Batman: TAS, episode #5: Feat of Clay, part 2

Part 2 starts out in solid noir fashion, with Bruce's grayscale mug shots reminding everyone of what's at stake here for our main character. This is the continuation of the subtle aspect of Clayface that I mentioned last time. However, once we're past that moment, the episode takes a pretty sharp turn away from that outdated quandary that I mentioned and jumps in with both feet on the super-powered fireworks. This version of Clayface is considerably more massive and powerful than the Clayface II of yore, who could make rudimentary shapes like this one, but not to the point where he was busting through walls or causing widespread destruction more like The Sandman of Marvel fame. This rather quickly results in the scenario that Batman, actual human in a superhuman world, runs into fairly often: Fighting a losing battle until he can use his wits to defeat his obviously superior opponent. This is pretty standard superhero fare and a good argument for The Batman's appeal over demigods like Superman, where writers would have to constantly ramp up the experience in order to provide some tension in a fight with the man who could do anything. To the writers' credit (Marv Wolfman is only on the story for this part, with Michael Reaves taking over scripting duties), they handle this fairly well, in that this is the far more exciting of the two episodes, even if it does end up being bog-standard comic book beatdown.

However, unlike Heart of Ice (which, at the moment, shall be the stick by which we measure most of what follows), the story pretty quickly descends to revolving solely around dealing with the super-powered menace. Daggett is present to be hoisted upon the public petard by a disguised Clayface and Bruce is let off the hook by the especially convenient deus ex machina of Clayface appearing as Bruce in front of some cops while he's losing control of his (new) bodily functions, but it's mostly about the punching and the exploding... which is fine. This is an adventure story, as most superhero stories are and the most exciting parts about Heart of Ice were when ice was blasting all over the place. Also, once again, we're reminded that a lot of the interest in Batman stories is generated by the strangeness of the opposition against The Batman's implacable will. That's part of this package, as well. But for a story that's ostensibly rooted in betrayal and vanity, we lose those elements pretty quickly. The one saving grace is the "I'm not dead yet!" moment at the end, where we discover that Hagen has actually escaped. However, a note about character.

I didn't really mention Germs in my post about part 1 because he wasn't nearly as important to the story as Bell was (the thug that The Batman was flying around the city with the Batwing.) It was clear that he was a germophobe when he used a handkerchief on doorknobs, but it seemed like an odd, even out-of-place, detail. His role was expanded in this episode and it became a minor part of the plot when arguing with Daggett about Germs' hesitation to enter a hospital. It became an even larger part of the plot when he ended up being interrogated by The Batman in an infectious disease closet(!) in that hospital. I'm trying to put aside the utter absurdity of that situation, but I just can't. Storing deadly diseases in a functioning hospital is- how shall we say? -somewhere between 'stupid' and 'insane', if not both, to say nothing of the fact that it was a closet that anyone (like a random thug on the run) could walk into, rather than a vault where such things are normally stored. So, with Germs, we went from minor and odd detail to interesting character element in the plot to an obviously totally staged situation where it seemed like they worked backward from a scenario they wanted and invented Germs in order to make it work. That, to me, is simply not sound storytelling. It's staged. It's clumsy. It's a pretty far cry from the care that was taken in the first three episodes. Ordinarily, you want your characters to have a bit more foundation besides "invented to make an absurd scene seem natural", especially when the premise of the scene really doesn't work at all.

That said, it's at least a more interesting scenario than flying someone over the city and dropping him from such a height that even landing in water will almost certainly be fatal. The tension created by the rocking specimen jar is good and the art direction, going from the queasy green of the infectious disease closet(!) to the glaring red sky as Clayface attempts to murder Germs is a good transition, as it ramps up the tension nicely. What follows is an interesting technical detail, when Clayface splatters on the ground but erupts with pseudopods and then emits sounds reminiscent of the creature in John Carpenter's version of The Thing. You wonder if some of these little tweaks were nods to sci-fi fans and a lot of them seem to be clearly intended. In contrast, you also occasionally wonder at their estimation of the intelligence of their audience, with The Batman adopting the worst disguise ever, cowl still fully visible under his maintenance man uniform, walking through a TV studio in use with people all around him. Scooby-Doo could have done better. He adopted a full disguise as a security guard in Heart of Ice. Why not here? On top of that, I confess to finding Teddy Lupus' loyalty to the misshapen monster that was his friend a little bizarre. Yes, you want to stand by your best friend and comfort him however you can. But he's also Ben Grimm after he got back from space. You can take a moment to be perturbed, since that's the point of him appearing like that for all of us.

It's worth mentioning some of the star power that came along with this episode, however, as it was apparent that people of note were already signing on to participate in the cool, new animated series. In addition to Ron Perlman (the Beast from "Beauty and") as Clayface, Ed Asner was the voice behind Daggett and Ed Begley, Jr. played Germs. Those names don't mean as much now, but they were serious stars back in the day. That said, it's safe to say that I was relatively unimpressed with this two-parter, overall. Every series is going to have its stronger and weaker episodes. It may have just been unfortunate that Feat of Clay came right after one of the best. But I think its flaws run a little deeper than that.

Next time, we're into something a bit more mundane than shapeshifting monsters, with It's Never Too Late.

