Feat of Clay (Part Two)

### **Plot**

In his trailer, Hagen remembers how be became addicted to Renuyu in the first place: he was horribly disfigured in a car crash years ago, and Max Shreck 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 Shreck'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, 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.

With revenge on his mind, Hagen reasons that Chip will send someone else to finish off Harvey Dent, and that person will lead Hagen back to Chip. He infiltrates the hospital disguised as a male nurse, intent on killing Chip's assassin, impersonating him and killing Chip 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 Dent. 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, supposedly an incurable disease, above Germs' head, and demands to know who impersonated Bruce Wayne for Chip. When Germs hesitates, Batman punches the wall, causing the vial to teeter on the edge. 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 over Germs. Batman asks for a second longer (revealing the vial to be mere seawater) 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 as Hagen escapes by throwing himself off the building and slithering away through the sewers.

Hagen, while hiding out at Teddy's house, makes his final plans to kill Chip, much to Teddy's objections. Hagen finally snaps, lashes out at Teddy and leaves.

On Vicki Vale's talk show, Chip  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 Chip about rumors she's heard that Renuyu is actually highly addictive and has harmful side effects. Chip, 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 Chip, but Batman arrives to stop him. Chip tries a run for it, but Batman subdues him and begins battling Hagen, who now calls himself Clay Face.

The fight carries up into the control room. Batman is no match for Clayface's powers, 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. Crashing into a panel, he screams as electricity surges through his body, and collapses. During his spastic transformations, his Bruce Wayne face appears long enough for Gordon to see it. Hagen's face briefly assumes its real — disfigured — appearance, and he laments that he has just had a spectacular death scene, but won't be able to read the reviews.

Later, with Chip in custody, Harvey Dent recovers and is relieved to know that the Bruce Wayne who attacked him was an imposter. Later on, Batman conducts test on a small piece of clay left behind after Hagen's body was taken away. He finds that electricity has no 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.

Teddy, in front of the hospital, grieves for Hagen's death, while Clayface, disguised as a young woman, laughs in dark glee as his voice deepens and his eyes glow yellow.