Books & Comics
Revisiting ‘Godzilla In Hell’, Through All Five Devilish and Destructive Issues
A monthly series that ran from July to November of 2015, five artists were each given an issue to depict the fall of Godzilla through hell itself. No really, it’s just that: Godzilla goes through hell, and is faced with his old enemies and the products of his destruction. And while the concept was simple, the result was an absolutely fantastic series that serves as a look into the philosophy of Godzilla’s existence as a menace. It can also function as an all-purpose bookend to the tales of Godzilla; no matter what continuity you go with, he’s lovingly sent off through the art of those depicting him, even as he’s put through the wringer.
2025 will see the 10-year anniversaries of a lot of horror projects. And while it’s easy to remember films like Green Room and We Are Still Here as they make the recommendation rounds semi-regularly, it’s easy to overlook a lot of the other mediums of the genre. Case in point, horror comics. While a lot of great new horror comics like Scott Snyder’s Wytches and Cullen Bunn’s Harrow County flew under the radar in 2015 for all but the staunchest comics fans, there is one massive release that is hard to forget just thanks to the heavy IP stick it walks with: Godzilla In Hell. I’m still seeing videos about this comic as recently as a month ago, and it’s not difficult to understand why it’s had so much staying power.
What is Godzilla In Hell?
A monthly series that ran from July to November of 2015, five artists were each given an issue to depict the fall of Godzilla through hell itself. No really, it’s just that: Godzilla goes through hell, and is faced with his old enemies and the products of his destruction. And while the concept was simple, the result was an absolutely fantastic series that serves as a look into the philosophy of Godzilla’s existence as a menace. It can also function as an all-purpose bookend to the tales of Godzilla; no matter what continuity you go with, he’s lovingly sent off through the art of those depicting him, even as he’s put through the wringer.
The Art of Godzilla in Hell
The comic is wordless for most of its issues, putting the onus of the storytelling on the visuals. And what a group of artists this is to give that task: the first issue is helmed by James Stokoe, who indie comics fans will know for his work on Orc Stain, and the earlier Godzilla: The Half Century War. This is succeeded by a lustrous fully painted issue by Hugo Award-winning artist Bob Eggleton, and is followed through to the end by art from Brandon Seifer, and Dave Wachter.
The artists chosen for this series have a great sense of size and texture, which are essential in depicting the Heisei and Millenium era Godzilla designs chosen to follow throughout the issues. There is a very base, sensual nature to Godzilla as an icon, in that all the kaijus, the suits, the special effects, have a tactile feel that is palpable through the screen. Pillars of white smoke detonate, buildings are shattered into splinters and dust, and those upright double bass roars resonate to your very core.
The Millenium era Godzilla, first seen in Godzilla 2000, might be the best example of this phenomena and was chosen for this series with intent. Its scales, color, the proportions, it might not be everyone’s favorite suit, but it is the platonic ideal of Godzilla suits and the design that most people will call to mind because of that sensory effect. Every artist nails the look of him despite their vastly different styles.
And it’s not just Godzilla and his giant monster cohorts, but the environments around them, which paint the abyss in a perfectly bleak light. Eggleton’s idea of hell is the most interesting visually, as it calls on classical painters like John Martin and Gustave Dore to give the underworld its very apocalyptic ecosystem, elemental layers bleeding into each other with new methods of torture around every corner. The inferno lives through his use of hot oranges and bloody reds that saturate the page with pure painted fire.
Issue 4 by Ibrahim Moustafa is a technical achievement in its own right, as it is the one that comes closest to looking like a classic Showa-era film, giving away a lot of the atmosphere in favor of visual clarity and a strong kinetic feel in all the motion and action. Even when Godzilla in Hell isn’t going anywhere particularly new, it’s one of the best pieces of Godzilla action around, and that hasn’t changed even a decade out.
The Story of Godzilla in Hell
The only issue I can say that falters in terms of art is the third, helmed by Ulises Farina and Erick Frietas. Issue 3 breaks pace, and sadly doesn’t have nearly the visual impact that the other four do, which kills me since it’s the closest thing we get to explaining how Godzilla died and ended up there. And it’s bonkers reasoning, as one should expect: Godzilla was supposed to be enlisted into a war between Heaven and Hell upon his death, but cared so little about the call that he just decided to start destroying everything in his way and ended up being sent into Pandemonium for his troubles. The issue, at the very least, has a charm to it that doesn’t detract from the momentum of the story, and has its own artistic merits as disconnected as they might be.
