Batman: The Animated Series - Paper Cut-Out Portraits and Profiles
Stella Bates
Doctor Stella Bates worked as a medical consultant on Dark Interlude, a romantic film starring the acclaimed actor, Matt Hagen. Bates was infatuated with Hagan and when she later learned how Hagan had been transformed into Clayface, Bates dedicated herself to finding a cure.
At the time, Hagan was having an increasingly more difficult time maintaining his physical consistency. Keeping a humanoid form was requiring great concentration and he was slowly losing the capacity to maintain physical integrity. Bates utilized a specialized bonding agent that encapsulated Hagen in a human-shaped plastic coating that kept his body from melting away. This worked in the short term but only lasted a while before the shell began to break down.
Hagan could see that Bates was in love with him and he appreciated that she was his one hope of staying alive. Although he became quite angry when he found Bates watching his old movies on television. Perhaps he felt that she only loved her idealized notion of who he was and could not fully accept what it was that he had become.
Dr. Bates became convinced that the experimental isotope known as MP-40 could stabilize Hagan’s form and enable him to maintain a human physical appearance whist still possessing his shapeshifting powers. Clayface ransacked a Wayne Industries facility to steal the special isotope. This enabled Batman to follow Clayface back to Bates’ laboratory.
Bates’ treatment with the isotope might have proven effective, but the process was interrupted when Batman appeared and an enraged Clayface attacked him. Their battled spilled out into the open where the driving rain weakened Claface’s form. The villain ended up falling off a cliff into the ocean. He appeared to perish as the seawater seemed to completely dilute and dissipate his form. What ultimately became of the heartbroken Dr. Bates remains unknown.
Actress Pat Musick provided the voice for Stella Bates with the character appearing in the sixty-third episode of the first season of Batman: The Animated Series, ‘Mudslide.’
