Clayface is one of Batman’s long-time foes, but what many casual fans might not know is there have been multiple Clayfaces, and one of them is a lot more disgusting and potentially dangerous than the others.
That would be the third Clayface, the one who went by the name of Preston Payne.
Preston Payne started off as a S.T.A.R. Labs employee, a brilliant man with a hyperactive pituitary gland. Popping up for the first time in Detective Comics #478 (save for a brief appearance at the end of #477) in August of 1978, he was the creation of writer Len Wein and artist Marshall Rogers. Suffering from his incurable disease, one that disfigured him in many ways, Payne sought out the second Clayface, Matt Hagen, in hopes that Hagen’s blood would cure him. And, well, it cured him of his hyper pituitary gland! But it also mutated his disease into something far more horrible. As his face and body appeared to melt and Payne was forced into a exo-skeleton that did increase his physical strength, he also had a touch that could spread his illness to others, temporarily alleviating himself of the pain that was his day-to-day existence.
However, the fact that Payne transferred the illness didn’t make, like, more people with his condition. No, instead, it caused most people to simply melt away into a pile of protoplasm.
See? That’s gross. Most Clayfaces just got some shapeshifting powers. Payne looks like he’s melting, and he basically dissolves people. Naturally, Batman would show up and defeat Payne, though the most intriguing such story, one written by Alan Moore no less, had Payne finding love with a mannequin that he named Helena, and when Batman apprehended Payne again, he was set up in a cell at Arkham with Helena in something like domestic bliss.
That said, Payne would find real love later. After accidentally decapitating his mannequin girlfriend, he was recruited in a villain team called the “Mud Pack,” made up of all the Clayfaces, and the lone female Clayface, Sondra Fuller, sometimes called “Lady Clayface,” recruited Preston. The two fell in love and, since Sondra’s body was effectively immune to whatever was inside Preston, the pair were even able to have a baby named Cassius. You know, like Cassius Clay…
Ugh, bad pun.
As it is, both the Hagen and Basil Karlo Clayfaces have gotten more attention of late in various live action and animated adaptations. Payne was actually killed in Justice League: Cry for Justice when the villain Prometheus not only gave Payne full shapeshifting but also turned him into a living bomb to blow up Justice League headquarters that mostly seemed to take himself out. But when it comes to Clayfaces, well, he was the third and probably the most disgusting.
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