Feat of Clay

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Batman: The Animated Series episode
“Feat of Clay”
Episode no. Season 1
Episode 5 and 10
Writer(s) Marv Wolfman & Michael Reaves
Director Dick Sebast (Part II)
Kevin Altieri (Part II)
Original airdate September 8th and 9th, 1992
Episode chronology
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"Prophecy of Doom" "Joker's Favor"

Feat of Clay is the two-part episode of the American animated television series Batman: The Animated Series. First aired on September 9, 1992. It was written by Marv Wolfman & Michael Reaves. The teleplay of the first part was by Marv Wolfman and the second part was by Michael Reaves. The first part was directed by Dick Sebast and the second part was by Kevin Altieri.

The title is a play on words of a figure of speech — feet of clay — used to indicate a weakness or a hidden flaw in the character of a respected person:

   
“
 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image ... his feet part of iron and part of clay. ... And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
   
”

Contents

[edit] Plot Summary

[edit] Part One

A strange meeting takes place in an abandoned tramway station in Gotham, where the two parts involved are Lucius Fox and Bruce Wayne. Fox gives a suitcase full of evidence to Wayne, which incriminates Roland Daggett into an illegal scheme to take over Wayne Enterprises by insider trading. Unknown to Fox, a group of armed henchmen were waiting him to leave to execute him, before they were thwarted by Batman. The fake Wayne leaves, leaving behind a near-fatally wounded Lucius Fox, who gives the name of Wayne as the man who arranged the meeting. Then, it is revealed that the fake Wayne is actually Matt Hagen, a famed actor, who has developed a serious addiction to "Renuyu", a dangerous chemical developed by Daggett's laboratories, and which allows him to control his facial features, giving him any face he wants. After learning of the botched attempt on Fox's life, Daggett orders his henchmen Raymond Bell and Germs to cut Hagen's supply of Renuyu and dispose of him. Hagen is caught in the R&D section of Daggett Laboratories, again disguised as Wayne. Bell and Germs force an entire tank of Renuyu down his throat, apparently killing him before placing him inside his car and abandoning him. Batman pursues Bell in the Batwing and forces him, dumping his car to the river and holding him with a crane high above ground, to confess who was Fox meeting, but Bell faints before Batman can extract the information. Wayne enters the hospital where Fox is being kept and tries to clear his name, only to be arrested in the spot. Meanwhile, Teddy, Hagen's best friend, finds his car in an alley. Approaching, he realizes Hagen has become a living golem of protoplasmic clay, now dubbed Clayface.

[edit] Cast

Actor Role
Kevin Conroy Batman
Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Alfred Pennyworth
Ed Asner Roland Daggett
Ed Begley Jr. Germs
Mari Devon Summer Gleeson
Dick Gautier Teddy Lupus
Ron Perlman Matt Hagen/Clayface
Brock Peters Lucius Fox
Scott Valentine Raymond Bell

[edit] Part Two

Clayface remembers how he became addicted to Renuyu in the first place, remembering how he was horribly disfigured in a car crash years ago, and how Roland Daggett approached him originally with the purpose of being one of the testers for Renuyu, and how he was forced to accept any terms Daggett posed (often impersonating people in illegal roles) to get a constant supply of it. Now an animated mound of clay, he also remembers his past movies, and then he realizes he has acquired shapeshifting abilities, able to imitate any face, any garment, any voice, any shape. Despite this, he says he can no longer be an actor, as the necessary effort to maintain a specific shape takes too a heavy toll on him to be steady. He realizes that, if he wants Daggett, he must take out first whoever is sent to finish the recovering Lucius Fox. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne is released from prison on fine. Clayface follows the paranoid Germs and battles Batman when he tries to throw Germs off the roof of the hospital, after Germs confesses it was Hagen who impersonated Wayne. Batman, horrified at first at the extent of Clayface's powers, nevertheless realizes his true identity of Matt Hagen. He saves Germs, barely. Clayface finally snaps and disguises himself as an obese woman intending to apppear on Summer Gleeson's show, where Daggett is giving an interview about the wondrous properties of Renuyu, now used as a skin conditioner. Meanwhile, Batman sneaks into a TV control room in the set where Summer Gleeson is talking with Daggett. Clayface strikes and nearly kills Daggett after revealing the horrific powers of Renuyu, and Batman saves Daggett by battling Clayface. He lures Clayface into the TV control room and shows him multiple videos of his acting days, with multiple faces for each movie. Clayface apparently goes insane, incapable of controlling his body, and is apparently killed by electricity coming out of a TV set he tires to smash, after several police officers see his Bruce Wayne face. Later on, Batman discovers electricity has little to no effect on Hagen's remains, and is forced to conclude that Clayface is still alive. Teddy, in front of the hospital, grieves for Hagen's death, while Clayface, disguised as a young woman, laughs in dark glee.

[edit] Cast

Actor Role
Kevin Conroy Batman
Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Alfred Pennyworth
Ed Asner Roland Daggett
Ed Begley Jr. Germs
Mari Devon Summer Gleeson
Dick Gautier Teddy Lupus
Ron Perlman Matt Hagen/Clayface
Brock Peters Lucius Fox

[edit] Notes

  • This episode marks the first appearance of Clayface, Lucius Fox, and Roland Daggett.
  • The episode is Clayface's origin.
  • The poster in front of the movie theater that Hagen-as-Wayne walks by shows Hagen as a gangster in a fictional noir film called Gangbuster, a possible homage to Howard Hawks' Scarface.

[edit] Continuity Errors

  • When Daggett's enforcer Raymond Bell is first shown at the "meeting" of Fox and "Wayne," he isn't wearing his headphones, but in the first close-up of him right after Fox is pinned down and knocked unconsious, he suddenly has them on.
  • Upon Germs and Daggett's discovery of Hagen before the episode's first commercial break, they are both armed with guns, but afterwards, only Germs is shown holding a gun.
  • After using up the Renuyu cream, Hagen declares the jar is empty and flings it at the window. However, after he leaves, Teddy looks at the floor, and it is clearly seen that there is still some cream left in it.
  • During the fight with Clayface, one of Daggett's guards looses his hat when he is struck by Clayface, but in the next shot, it's back on his head.
  • When Batman goes to Hagen's trailer for clues, he finds the empty jar of Renuyu that Hagen threw at the window. The jar is much smaller and of a different color than what was used by Hagen earlier.
  • Upon his release from prison on bail in the second installment, Bruce tells Alfred that Bell claimed to have known nothing about who impersonated him, but in the first installment, Bell passed out before he could tell Batman anything.

[edit] Plot holes

  • When Daggett's henchmen catch Hagen in the laboratory stealing facial cream, he quickly uses it to morph his features into those of Bruce Wayne's. Surely he doesn't think that it will fool them, since they were with him the night he originally impersonated Wayne.
  • After Batman drops Bell from the Batwing into the pool, the police descend upon him and order him to surrender, claiming that he is under arrest. Even if they saw Bell's face, they had no reason to arrest him, since they don't even know who it is.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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