Brought together by these five artists, the visual medium pulls all the weight it needs to tell you what’s going on: Godzilla is, like all the other residents of hell, being tortured by his Earthly attachments. He’s harangued by the nuclear power that made him, buffeted by stormy cloud-like masses of the humans he’s killed, and attacked by a Lovecraftian mirror image of himself; the last is what I can only assume a kind of tulpa of how the world sees Godzilla, not as a wild animal of happenstance, but an all-consuming organic storm of flesh and gnashing teeth that ravages everything in its path. It’s ill intent against all other living things made incarnate, and the battle it has with Godzilla is a perfect attempt to torture the king of the monsters.
I would tell you more about the final issue, illustrated and written by the incomparable talent of Dave Wachter, but it has to be seen to be believed. It’s a weird metaphysical finale of devastation that, while almost unadaptable to the screen, is a perfect ending for Godzilla’s journey. I will tease this one detail to force you to read the comic: you better be prepared for the mother of all atomic breath attacks.
The Heart of Godzilla in Hell
Does all this insane art service a greater idea? The story suggests that though the entity might be able to die, the real end to Godzilla as an idea and a character is almost impossible. What can destroy something that is the essence of destruction? What can erase a cultural icon if it’s stuck in the minds of generations of people? What is punishing to the one who doles out the punishments? The final panels, juxtaposed with a quote by Siddhartha Gautama might pose an answer that is equal parts comforting and disturbing: nothing really can.
And if the philosophy of the comic doesn’t interest you, well, hey. You still have a pretty dope comic full of violent kaiju fights and hellish imagery. So, either way, happy reading horror fans!
It’s finally around the corner: James Watkin’s Clayface is coming to theaters this October 23rd, ushering in a new piece of superhuman horror for the ages. I’ve been eagerly waiting for this since last year; those who pay close attention to my articles will have picked up on the fact that I’m a comic book fanatic, and I especially love horror comics. I wrote a whole article about the massive horror potential of the DC Cinematic Universe because of my love for them.
But I’m aware not all of us can be huge dorks and read a bunch of Batman comics in preparation for a movie where they just might not be relevant. So, consider this a primer for all the things you wanted to know about the titular character of Clayface, and where the movie might be taking this version of the melty, meaty antagonist.
Who is Clayface in the Comics?
There have been more than half a dozen characters who take on the Clayface persona in the main DC continuity alone, but we’re ignoring most of them. There are only two that are really relevant right now: Basil Karlo and Matt Hagen, the first and second Clayface, respectively.
Basil Karlo (a play on Boris Karloff) was a renowned character and makeup artist who fell from grace after a media scandal surrounding his personal life. Replaced by another actor in the role of the horror villain “The Terror”, Karlo became enraged and took on the criminal persona of Clayface to get revenge. He didn’t actually have any powers, outside of skill with knives and a really ugly mobster mask.
He became an on-and-off enemy of Batman after he was foiled in his murderous plot against the cast and crew that replaced him. Karlo didn’t gain his iconic and monstrous form until much later when he stole them from his successors, fusing all of their abilities into one powerset. Once he did, he became the one Clayface to rule them all, and is still the most recurrent of the shapeshifting monsters to this day.
Who is Matt Hagen?
Matt Hagen, on the other hand, is the origin story you’re likely less familiar with. Unlike Basil Karlo, Hagen was always sort of a petty criminal dork, always out to make a quick buck. While diving for buried treasure off the shores of Gotham, he was exposed to a bizarre “protoplasm” inside of an underwater cave. After falling into a pool of the strange stuff (or opening a jar of it in some retellings), it would change his biology and criminal career forever.
What Are Clayface’s Powers?
The liquid transformed Hagen’s flesh into a clay-like organic material which he could mold with his mind, allowing him to shapeshift perfectly; imagine The Thing, but more versatile. Now invulnerable to conventional weapons and able to turn into anyone and anything, Hagen’s Clayface II joined the roster of Batman’s rogues, terrifying Gotham and its citizens.
