Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

The first trailer for Clayface is here and it’s a nightmare in the best of ways. Alasdair looks into the face of darkness and sees it shift…

0.13 – ‘Show Me’

That’s Tom Rhys Harries, who you probably know from the extraordinary Dot & Bubble from Doctor Who a couple of seasons ago. He’s also a part of the excellent Big Mood, and voices Prince Lucas in Wolf King.

Naomi Ackie can be seen next in the acclaimed I Love Boosters and has been part of the enormously fun Shelter, Mickey 17, horrific and excellent Blink Twice and Star Wars Episode IX where she was a dead tie with every other female character for being treated dismally. Nice to see her front and centre here.

0.13 – Hello Gotham

Is this the first time we’ve seen Gotham in the Gunn/Safran DCU? I feel like it is. Look at that magnificent Blade Runner pile of terrible industrial choices. I’ve missed it so.

0.20 – ‘FREAK!’

Starting with Hagen horribly scared, as we seem to be, is a smart idea. Good pulp always hits the ground running.

0.24 – Most Gifted

I had a play with the front cover of this delightfully Sight & Sound looking magazine. I’ve got four headlines:

FUTURE OF MUSIC

POWER PLAYERS

TECH NOW

PLUS

Under FUTURE OF MUSIC is ‘Lora de Thesis on the sounds of tomorrow’ which may be a call back all the way to Detective Comics Issue 38 where Lora de Thiessi is a singer used by her fiancé to pay off her gambling debts.

Under POWER PLAYS we have ‘Indie darlings to blockbuster debuts’.

Under TECH NOW we have ‘Science’s top thinkers paving the way’

I’ll bet you Matt finds Naomi Ackie’s character because she’s profiled in the same magazine, he’s on the cover of.

The names under PLUS are really fun.

Sophie Powell was the lead graphic designer on the movie.

Ashes on Sunday is a punk band fronted by Dinah Drake, also known as Dinah Lance, also known as Black Canary. Canary’s FUN, a legacy hero with a deeply laconic sense of humour, sonic superpowers and a lifetime of martial arts training. She’s currently based in Gotham in the comics alongside her billionaire archer superhero husband Green Arrow. The last time we saw her on screen she was played by Jussie Smollett in the criminally under-appreciated Birds of Prey and if Gunn and Safran bring her back I will stand up and applaud.

Blister Twister is a deep DEEP cut. They were a KISS-looking band who appeared in ‘The Sound of Silence’, in Batman Issue 412 in October, 1987.

Lucy Haley was a set decorator on the movie. I love stuff like this.

Deliana doesn’t have a solid map over but there are two characters with similar names. Dylana Dean aka ‘Hurl Girl’ is a Harley Quinn character who uses vomit to melt opponents, fly through the sky or dig tunnels. Eliana is an Amazon sparring partner of young Diana, who has only featured in the Wonder Woman movie novelisation. If I had to guess I’d say this is neither of them, but Hurl Girl is kind of in keeping.

0.26 – Stockport goes Gotham

That’s the Stockport Plaza as the Gotham Plaza which I love.

0.28 – ‘You’re FAMOUS’

Something slightly uncanny about this sequence, that makes me wonder if it’s a flashback. It may also be the uncanny resemblance to Angelina Jolie we see here.

0.34 – Max Minghella

Genre stalwart Max Minghella as John. You’ve seen him before in everything from Spiral to The Handmaid’s Tale and shortly in the new series of The White Lotus.

0.36 – The first of several points where you will want to look away.

No punches pulled here as we see Matt get scarred in real time.

0.41 – Coast City’s New Leading Man

So we know the movie’s set in Gotham but Matt’s from Coast City! Interesting, that sets up a whole East/West cultural divide that goes some way towards explaining the trouble we see him in.

0.49 – ‘Even if it kills me, I’ll be better off than I am now.’

Oh, buddy. Also, warning for needles.

1.07 – ‘I feel great, actually.’

This cannot possibly end well.

1.16 – Too, too solid flesh

Oh, I LOVE this. I love that it’s a simple, understandable gesture and it messes him up in some horrific ways

1.23 – Where are his eyes?!

Are they in there? Or have they been recessed into his head?

1.28 – Warning for scissors

OH GOD THIS IS HORRIBLE

1.39 – Twisted Memories Family Arcade

LEN’S CHICKEN may be a nod to Len Wein, legendary Batman creative and one of the creators of Sondra Fuller, also known as Lady Clay, one of the Clayfaces that followed Hagen.

1.51 – ‘The justice system failed me’

Clayface as an aggrieved victim turned pseudo-vigilante makes a ton of sense. Especially as I said with the East Coast/West Coast divide they’re setting up.

1.58 – Clayface

The full Clayface look we get a snippet of here is glorious body horror. Just gooey and uncanny. I love it.

2.08 – The Perk

Possibly the single perk to Matt’s condition is one we see here. He gets punched and all that happens is his face distorts.

2.16 – Clayface

The bestial, enormous form Clayface is best known for is hinted at a few times but here we flat out see it. Matt’s not human anymore and he seems just fine with that.

Song

One last note. That’s a distended and mournful remix of Do You Realise? by The Flaming Lips

Clayface releases 23 October. Can’t WAIT.