It’s impossible to talk about Clayface, the character, the villain who’s part of Batman’s rogues’ gallery, without talking about his depiction in Batman: The Animated Series . And it’s hard to talk about Clayface , the new DC Studios film from director James Watkins , without talking about the shadow cast by that character-defining arc in BTAS , a standout, somehow, among not just a frankly absurd number of high points in that improbable children’s show, but among any Batman story ever told.

For one thing, Clayface borrows BTAS ‘ Clayface retcon, taking elements of the backstory of Basil Karlo, the first iteration of Clayface to appear in Detective Comics , and mashing them up with elements of the origin story of Matt Hagen, the second version of Clayface to grace the pages of Detective Comics . In Clayface , as in Batman: The Animated Series , Matt Hagen is a down-on-his-luck actor who seeks a way to restore his old face after he’s left with severe facial scars.…