Welcome back to another edition of ASK…THE QUESTION, our monthly column showcasing the answers to some of the most pernicious questions readers like you have posed to me about DC Comics and the worlds beyond. I’m Alex Jaffe, writer and researcher for this feature, and I remain as determined to bring you the truth as ever. You can catch it here on DC.com on a monthly basis for as long as the powers that be allow me to do it, and on the daily over in our DC Discord community, where I am open to receive your questions. Let’s get to work.
 

AfterDark asks:

What event(s) led Amanda Waller to become so uniquely ruthless?

As you can see for yourself in John Ostrander’s masterful Secret Origins #14, as well as a recent revisitation in John Ridley’s Absolute Power: Origins, Waller lost two of her children and her husband to unchecked supervillainy and systemic civic failure. Seeing no other recourse to avenge her family than to change the world, Waller took it upon herself to become personally involved in the political machine. But as Waller became further entrenched in the systems she sought to change from within, she soon found herself surrounded by so much bureaucracy and self-interest that she discovered the only way to make any progress was to break rules herself. And so, over time, those breaks mounted, becoming more drastic and severe, as she sacrificed more and more of her own ideals in pursuit of a world where no mother could have her family taken from her again. Told as a whole, Amanda Waller’s story is a tragedy of a principled woman driven by her goals beyond her own morality.
 

Mirtilo asks:

What are all the times Lobo and Etrigan have interacted?

I had to cross-reference every single appearance of Lobo and Etrigan to get this, which was not easy, but here's the reading list I've got for you:

The Demon (1990) #11-15, #21, #31-39
Lobo's Back #2
Lobo (1993) #13, #63-64
Lobo: Bounty Hunting for Fun and Profit
Lobo/Demon: Hellowe'en
Reign in Hell (2008)

Finally, both Lobo and Etrigan play a role in 2018’s Justice League: No Justice, but don’t spend much significant time around each other. And hey, who knows—maybe they’ll face each other in the finals for DC K.O.! (I mean, probably not, but maybe!)
 

Monster_Society asks:

I'm sorry if this is a little bit gross, but I've got a question: the Batcave is full of bats, right? How does Batman keep everything in there from being covered in/smelling like guano?

Believe it or not, this actually is one of those things that Batman writers have thought about before. In 2003’s Batman: Gotham Knights #42 by Scott Beatty, we learn that there are traps throughout the Batcave specifically designed to catch bat guano, the cleaning of which fell under Alfred’s responsibilities. Unfortunately, this was also how Alfred ended up contracting the deadly “Clench” virus sweeping through Gotham at the time, when the bats were discovered to be carriers. How the cave stays hygienically clean since Alfred’s death is no longer Batman’s problem, though, as Bruce Wayne and company have since moved out of Wayne Manor.
 

Mythic870 asks:

I was wondering, does DC offer dramatic readings or official audio comic books?

You’re in luck! The ongoing, award-winning weekly DC High Volume podcast is a high fidelity, intensely faithful audio adaptation of some of the most beloved story arcs in DC history. So far, it’s covered Batman: Year One, Batman: The Long Halloween, Batman: Dark Victory and now Batman: Ego, with more soon to come. The same production team is also behind similarly faithful audio dramas you can purchase as audiobooks like their recent adaptation of All-Star Superman and a Kingdom Come audio adaptation on sale November 18th. This year is just the beginning for a new audio-adaptive era!
 

JJ asks:

Besides John Constantine and Jon Kent, who are some other DC characters who are confirmed to be bisexual?

DC has built up quite a catalogue of bisexual characters. Some more prominent bisexuals in the DC Universe include Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Green Lantern Jo Mullein, Tim Drake, Grace Choi, Harper Row, Deathstroke’s son Jericho, Catman, Ghost-Maker, Mother Panic and Artemis of Bana-Mighdall. In Greg Rucka’s Wonder Woman series, along with other sources, Wonder Woman has been shown to have taken both male and female lovers in the past, as well.
 

TurmaTitanum asks:

How many versions of Clayface are there? I only know Matt Hagen and Basil Karlo. Plus, what makes them different?

Basil Karlo and Matt Hagen are the two biggest ones. Including them, there have been five major Clayfaces, and many more which have made less prominent appearances.

Basil Karlo, the original Golden Age and now most prominent Clayface, was an actor who becomes a killer when his star begins to fade, who only got the power to transform like subsequent Clayfaces much later.

