Clayface

Preston Payne is the third Clayface, a tragic figure who gained a melting touch after injecting himself with the blood of the second Clayface, Matt Hagen. Unable to control his disfiguring power, he became a monstrous Batman villain and frequent Arkham Asylum inmate.

Preston Payne is right there in the same stories, which tells you something about the dark, monstrous corner of Gotham this Clayface calls home — a Bronze Age villain who slithered onto the scene in Detective Comics #479 in 1978, courtesy of Len Wein and Marshall Rogers. Over four decades of DC publishing, this incarnation of the Clayface legacy has haunted the halls of Arkham Asylum alongside Batman, the Joker, and even Green Lantern, cementing a reputation as one of comics' most enduring figures of dread. With a collector-significant key issue to their name and a presence stretching from 1978 all the way to 2020, this is a character whose staying power in the Batman mythos is impossible to ignore. If Arkham Asylum is your favorite address in Gotham, this is essential reading.