Batman #550

CHASING CLAY

Cassius Payne, Clayface IV, is captive in the Department of Extranormal Operations laboratory. The doctor Peter Malley is experimenting with Clayface to unravel the mystery behind the Clayfaces. Malley takes a piece of Cassius' skin which is clay instead of normal skin. Malley puts the piece in a glass vase and starts to record some background on the Clayface case. While he is recording the past history of the formers Clayfaces, the piece of clay inside the glass starts to move in a weird way. It seems that the piece of Cassius' skin is alive itself. Doctor Malley doesn't notice this and he continues working on his recording. The clay starts to burn a side of the glass and makes a hole in it. The clay moves out of the vase and Malley realizes that the clay is gone. Malley freaks out and starts to look for the clay everywhere. The clay is in an upper pipe and jumps down over Malley. On contact, the clay starts to fuse with Malley and transforms into a new clay-like being. A guard overhears the noises and enters the room to see what is happening. The guard faces a monster and when the guard shoots the monster's head three times, the bullets just pass through without harming the clay person. The monster looks at the gun in the guard's hand and starts to melt it without even touching it. Then he melts one of the walls and escapes the facility looking for his "mommy and daddy in Gotham". Cassius feels that a part of him is leaving him and wants to be freed to follow it to Gotham. The clay-thing melts a car's door and starts his journey to Gotham City.  At the D.E.O. building, the medics are trying to separate the melted gun off the guard's hand, but it is all in vain. They need to amputate the arm before more organs are compromised. Sandra Barret is told by the guard that the clay-thing is headed for Gotham and she asks for any agent available in that city. She is told that the only available agent is Cameron Chase; a rookie that has just been hired.  The D.E.O. contact Chase when she is on her way to Gotham to visit her sister Terry Chase. They tell her that her sister will receive a fax with all the information about the case she is assigned. When Cameron arrives to her sister's home, they discuss Terry's admiration of superheroes and Cameron reproached her that attitude towards what she believed to be metahumans and aliens to society. Cameron reads all the needed information on the Clayface case and she is ready to start working over it.  Meanwhile in Gotham there is already a report of a missing police officer. Harvey Bullock investigated the case and the place where the officer was last seen. The officer's car is near a shapeless mass on the ground. Bullock tells an officer to take a sample of the stuff to the forensic laboratory. Batman is nearby the scene and decides to take a sample of it as well. Meanwhile, the Clay-thing already in Gotham has emptied the car's gasoline and pulls off to charge some more. The owner of the gas station is freaked out at the sight of the monster and runs away in fear. Clay-thing is shocked as well and melts the entire gas station just by staring at it. Then it begins to walk away to find his pare