Every Clayface from Hagen on out has these abilities and shares nearly identical designs, so he’s really the progenitor of the most iconic parts of the character.
Who is Clayface in the New Movie?
Strictly speaking, it’s Matt Hagen. But technically, it’s both. Like the Batman: The Animated Series’ version of Clayface, our main character for the film, Matt Hagen (played by Tom Rhys Harries), is a mix of both origin stories from the comics.
What is Clayface (2026) About?
An actor who is horrifically disfigured after being attacked by a criminal, Hagen turns to an experimental substance that allows him to regain control over his appearance, molding it like clay and returning himself to his former glory. However, it has some unexpected and nasty side effects.
While in the animated show it was an experimental facial cream, this time the cure that’s worse than the disease is being administered by Dr. Caitlin Corr (Naomi Ackie), a mysterious and duplicitous scientist working on the cutting edge of biological manipulation. How Hagen deals with the physically and mentally traumatizing changes to his body is unpredictable, but we do know one thing: it’s not going to be pretty.
Is Clayface (2026) a Horror Movie?
Clayface is indeed a horror film. In fact, this body horror origin story is the first horror film in the DCU. It also serves as a sort of synthesis for a lot of the horror icons in the industry that came together to make it.
First and foremost, it’s written by horror legend Mike Flanagan, who has literally too many credits for me to even start listing. Most recently though, he helmed this year’s television adaptation of Carrie on Amazon Prime. Director James Watkins is responsible for the harrowing 2008 film Eden Lake, the 2025 remake of Speak No Evil, and one of the most shocking episodes of Black Mirror, “Shut Up and Dance” (more thriller, but still, it counts!).
Did James Gunn Work on this Project?
Speaking of horror icons of the industry, Clayface is notably produced by James Gunn and Matthew Reeves. You definitely know Gunn, a Troma Entertainment veteran and cult filmmaker, as the creative head of the current DC Cinematic Universe. It makes sense that someone with Gunn’s horror acumen, being the director of Slither, would greenlight this bold of a concept so early into the film slate.
You likely know Matt Reeves from his work on the beloved 2022 film The Batman (sheesh, has it really been 4 years already?). However, Reeves was also the director of the J.J. Abrams smash hit Cloverfield and Let Me In, the surprisingly really good American remake of Let the Right One In. If it wasn’t already full-on horror in its presentation, it certainly has a lot of horror in its creative DNA thanks to the people making it.
Was Clayface Always a Horror Character?
Oh, most definitely. Clayface as a character is super horror, to the bone. And I don’t just mean that in the superhero sense of the word.
I mean, let’s ignore the sheer body horror of a man’s flesh melting and stretching and being reshaped, often to either bash someone to death with it or drown them in brown meat slime and swallow them whole. The original Clayface was a 1940’s horror movie actor whose main gimmick was being a masked killer. He’s a proto-slasher who became an unstoppable monster, that’s classic!
Beyond that, every Clayface has some serious horror movie elements to them. The third Clayface, Preston Payne, didn’t even have shapeshifting powers. He was straight up Freddy Krueger’s appearance meets Brundlefly’s eating habits. His very brutal power was an acidic touch that he used to melt people alive, often face first, thanks to a vendetta over his own disfigurement.
If any of the truly horrific Clayface moments from the comics should make it into the new movie, I’m imagining it’s going to be Hagen borrowing Preston’s finishing move and melting someone else’s body with his new flesh-changing skills. All this to say, all iterations of Clayface and most of their stories are at their core horror.
What Makes Clayface a “Body Horror” Movie?
Most horror deals with death and fates worse than that. But the body horror genre is a special kind of grotesque. There are no hard and fast rules, but the general shared motifs of the subgenre are the manipulation and violation of regular bodily function, often through radical and painful transformations.
Whether it’s diseases and radiation mutating the host, corruption from occult magic, or just surgical and medical experimentation like in Clayface, the horror is derived from a loss of bodily control; the warping and changing of the human body into something new, unfamiliar, and often uncontrollable. New organs appearing and replacing the old ones piece by piece often give a terrifying rhythm to the films, as the character slowly loses all of their old self into their new being.
