10 Darkest Endings In The DC Animated Universe

6. Clayface's Escape - Batman: The Animated Series

Batman the Animated Series Feat of Clay Ending
Warner Bros.

One of the best arcs in BTAS, Feat of Clay saw the introduction of Clayface and wasted no time at all in placing body horror front and centre. There's that awful bit where Matt Hagen gets the chemical mixture forcibly poured down his throat, and then of course the climax where the actor-turned-Clayface ends up reliving all his most famous roles in one fluid transformation.

It's a spectacular feat of animation, but it isn't the final note the episode ends on. Nope, the fine minds behind BTAS had one last horrifying surprise in store - after they'd finished luring everyone into a false sense of security, of course.

At the end of the episode, after Batman's defeated Clayface and it seems as though he's dead, we discover that Hagen has survived, as electricity actually has no adverse effect on his new form.

Immediately after Batman runs his tests on the sample, we see Clayface's friend Teddy mourning his death, while a woman watches in the background. The woman begins to laugh uncontrollably, as the pitch descends to a horrifying cackle, and her eyes turn Clayface yellow.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.