"Feat of Clay: Part II" is the twenty-first episode of the first season of Batman: The Animated Series, and the second of a two-part episode. It originally aired on Fox Kids in the United States on September 9, 1992.
Synopsis[]
In his trailer, Hagen remembers how he became addicted to Renuyu in the first place: he was horribly disfigured in a car crash years ago, and Daggett approached him, offering to let him be a test subject for Renuyu. Hagen eagerly accepted, knowing that the substance could change his face in seconds, while plastic surgery would take years to correct his disfigurement. But after he became addicted, he became Daggett's henchman, often impersonating people illegally, just to keep his supply constant.
Now an animated mound of clay, he also remembers his past movies and successes, and Teddy is surprised to see his face changing to a normal human's as he walks past his various movie posters. Hagen stops and practices, realizing that now he can imitate any face, any garment, any voice, any shape. Teddy is exultant, believing that Hagen can make another comeback, but Hagen bellows that the shape shifting takes too much effort, and he can't keep it up for long before breaking down in tears that his career is truly over this time.
With revenge on his mind, Hagen reasons that Daggett will send someone else to finish off Lucius Fox, and that person will lead Hagen back to Daggett. He infiltrates the hospital disguised as a male nurse, intent on killing Daggett's assassin, impersonating him and killing Daggett in the disguise.
Meanwhile, Bruce is released from prison on bail, thanks to some phone calls by Alfred. Batman also infiltrates the hospital and catches Germs in the act of trying to smother Fox. Germs flees, but is cornered, to his horror, in a storage closet holding a vast collection of bacteriological and virological samples. Batman places one of these vials, supposedly containing crimson fever (but actually mere seawater), above Germs' head, and demands to know who impersonated Bruce Wayne for Daggett. Germs breaks down and gives Hagen's name, but before he can reveal how Hagen impersonated Bruce, a police officer enters and demands Batman hand Germs over. Batman asks for a second longer, but the officer attacks him with a massive clay arm, revealing himself to be Hagen, and abducts Germs.
Taking him to the roof of the hospital, Hagen is about to throw him off the edge, but Germs is rescued by Batman. While Hagen tries to imitate Batman, he is unable to do it fully, and instead attacks him with an array of assorted weapons, from a fork to a massive block of solid clay. Batman, horrified at first at the extent of Hagen's powers, nevertheless realizes his true identity. He barely saves Germs and briefly fights Hagen. Hagen gains the upper hand by transforming his hands into various weapons to attack Batman and almost throws him off the building, but the constant shapeshifting takes its toll on Hagen's mind, forcing him to flee by jumping off the building and slithering away through the sewers when the police approach. Germs is left on the roof most likely to face the police.
Hagen, while hiding out at Teddy's house, makes his final plans to kill Daggett, much to Teddy's objections. Hagen finally snaps, lashes out at Teddy and leaves.
On Summer Gleeson's talk show, Daggett is giving an interview about the wondrous properties of Renuyu, as an instant and over-the-counter alternative to cosmetic surgery. An obese woman stands up in the audience, asking Daggett about rumors she's heard that Renuyu is actually highly addictive and has harmful side effects. Daggett, sweating slightly, denies any such thing, but then the woman asks him to demonstrate what an overdose of the stuff will do — and reveals herself as Hagen, much to the audience's horror.
Batman sneaks into the studio's control room. Hagen strikes and nearly kills Daggett, but Batman arrives to stop him. Daggett tries a run for it, but Batman subdues him and begins battling Hagen, who now calls himself, "Clayface".
The fight carries up into the control room. Batman is no match for Clayface's powers and is almost killed, but then he plugs a tape in and turns on all the monitors. Clayface is deluged with images of himself from his acting days and he loses control as his body reflexively starts to imitate all of them at once. During his spastic transformations, his Bruce Wayne face appears long enough for arriving police officers to see it. Crashing into a panel, he screams as electricity surges through his body and finally collapses. Hagen's face briefly assumes its real — disfigured — appearance, and he laments to Batman that he has just had a spectacular death scene, but won't be able to read the reviews.
Later, with Daggett in custody, Lucius Fox recovers and is relieved to know that the Bruce Wayne who attacked him was an impostor, while the charges against Wayne are dropped. Later on, Batman conducts test on a small piece of clay left behind after Hagen's body was taken away. He finds that electricity, while causing it to randomly morph, has no lethal effect on it, and, alongside Clayface's cryptic description of his death as a "scene," comes to the terrible conclusion that Clayface is still alive.
In the morgue, Clayface's strangely hollow corpse crumbles into dust. Teddy, in front of the hospital, grieves for Hagen's death, while a young woman laughs in dark glee as her voice deepens into that of Clayface and her eyes glow yellow, revealing herself as Clayface in disguise.
Cast[]
- Kevin Conroy as Batman
- Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Alfred
- Ed Asner as Roland Daggett
- Ed Begley Jr. as Germs
- Mari Devon as Summer Gleeson
- Dick Gautier as Teddy
- Ron Perlman as Clayface
- Brock Peters as Lucius Fox
Gallery[]
See also[]
External links[]
- "Feat of Clay: Part II" at Batman: The Animated Series Wiki
- "Feat of Clay: Part II" at DC Animated Universe Wiki
- "Feat of Clay: Part II" at IMDb