Matt Hagen, the second Clayface, was a treasure hunter who was mutated in the Silver Age and used his powers to do crime.

Then there's Preston Payne, the third Clayface, a scientist who gives himself a variant of the Clayface formula to cure a medical condition that severely warps his mind and body, giving him a death touch, among other powers.

The fourth Clayface, Lady Clayface, is Sondra Fuller, who was engineered by Kobra (or the US government, depending who you ask) and even has the ability to replicate the powers of metahumans she assumes the form of. Recently she's been hanging out with Catwoman.

The fifth Clayface, Cassius Payne, is the son of Clayface III and Lady Clayface, whose malleability allowed him to rapidly age.

That brings us to the less prominent Clayfaces. We have Katherine Karlo, “Mudface,” a self-aware splinter of Basil Karlo who attends Gotham Academy; John Carlinger, a Basil Karlo impersonator from Detective Comics #496; Todd Russell, an army veteran mutated in military experiments who became an enemy of Catwoman in the early 2000s; Johnny Williams, a former firefighter transformed in a chemical explosion who was manipulated into working for Hush; Peter Malley, the “Claything,” a scientist who was mutated while studying a sample of Cassius Payne; “Clownface,” a mutated offshoot of Basil Karlo mixed with Joker toxin; and Glory Griffin, another “Mudface,” who was once the production assistant on Basil Karlo’s last film. Venturing outside of comics, you can also add “Annie,” another self-aware splinter of Clayface who took the form of a young girl in The New Batman Adventures; Tanner Freyr, a Gotham High student from the Arrowverse tie-in comic series Earth-Prime; Mrs. Clayface, who appears in DC Super Hero Girls, and Ethan Bennett, a former GCPD officer and Bruce Wayne’s best friend, mutated by the Joker in the 2004 animated series The Batman.

Tallying them up, it seems we have no fewer than eleven unique Clayfaces! But if you’re looking at Clayface in a comic and you’re not sure which one it is, a good rule to follow is this: if it’s a Golden Age comic, it’s Basil Karlo. If it’s a Silver or Bronze Age comic, it’s Matt Hagen. If it’s a Post-Crisis comic from anywhere between 1986 and 2011, then you’re going to have to be careful. But from 2011 to today, it’s almost certainly Basil Karlo again.
 

Cybernex007 asks:

Is the mask Captain Cold wears in the recent “We Are Yesterday” event a usual thing for him in older comics? I’ve never seen it before so I was wondering where that was pulled from.

Captain Cold’s We Are Yesterday design didn’t look very familiar to me either, so I went to ask the event’s author, Mark Waid, about it. Here’s what he told me:

Hey, Alex! I'm pretty sure that was just Dan [Mora, event artist] Gone Wild. He wanted to do that with Captain Cold but had no real modifications on the rest, that's all.

Sometimes it’s just that simple!
 

Artic asks:

Who were the first five heroes to join the Justice League after it was formed?

Both in terms of publication timeline, and by the reckoning of the timeline recently re-restablished in The New History of the DC Universe, for that accounting you’d have to go back to the original 1960 Justice League of America series. The first hero drafted to join the founding seven was Green Arrow, in Justice League of America #4. He was followed by the Atom (Ray Palmer) in #14 and Hawkman in #31. Metamorpho was the next to be offered membership in #42, but refused the call as a full-time member, staying in reserve. Black Canary became the second woman in the roster with Justice League of America #74. And the fifth to be fully inducted, at least by the Justice League records, was the Phantom Stranger, in issue #103—but the Stranger rarely showed up to meetings or crises from there on anything but his own terms.
 

Comedy Alpha asks:

Are there any questions you couldn't find the answer to?

Someone once asked me how many times Alfred has threatened to quit working for Bruce Wayne. There wasn’t really any way to tally that without combing through every Batman story that has ever been written, so I didn’t bother. But you’re certainly welcome to try.
 

For now, I’ll tell you this: as long as you have a question that wouldn’t require years of my personal time to research, in matters of the DC multiverse, I’m always willing to put my expertise and determination on the line for you. All you have to do is ASK…THE QUESTION.
 

Alex Jaffe is the author of our monthly "Ask the Question" column and writes about TV, movies, comics and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Bluesky at @AlexJaffe and find him in the DC Official Discord server as HubCityQuestion.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Alex Jaffe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.