Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Batman: Resurrection

Clayface has just joined the universe of Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) with a new twist 35 years later. 2024 is a good time to be a Batman fan: there’s a Joker movie – okay, so it’s maybe not for everyone – HBO’s The Penguin is an exceptional spin-off to Matt Reeves’ universe, and now Batman: Resurrection is continuing Burton’s dark take on Gotham City and the Dark Knight. The novel expands Michael Keaton’s Batman movie timeline so well that it’s a tragedy it probably can’t be remade for the screen.

Written by frequent Star Wars and Star Trek writer John Jackson Miller, Resurrection is out now, and picks up some months after Joker’s death at the end of Batman. Jack Nicholson’s version of the Joker remains one of the two best iterations in live-action Batman movies, and his gruesome end robbed the world of more of his story. Batman: Resurrection fixes that disappointment by exploring more of the idea of the Joker, and introduces iconic DC villain Clayface.

Batman: Resurrection Continues Batman 1989’s Story

The New Sequel Deals With The Fallout Of Joker’s Reign Of Terror

Batman: Resurrection follows Michael Keaton’s version of Batman as he investigates more crimes in Gotham linked to the Joker and wrestles with his own psyche. Urgent clues – partly from his own nightmares from the night Joker died – tell him he missed something about that fateful confrontation at Gotham Cathedral, and he just about convinces himself that Joker may not be dead at all.

The novel cleverly answers some of the more pressing questions left unanswered by both Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), including dealing with Vicki Vale’s disappearance, and one particularly persistent plot hole from the original. Familiar characters return, while there are supporting appearances by Max Shreck (Christopher Walken) and Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer), and entirely new characters.

Those include celebrity psychologist Hugh Auslander, who is on the frontlines seeking a cure for Joker’s Smylex epidemic, and one Karlo Babić, a struggling actor better known by his stage name, Basil Karlo. That name, of course, will be familiar to DC fans as the real name of the first version of tragic DC villain Clayface, who ranks as one of Batman’s most famous villains, but has never appeared in live-action.

Joker Created Clayface In Tim Burton’s Continued Story

Basil Karlo Is Still An Actor, But He’s Created By Something Familiar

In Batman: Resurrection, Karlo is an aspiring actor who works as an understudy to arrogant prig Tolliver Kingston, a former soap star turned Gotham leading man. And because Resurrection deals with the fallout of Joker’s attacks on Gotham and the tainted cosmetic products he flooded into the streets, Karlo’s supervillain origin comes courtesy of Smylex.

Horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan revealed that he pitched DC a Clayface movie.

This version of Karlo is unwittingly infected by Smylex-infused make-up thanks to Kingston, transforming him into a new version of Clayface – a nickname cruelly given to him by Gotham’s ever-sympathetic residents – who can manipulate his features and mimic anyone he targets. He uses his under-appreciated acting skills to further those performances, and draws the attention of Batman initially thanks to a series of petty crimes. It’s all very over-zealous by Bruce Wayne at first, honestly.

Naturally, things escalate as Karlo unravels, and Batman: Resurrection does an excellent job of digging into the psychology of Gotham (and wider crowd mentality) as it attempts to heal after the Joker’s terrorism. It’s an interesting idea that hasn’t been explored directly in Batman movies, but which channels the same idea of the irresistible draw of symbols that Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy ending adopted.

The newly-crowned Clayface is a victim cast as a monster, adding an even more tragic strand to his traditional DC story. Miller’s take on the character is a stark reminder of just how much potential there is for a character like Clayface to come to live-action. He is the perfect embodiment of the dark underside of Gotham that the elite class work hard to hide, and the fury of its forgotten people.

How Clayface’s New Origin Is Different From The Comics (& Why It’s So Perfect)

Batman: Resurrection Makes Clayface More Of A Tragic Figure

Early on, Miller draws a close parallel between Karlo and Shakespeare’s Caliban, another tragic monster from literature (The Tempest). His version of Clayface differs from the comics original because his transformation is very much an accident of circumstances, rather than him becoming a killer because of an attack on his ego.

In DC Comics lore, Basil Karlo was a B-list actor driven mad by a Hollywood snub, who adopts the identity of Clayface – a character he played in a movie – to enact revenge on the cast of the movie he was sidelined from. He didn’t have the mimicry superpower, or the immediately recognizable clay-like appearance until a Post-Crisis rewrite saw him take on the powers of Matt Hagen (the second, probably more recognizable Clayface).

In the New 52, Basil Karlo’s origin was rewritten, and he became Clayface thanks to a chemical created by Penguin. In DC Rebirth, the chemical – Re-Nu – is an industrial acting make-up that he unwittingly abuses. Both versions turn him into clay.

Batman: Resurrection‘s version of Karlo is the perfect way to fit him into Tim Burton’s Batman universe. He was already a great fit, given his monstrous look, but Miller’s image of Gotham still languishing in the shadow of Joker’s crimes ties the threads together immaculately. Not only does it offer an easy answer to Clayface’s physical transformation, but it allows for a wider commentary on Gotham’s perverse adulation of the unworthy.

It also unpicks Gotham’s apparent obsession with human symbols like both Batman and the Joker in a way that feels even more relevant in 2024. How Clayface is treated becomes a larger commentary on mob mentality, aesthetics, and how Joker fundamentally changed Gotham. Even Batman becomes part of the problem.

Miller deftly explores why Joker was popular even among those he would seek to victimize, and introduces copycat followers – named the Last Laughs, pleasantly – to take that even further. So even as Batman seeks to fight the remnants of Joker’s gang, he’s also forced to deal with Smylex’s grim legacy in a broad sense and also the very real case of Clayface. It’s a great story that will make Batman (1989) fans wish Burton had access to it back in 1990.

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