How Clayface's DCU origin is drawing parallels to his Batman: The Animated Series counterpart

Clayface is playing in theaters across the world, and as that happens, people are looking at the inspiration for the DCU movie. For the uninitiated, the DCU body horror mostly draws on "Feat of Clay", the two-part episode of Batman: The Animated Series.

As people are watching the movie, we at Soap Central would like to take you back to the classic animated episode. Batman: The Animated Series was the first to make the Matt Hagen incarnation of the shape-shifting supervillain an actor. Until then, the title of "Clayface" belonged to Basil Karlo, an actor, and Matt Hagen, a treasure hunter.

Clayface and Feat of Clay: How do the two origins track?

Feat of Clay serves as the origin tale of the DCAU (DC Animated Universe) Clayface as we are introduced to Matt Hagen, an actor with a disfigured face. Industrialist Roland Daggett creates a face cream that gives Matt his good looks, but it also enables the actor to take on any appearance he wants. Daggett hires Hagen to impersonate Bruce Wayne and kill Wayne Enterprises executive Lucius Fox.

By killing Fox and blaming it on Bruce, Daggett hopes to take over Wayne Enterprises. Fox survives this ambush, and the real Bruce Wayne is arrested. Meanwhile, Hagen is running out of the cream, and he breaks into Daggett's factory to steal the cream. But Matt Hagen is discovered, and Daggett's henchmen force the cream into the actor's mouth, mutating him into Clayface.

Clayface also takes a page right out of the DCAU and makes Matt Hagen the actor. However, there is no face cream involved in the movie. Instead, the inciting incident is crime lord Markos Szabo carving Matt's face. The actor had hooked up with Szabo's girlfriend, Mia Torrez, the previous night, which is why the mob boss attacked Matt.

After failing to obtain any legal compensation, Matt approaches Dr. Caitlyn Corr for an experimental treatment, which gives him his good looks back. But his face begins to melt, pushing him to inject himself with the formula again. This action gives him his appearance back, but it also enables him to heal from any injury.

Thus begins Matt's descent into villainy, which we saw the character express in Creature Commandos. The former rising star begins to avenge his attack by killing off everyone responsible, including Szabo and Mia. However, he crosses a line when he murders Caitlyn's romantic partner John Borrelli out of jealousy and professes his love for her.

But Caitlyn rejects him and triggers the "kill switch", resulting in Matt's body falling apart. However, Caitlyn isn't convinced that Matt is gone for good, and the last scene of the movie confirms it, as Matt imagines a conversation with the doctor and screams in agony.

How does the movie fit into the overall DCU?

The movie is surprisingly largely self-contained. DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran confirmed in an Entertainment Weekly interview this summer that Tom Rhys Harries's version of Matt Hagen is the same one we saw in Creature Commandos Episode 5. However, the events of this movie take place before Creature Commandos. The film, however, doesn't include shout-outs to the events of the DCU.

Even though many fans initially thought that we may get the DCU Batman in the movie, that's not the case.

"Matt Hagen’s meteoric rise from Gotham street kid to Hollywood leading man is tragically cut short when a local crime boss’s actions leave him horribly disfigured. Abandoned by his team and with nothing left, Matt seeks out a cutting edge treatment that miraculously returns him to his former self… but also unexpectedly affects his grip on reality, spiraling him down a destructive path of all-consuming revenge."