Preston Payne

Preston Payne is a male comic supervillain who features in DC Comics.

Biography

Pre-Crisis

Preston Payne

Desperate to cure his physical deformities, Payne sought out the world's foremost cosmetic surgeons, but all of them told Preston the same thing – there was nothing they could do. Payne learned about the existence of a super-villain named Matt Hagen, a.k.a. Clayface. Knowing that Hagen had the ability to remold his own physical features, he visited Hagen in prison. He pleaded with him to help, but was only able to procure a needle-full of Hagen's blood. Taking the blood back to the laboratory, Payne experimented on it, upgrading its chemical mixture, hoping that it might be able to restore him to some semblance of normalcy. The serum appeared to have worked and Preston was able to reconstruct his own facial features so that he could appear normal. This brilliant success was only a temporary solution, tragically. While out on a date, Payne's face began to melt away like a wax candle. His date tried to pull away from him, but when Payne grabbed onto her, he found that he could transmit his bio-immolation like a disease. The woman's flesh and bone melted into a bubbling pile of protoplasm right before his eyes. Panic-stricken, Payne returned to his lab that night where he constructed a protective exoskeleton to contain his contagious mass. To make matters worse, Payne learned that if he did not discharge his viral effects upon an unsuspecting victim, his body would be wracked with pain and a severe fever would overwhelm him. Dubbing himself Clayface, Payne stalked out into the night in search of victims to alleviate his fever. He did not wish to take lives, so he concentrated solely on bowery derelicts – people whom no one would miss. (Detective Comics v1 #478)

Post-Crisis

Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events.

Overview

Powers and abilities

When wearing his exoskeleton, his strength level is triple that of a normal human being, allowing him the ability to tear down steel doors with little effort. (Detective Comics v1 #607)

Notes

• Preston Payne was created by Len Wein and Marshall Rogers where he made his first appearance in Detective Comics v1 #477 (June, 1978).

Appearances

• Detective Comics v1: (1978)

External Links

• DC Database Entry

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