One wonders how Boris Karloff felt about becoming a Batman villain.
Was he amused, or irritated, or did he never hear about it at all?
In fact, Karloff was probably too busy to read comic books in 1940, the year Detective Comics 40 introduced the villain “Basil Karlo,” i.e. Clayface. Since his major success as the monster in 1931’s Frankenstein, Karloff had appeared in 37 movies, most of them horror films, and was thus well established as Hollywood’s King of Horror.
When Detective Comics 40 hit America’s newsstands in May 1940, Karloff was starring around the corner in the Columbia Pictures horror/science fiction film The Man with Nine Lives.
The fictional Karlo, once a star of equal stature, had been undermined by his own bad publicity. Outraged that a movie company was remaking his old picture Dread Castle, the deranged Karlo adopted his Clayface disguise so he could kill the actors just as they were to die in the movie.
The Dynamic Duo thwarted him, but then an accident allowed Karlo to escape from a prison ambulance and try to get revenge against Batman, Robin and actress Julie Madison, Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend (Clayface Walks Again, Detective Comics 49, March 1941).
Although Batman captured Clayface again, he lost his fiancé in the process. Madison canceled their engagement because Wayne refused to “…find himself a career instead of being the public’s number one playboy.”
Julie might be gone, but Clayface would be reshaped again and again.
“Years later, treasure seeker Matt Hagen discovers a cave containing a pool laced with an element that enables him to change into any object he wishes, animate or inanimate, for two full days after each dunking,” recalled comics historian Jeff Rovin, recounting the events of Detective Comics 298 (Dec. 1961). Clayface II led Batman and Robin on a merry chase through several adventures before Superman used his heat vision to vaporize the pool.
But the curse of Clayface wasn’t finished. In Detective Comics 478 (July-Aug. 1978), Preston Payne used Hagen’s blood in an attempt to cure himself of acromegaly, but instead caused his skin to run like hot wax. He became a monster who could melt others with a touch.In fact, you can trace Batman’s evolution through the iterations of Clayface. Basil Karlo epitomized the Dark Knight’s pulpish weird menace era in the late 1930s. Matt Hagen was an example of the science fictional silly fun of the 1950s. And Preston Payne represented a return to the weird menace era in the 1970s, but with the neo-noir-ish science fictional elements mixed in.
Movie producer John Carlinger became yet another Clayface in Detective Comics 496, Nov. 1980). And Sondra Fuller became Lady Clay in Outsiders 21 (July 1987), eventually molding Basil Karlo, Matt Hagen and Preston Payne into the Mud Pack.
Other Clayfaces include Cassius “Clay” Payne (Batman: Shadow of the Bat 27, May 1994); Peter “Claything” Malley (Batman 550, Jan. 1998); Todd Russell (Catwoman 1, Oct. 2002); Johnny Williams (Batman: Gotham Knights 60, Feb. 2005); Clayface of Japan (Batman Inc. 6, June 2011) and Clownface (Arkham Manor 2, Jan. 2015).
Enough for a whole Legion of Clayfaces, in fact.
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