Batman: TAS, episode #4: Feat of Clay, part 1

One of the most exciting opening moments in Feat of Clay is when the credits are shown. Story by Marv Wolfman (and Michael Reaves.) Teleplay by Marv Wolfman. Marv Wolfman! For anyone familiar with the comics world, that's a name numbered among royalty. He was a central figure in Marvel's horror comics explosion in the early 70s, after the Comics Code was neutered to the point of irrelevance; creating or co-creating many characters, including such Hollywood notables as Blade. He eventually became editor of their black-and-white line and also editor-in-chief of the whole studio and continued writing throughout his tenure there. When he moved to DC, he co-created The New Teen Titans with George Perez (one of DC's best titles in the 80s) and also Crisis on Infinite Earths, the first attempt at remaking DC's hackneyed history into something coherent and at least mildly intelligent (which was, of course, resisted by much of the old guard.) He also tried his hand at Superman and several other projects (a personal favorite was the revival of Dial 'H' for Hero with Carmine Infantino) and, of course, The Batman. Marv Wolfman! Here's someone who would really understand the nature and pacing of the character, right? Here's someone who could demonstrate just how similar comics and animation can be, right? Right?

Well... Let me preface this by saying that Marv is a great writer and there are many other hands in the pot of making a cartoon, just as there are a comic. Among them are animators, directors, and producers. So I think the plot of Feat of Clay is spot on for the nature of the series. This is a story about corporate subterfuge, already an established theme, but also about multiple kinds of betrayal, double-dealing, vanity, and what happens when you get in over your head. That screams "noir" from the rooftops, which means it's right in line with what the series has already demonstrated. When I mentioned that episode #2 (On Leather Wings) tried to establish elements that perhaps required more space in which to breathe, Feat of Clay is kind of the perfect answer. The audience needs time to digest the ideas of both Clayface/Matt Hagen using his abilities to set up Bruce Wayne and the latter suffering the effects of that deceit. That pretty much requires a slower-paced approach to let those stories germinate properly. But this episode might have overdone it. Where episode #3 (Heart of Ice) went from action involving not only Mr. Freeze's henchmen but his outrageous technology, we spend quite some time in Feat watching The Batman struggle against routine thugs; one of whom takes down the unarmed combat master in the most routine of methods and threatens him with the giant gears of an abandoned railway system. Not exactly gripping when compared with the previous adventures.

Then we shift pace somewhat, as The Batman pursues one of those routine thugs in the Tim Burton-inspired Batwing, which essentially becomes a multiple-minute commercial for a toy, if not Burton's first Batman film. You can draw a parallel to extended car scenes from noir classics like The Postman Always Rings Twice or The Chase, so I think the thematic approach had some foundation. But it also becomes kind of tedious, especially when you realize that it seems like the room to breathe for other elements of the story may have been crimped by this and the train station fight or it may not have been necessary at all to stretch Feat of Clay over two episodes in the first place. My guess is that they realized that they had more story than one episode could hold, so they padded it out to two with these extended "action" scenes that don't really live up to the standards that the series had already set. The villain, however, is another matter.

We don't get to see a great deal of Clayface in action, but the character has a long and varied history with The Batman, such that there have been no less than 9(!) different versions of it. Not only can Clayface disguise himself as other people, he can confuse you as to which version of Clayface he/she/they really are. Matt Hagen is the one originally termed Clayface II because he was different from Basil Karlo (Does that sound like 'Boris Karloff'? Yes. Yes, it does.), the original Clayface who fought the 1940s Batman of Earth-2 (Don't ask. That reference to Crisis on Infinite Earths above? Seriously. If you don't know, it's OK.) But Clayface II also existed contemporaneously with Clayface III, whom I mentioned last time. Most of the Clayfaces are the shapeshifting-themselves type. III shapeshifted other people (as in, he dissolved them) while wearing an exoskeleton to keep himself from falling apart. So, a bit more visceral, but far more direct.

Clayface II is left page, third from right, behind The Penguin; Clayface III is right page, center, in the blue outfit.

The issue with Clayface most of the time is that subtle psychological power that his abilities convey. It doesn't lend itself to slam-bang action for which most comics were known, but it does create situations that would have massive effects out here in the real world. The plot of Feat of Clay is attempting to convey that. History is replete with examples of what the manipulation of public opinion can do (the latest example in the US was just last week...) But those efforts take time to set up, which isn't usually conducive to 24-page chunks of story that come out once a month and in which many people are expecting said slam-bang action. This is the challenge that villains like Clayface and Marvel's Mastermind, as well as heroes like Princess Projectra typically had in comics. Casting illusions or manipulating one's image are powers of subtlety, not the kind you use in the midst of the big fight on page 18. But when portrayed properly (see: Chris Claremont's use of Mastermind in the Dark Phoenix saga of X-Men or Keith Giffen's Shrinking Violet storyline in Legion of Super-Heroes; both of these in the 80s when comic audiences were more interested in stories of that type), they can create far more interesting tales than the typical slugfest over the content of a bank's vault.

So, that's likely the foundation for the pacing of this episode, but I'd still argue that they overdid it a bit. It wasn't helped by the generally stiffer appearance of the animation from whichever studio Fox had contracted this episode out to. There are a couple moments in the (endless) Batwing flight where you can almost see the spots where a couple frames must have been clipped out, as the action jerks from one moment to the next. This is a marked contrast to the fluidity displayed in the prior offerings. It was kind of encouraging to hear The Batman be not always so droll in his encounters with the opposition, referring to one as a "Dirtbag!". It was also entertaining to see him using what was basically the face-identification technology from For Your Eyes Only to remember one of Daggett's thugs, which was, of course, wholly appropriate for a story about Clayface. But it's certainly fair to say that this episode was a bit of a step down.

We'll see how this wraps up in Feat of Clay, part 2, next time.