Slightly Misplaced Comic Book Characters Case File #517: Lady Clayface

There’s been, like, five different versions of Clayface.  The most prominent ones are the actors who become shapeshifting piles of mud.  Last time, I covered one with a toxic touch.  He was the third.  The fourth was also different.

That one was a woman!

First appearing in Outsiders #21 in July of 1987 in a story by writer Mike W. Barr and artwork by Jim Aparo, the Clayface sometimes called “Lady Clayface” to tell her apart from the other Clayfaces was one Sondra Fuller.  She was changed into a shapeshifting pile of mud by the Kobra cult and then set on the Outsiders.  Like most Clayfaces, Sondra could change shapes.  Unlike most Clayfaces, she could also copy at least some superpowers.  She could make wings that would fly, shoot off blades from said wings, and even at one point took the form and mental powers of the Outsider Looker.

It was that last power that got Sondra recruited to Basil Karlo’s “Mud Pack” team of all the Clayfaces working together as the mind control was needed to bring Preston Payne, the one with the corrosive touch, onboard with Karlo’s plan.  However, Karlo was mostly looking to steal the powers of the other Clayfaces by stealing a bit o’ blood, and that plan worked before Batman and the real Looker defeated Basil.

As for Sondra, she and Preston actually fell in love and had a baby that they named Cassius as in “Cassius Clay.”  That’s…clever?  Maybe?

Cassius was later taken hostage by a serial killer named Abattoir to try and force his parents to try and kill Batman, only this was the Azrael-Batman, so it didn’t work out well for anyone, possibly including the reader.  From there, Lady Clayface hasn’t been seen much aside from a very small role in Doomsday Clock, and that story may not even count for all I know.  It’s not like they did more with the ideas contained in it since then, right?

Anyway, that’s Lady Clayface.  Should I cover another?  Well, maybe if I get stuck for the next entry.