1.12: "The Rubberface of Comedy"
Author:Jett May 8, 2010
SYNOPSIS THE BATMAN's Two Face is Clayface.
INFO
Season 1/Episode 12 -- "The Rubberface of Comedy" -- was written by Greg Weisman and directed by Sam Liu. It originally aired on Saturday April 30, 2005.
REVIEW
THE BATMAN’s incarnation of The Joker returns in “The Rubberface of Comedy.” Not only does The Joker return, but Clayface begins in what amounts to an origin story for one of Batman’s few super-powered rogues.
Basically, The Joker has developed a chemical which turns anything it’s sprayed on into putty. Thus, it’s known as “Joker Putty.” Armed with this new weapon, The Joker and his henchmen -- Punch and Judy -- go on a crime spree in Gotham City.
As the Gotham City Police Department go after The Joker, Chief Rojas orders that they also bring in The Batman. Seems he doesn’t take kindly to mask vigilantes outdoing the GCPD.
The review continues after the jump!
As I said previously, this episode features the origin of THE BATMAN’s version Clayface. If you were a regular viewer of this series, then you know that Bruce Wayne’s best buddy is GCPD police detective Ethan Bennett -- one of the cops that’s been assigned to take down The Batman.
That sorta put’s ’ol Bruce in a tight spot, right?
But just when Bennett is starting to come around to The Dark Knight, something happens that changes everything for the detective. While attempting to apprehend The Joker, Bennett gets hit with The Clown Prince of Crime’s “Joker Putty.” The chemical proceeds to transform Bennett into some sort of shape-shifter. He, of course, becomes the Bat-Villain…
CLAYFACE!
Ethan Bennett and Clayface from THE BATMAN
While I’m not that big of a fan of the character, I do think that the folks behind THE BATMAN came up with a pretty cool -- and somewhat tragic -- interpretation of Clayface. Also, there’s quite a bit of a Harvey Dent/Two Face influence at hand here as well. Rumor has it that Harvey/TF was “embargoed” by Warner Bros. which prevented them from using him in THE BATMAN. Consequently, this Ethan Bennett/Clayface sorta IS TB’s “Harvey Dent/Two Face” substitute. If so, fine -- I did kinda like this Ethan Bennett -- but Clayface ain’t no Two Face. Anyway…
Not a bad episode of THE BATMAN actually. The tragic nature of the storyline certainly made it a tad darker than most. As “The Rubberface of Comedy” is actually the first of a THE BATMAN two-parter, I’ll continue my summary/review in the next installment of this ongoing series.
GRADE: B
Bill Ramey -- AKA "Jett" -- is the founder of BATMAN-ON-FILM.COM.
