Batman: The Animated Series - "Feat of Clay"

“There is no Hagen, it's only me now. Clayface! See?”

While pharmaceutical magnate Roland Daggett (Ed Asner) is ready to roll out his latest product, Bruce Wayne is framed for an attack on his own associate Lucius Fox. Batman’s pursuit of the case leads him to Daggett’s underlings and to Matt Hagen (Ron Perlman), a disfigured actor whose exposure to Daggett’s new facial cream turns him into the hulking Clayface, a malleable man of mud who’s out for revenge, even if he has to take down Batman to do it.

After a lackluster two-parter in “The Cat and The Claw,” “Feat of Clay” does the form justice by returning to something closer to “Two-Face.” In the first part, we get a pathos-laden origin for a new villain amid Batman’s own derring-do, while the second half features said villain coming into conflict with our hero, amid our own sense of tragedy and sympathy for the ostensible baddie. In terms of narrative, there are a lot of similarities with “Two-Face,” which augurs quite well for an episode that never actually feels twice as long as usual. (For those playing the home game, there are only four more two-parters in the series, three of which are quite good.)

The episode is penned by two veteran superhero scribes, Marv Wolfman and Michael Reaves, who bring Clayface to life with aplomb. Unlike Harvey Dent, Matt Hagen is never completely sympathetic, particularly after we’ve just seen Simon Trent in “Beware the Gray Ghost,” and he comes off more deeply flawed, with his addiction to Daggett’s Renuyu cream played like a drug addiction. As Clayface, Perlman is particularly adept, demonstrating a versatility in his emotional range, from infuriated to desperate, from drunk over his newfound powers to salivating with bloodlust at the prospect of vengeance.

“Feat of Clay” also features one of my favorite Batman narrative tropes, in which Batman has to clear Bruce Wayne’s name (see also: Bruce Wayne is held hostage by an unwitting villain). I love this subplot, because the unsuspecting antagonist accidentally invites the scrutiny of the Dark Knight, who knows better than anyone that Bruce Wayne is innocent. And involving Lucius Fox is tantamount to turning the knife, so Kevin Conroy gets plenty of delectable moments of outrage (including the chance to spew expletives like “scumwad” and “lying sleaze”). Additionally, we’re treated to one of the better Batman interrogation scenes, where he traps a hypochondriac (voiced by a sniveling Ed Begley, Jr., who’ll be back next week) in a supply closet full of infectious diseases. Batman is in rare form!

I was wondering as I watched “Feat of Clay” if we’ll ever see Clayface in live-action. We’ve seen him in a video game, but I imagine the morphing effects might be intimidating to a live film. As it stands, the clay effects are pretty strong here, and I’m disappointed that the series didn’t use him more often. I understand, though, that that’s so as not to dilute the power of this episode (ditto for Mr. Freeze in “Heart of Ice”), and to that end I must say it’s an effective move. Aside from maybe the Arkham City videogame, this is for my money the most memorable Clayface story, and it’s certainly the most emotionally effective. Shirley Walker’s Clayface motif, the musical equivalent of mud running down a drain, gives the episode that added emotive sucker punch.

Original Air Date: September 8-9, 1992

Writers: Marv Wolfman and Michael Reaves

Directors: Dick Sebast and Kevin Altieri

Villains: Clayface (Ron Perlman) and Roland Daggett (Ed Asner)

Next episode: “Joker’s Favor,” in which Paul Dini writes his first Joker episode, and the rest is history.

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