DETECTIVE COMICS 298 (1961)
by Bill Finger & Sheldon Moldoff
Batman has already built himself a respectable rogues gallery; most of his classic villains will be inherited from the Golden Age into the Silver Age.
There are only two major villains being introduced in the 60s, and that includes the second Clayface.
Or, as he’s called throughout the issue, Clay-Face.
Little known fact, in the 60s all charity donations were handled by masked vigilantes. True story.
That’s when a man with a face made of clay shows up.
That’s actually quite reductive, but I guess Clay-Face sounds better than Clay-Body.
Clay-Face wastes no time showcasing his shapeshifting abilities, although the art is pretty underwhelming.
Time for Clay-Face’s backstory. Meet Matt Hagen, a diver who “early morning” (????) went to look for a sunken treasure…
…only to find an underground radioactive pool!!!
But no, really, it’s a good thing because that’s how Hagen gets his powers.
You’re in the same team of an alien shapeshifter! Why does Clay-Face have to be human at all!?
Okay I get that batarangs probably wouldn’t work, but why was THIS Batman’s first plan of attack!?
I am shocked, shocked I tell you, that it didn’t work.
Unfortunately for him, Clay-Face is rapidly losing his powers, so he has to improvise.
Luckily for him, Batman is kind of a moron.
Turns out Clay-Face has to repeatedly bathe himself in the radioactive pool to keep his powers.
That’s a thing that will be dropped from future incarnations.
I’m not sure if that’s good or not. On one hand, Clayface being a monster will be a central part of his character, so having him return human by doing nothing would ruin that aspect.
On the other hand, SOME limitation on his power is nice, since being the only Batman villain with genuine superpowers makes it difficult to come up with ways to make him lose.
Clay-Face having goons, on the other hand? I’m VERY glad it was dropped because it doesn’t work.
Batman doing some genuine detective work? In the 60s!? I didn’t expect that, but it’s great!
Still wish he had more options than batarangs and punches, though.
Clay-Face flees back to his base, where he wonders how long he can use his powers.
Maybe he should’ve done SOME research on this before starting his career?
We then have Robin fight a half-lion half-dinosaur half-unicorn. (WTF!?)
So far Batman’s arsenal has consisted of punches, doors and curtains.
And he manages to win by… doing absolutely nothing, because Clay-Face just loses his powers.
So Matt Hagen is arrested, keeping the existence of the pool a secret for himself and vowing to one day return as Clay-Face.
Historical significance: 6/10
While Clayface is a great addition to the Batman rogues gallery, the pre-Crisis version doesn’t get to do much.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Holy underwater radioactive magic pools, Batman!
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
This was bad. Clay-Face is wildly mismatched with Batman, even in his campy 60s version.
And while it was good to see him do SOME detective work, Batman is extremely underwhelming in the action department.
How close is this to the modern character? 3/10
I’m not counting the fact that the look isn’t there yet, since Clayface is not supposed to always look the same… but still, other than his powers, almost nothing remains.
There is a surprising amount of lore surrounding Clayface! Of course this one is not the same of the Golden Age Clayface, an actor named Basil Karlo who had no powers and was just a master of disguise.
Matt Hagen’s death in Crisis Of Infinite Earths #12 is just a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment.
Post-Crisis, in addition to Matt Hagen, over the years we had way more, from Preston Payne (who actually had slightly different powers) to the tragic Sondra Fuller (also known as Lady Clay).
It got to the point that all the Clayfaces teamed up to form the Mud Pack.
The current incarnation owes A LOT to “Batman: The Animated Series” (like most Batman villains do), which in 1992 kept the Matt Hagen name but combined it with Basil Karlo’s acting backstory.
The current Clayface is a mix of several versions: he’s called Basil Karlo and used to be an actor, but he has Hagen’s powers and the look is heavily inspired from the cartoon.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Clayface. He’s wildly different from all the other Batman villains and he can still be written as a tragic figure; you can do so much with him, from classic superhero stuff to horror stories.
And if there’s a Batman villain who would be fantastic in a different media, that’s Clayface… the cartoons really took advantage of the chance to see him move.
I hope someday someone will tire of having Batman just fight creepy dudes with guns and give us the live-action Clayface we deserve.