Think Videodrome, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and The Substance. The Substance seems especially relevant given the mirroring premises of a star trying to recapture their former beauty and suffering immense bodily harm for it. The horror of Clayface, and of Matt Hagen being subsumed into the moniker as he loses all control, fits the bill of body horror perfectly.
Will Batman Show Up?
Director James Watkins confirmed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that Batman will not be making an appearance in Clayface. Which makes perfect sense from a storytelling perspective; a reveal like that certainly feels out of place for the body horror-centric and character-driven story of Matt Hagen.
According to Watkins, we’ll be getting subtler references to Bruce Wayne and Batman in the film at least. It’s Gotham after all, and there is no Gotham without the Waynes. But don’t expect the cowl or the suit to pop up in anything more than abstract references.
When Is Clayface Releasing in Theaters?
Clayface is set to release in theaters on October 23rd, 2026. Make sure to come back and read our thoughts on the film with the official review here on Horror Press.
And now you know everything you need to know for the film. So, as always, happy watching horror fans!
Stephen King is the most legendary horror Author of all time. I don’t think that’s a question, right? No contemporary author has cemented himself in a handful of decades the way he has. Poe and Lovecraft are just as revolutionary, but King’s sheer output of iconic classics is unmatched.
Growing up with King in the 2000s, I loved flipping to the back to see which Author photo I had. Seeing as I would get different editions of books from various years, it was always exciting to look back into his published past. But which author photo comes out on top? This list will be looking at ten of his most legendary author pics, and which one stands the test of time the most.
10 Iconic Stephen King Author Photos Ranked
8. King…it’s not your fault. Your hair is great here! That being said, this more contemporary pic reminds me of the Lin-Manuel Miranda picture with his legs crossed. It’s a little awkward, and he looks uncomfortable to be there. Is this King really ready to scare the crap out of me?
7. Another modern picture, this one is a little bit better. The hair is great, his squinted eyes look wise and knowing. However, the crossed arms look a little uncomfy. It makes sense that I associate this one with his fantasy books. Again, not exactly the best picture for the master of horror.
6. The moustache did not really work. Still, this pic is great! If he had a quick shave beforehand, this would be higher on the list. I always trust a pair of sinister eyebrows when cracking open a horror book.
5. A solid tie for 5th! These have the same vibe of 90s to early 2000s King, confident with a bit of a James Patterson mass-market zest. The hair is a little awkward, and it’s always odd seeing him without glasses. That sick bomber jacket and Insomnia T-shirt RULE, though. We love a fashionable King.
4. For a different author, it might crack one of the top spots! However, it just doesn’t feel “Stephen King.” This picture looks like it might belong to someone more of the Peter Curshing/Vincent Price variety. It’s very late-60s, early-70s. I love the beard and glasses, and overall, it is fun, funny, and a little kooky. However, again, it doesn’t quite match the vibe.
3. This one has always been a favorite. It appears on a lot of the mass market paperbacks from the early 2010s. I think King looks dashing. The tiny, rectangular glasses are great. He appears confident, hair brushed pretty well, and the lighting is excellent. It is a solid author photo, for sure.
2. It’s hard to beat this one. It is really excellent, in fact, almost perfect. He looks like a radio DJ here, but the books signify his authorship. This sort of rock-and-roll, radio-host, Americana aesthetic is really in line with his books. If I were to read Nightmares and Dreamscapes, and was asked to imagine the author (not knowing it was King), it would look almost exactly like this.
Honorable Mention
It is hard not to put this as 1. It’s so funny, and such a great little easter egg for constant readers. However, it technically is not an author photo.
For those that do not know, this is a fake-out cover on some older hardcovers of Misery. King is presented as a Fabio-ish model on a cover for the in-Universe book, Misery’s Return. By far, it is one of the funniest literary gags of all time.
1. Simple, handsome, and mysterious. This is prime Stephen King. The lighting is excellent but simple. The glasses are iconic. The haircut is perfect. Overall, this is the most “Stephen King” Stephen King has ever looked. It might not be the most glamorous, funniest, or scariest picture, but this is probably the most classically perfect author picture of the man out there.
