Clayface

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 treasur... more

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 several decades of comic book history. In the late '70s, 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... less