adaptation to have more than one Clayface.

The first Clayface in this continuity was Ethan Bennett, a police detective voiced by Steve Harris who also had elements of Crispus Allen (in being a bald African-American cop in Gotham City who is partnered with an equivalent to Renee Montoya) and Two-Face (in that he is a close friend of Bruce Wayne's who ends up becoming a deformed criminal as a result of another criminal's attempt on his life, in addition to Bruce Wayne holding onto hope that his friend isn't lost and can be brought back to the side of good).

Initially appearing to be just another Gotham City cop, Ethan Bennett became the first Clayface of The Batman in the two-parter "The Rubber Face of Comedy"/"The Clayface of Tragedy", where exposure to Joker's Joker Putty caused him to transform into living putty and tormented by everyone seeing him as a monster to be feared instead of trying to help him, which was made worse by the fact that he was initially unable to articulate properly in his Clayface form.

It was a long struggle, and for a while an attempt at reformation ended with Ethan doubling down on being a shape-shifting criminal, but eventually Ethan Bennett was able to live a normal life again by "Clayfaces", which also introduced this continuity's second Clayface.

This second Clayface was the animated debut of Basil Karlo, who was significantly younger than he was in the comics and had trouble getting a job because he just wasn't a very good actor. He was initially voiced by Wallace Langham, but in subsequent episodes would be instead voiced by Lex Lang. He exposes himself to a sample of the mutagen that gave Ethan Bennett his powers thinking this will help him get a part in a dog food commercial, but when that doesn't work he decides being a supervillain will be the better path towards fame.

Ethan Bennett ended up working with Batman to lure Basil Karlo into a trap where both Clayfaces were given an antidote. Ethan Bennett was permanently cured of his powers, but it later turned out that Basil Karlo was unaffected by the antidote.

BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD

The last incarnation of Clayface we'll be going over that can be seen in this picture is his incarnation in Batman: The Brave and The Bold.

With the exception of the tie-in comics, the original show didn't really use any version of Clayface besides one episode featuring a portrait of the Preston Payne version, but the shortcoming of Clayface never appearing was rectified in the Scooby-Doo direct-to-video crossover film Scooby-Doo! & Batman: The Brave and The Bold, where Scooby and the gang teamed up with Batman and the other heroes to investigate a mystery involving a teleportation experiment.

The monster disguise for the movie was the Crimson Cloak, who was voiced by John DiMaggio and passed himself off as the ghost of the disappeared Leo Scarlett, but it turned out he was actually Clayface, who was voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson. He was working with the Riddler to try and get a cure for his destabilizing condition, which made the gang feel bad for his plight after the case was over.

HONORABLE MENTION

Because I didn't have enough room to draw him, I'll devote the last part of this description to talking about Clayface's incarnation in the Batman: Arkham video game series, where he was voiced by Rick D. Wasserman (at least when he's not pretending to be someone else).

The Arkhamverse is one of my favorite Batman adaptations for many reasons, and I especially appreciated Clayface's involvement. Hearing about his involvement made he excited about the original game, but I was disappointed that we never actually got to fight him, since his status as a shape-shifter meant that there were many ways he'd make a cool boss fight. And at the risk of getting stones tossed at me, it's my honest opinion that the Arkham games are proof that the first game in a series isn't always the best (for me, the original game's biggest fault is the lack of variety with the boss fights, as the majority of them are against brutes mutated by Titan serum).

Fortunately, Clayface was given a boss fight in the first sequel Arkham City, where he was even the final boss, and I'm proud to say that the boss fight he had here made up for not getting to fight him in the original game. Clayface ended up in a Lazarus pit, but his fate afterwards remains unknown. By the game series' conclusion Arkham Knight, no one really knows whether he's alive or dead. It is after all hard to determine whether someone like Clayface can possibly be killed for good, since there are few things an amorphous being can't survive.

That's all for now. Only time will tell if I do another one of these.

Batman and all related characters (c) DC Comics