Stephen King’s novel “IT” was published in 1986, so the “today” of the story was the 1980s and the past 27 years ago was the late 1950s (i.e. when King himself was the age of the Losers’ Club). The “IT” films, directed by Andy Muschietti, moved both eras forward by decades; now the past timeline took place in 1988-89, while the modern era is the contemporary 2010s.
Since Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) only wakes up every 27 years, the new prequel TV series “It: Welcome to Derry” is set in 1962. To add a period touch, the pilot episode shows Teddy Uris (Mikkal Karim-Fidler) owning two DC comic books from the era. (HBO and DC have the same parent company: Warner Bros. Discovery.)
One is “Detective Comics” #298 from 1961, the first appearance of Matt Hagen, the second Clayface. Next year, the villain will be the focus of director James Watkins’ film “Clayface,” played by Tom Rhys Harries, but he was very much a movie star before that.
The original Clayface, real name Basil Karlo, debuted in issue #40 of 1940’s “Detective Comics.” He was a murderous actor who adopted the costume and name of a character he played in a horror film. (Note how Karlo’s name is supposed to sound like Boris Karloffwho was best known for playing Frankenstein’s Monster.)
Hagen’s creators, Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff, revived the “Clayface” nickname with a more intuitive meaning: he was a man transformed into amorphous, shape-shifting clay. “Batman: The Animated Series” and 2026’s “Clayface” would have used the Hagen Clayface but with Karlo’s actor backstory.
Is this Clayface cameo just to tease the movie? Although the Batman villain that Pennywise most resembles is the Joker, remember that the Dancing Clown is also a shapeshifter like Clayface. So Teddy gets a taste of the horror that awaits him.
The Flash of Two Worlds cameos in It: Welcome to Derry
The other comic strip featured in “Welcome to Derry” is the one that became absolutely pivot to DC history: “The Flash” #123 from 1961 or “Flash of Two Worlds!” Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert in 1940, Flash’s original secret identity was Jay Garrick. The Flash disappeared from comics in 1951, as the first superhero boom died down. Then, in 1956, writer Robert Kanigher and artist Carmine Infantino revived the Flash. The new Flash, named Barry Allen, had similar traits (super-fast powers, a red lightning-themed costume), but he was a distinctly different character from Garrick.
In “Flash of Two World!”, Fox was able to pair his Flash with the new one. Barry Allen is transported to an alternate universe and discovers a different Flash: Garrick. All the heroes from DC’s “Golden Age of Comics” who had disappeared in the 1950s had existed alongside Garrick in this world, nicknamed “Earth-Two”. For better or worse, this single story became the basis for the entire DC multiverse.
But why is this comic in “Welcome to Derry”? Probably because the series pilot was directed by Muschietti. After the “IT” films, he directed “The Flash” in 2023. This film has a similar hook to “Flash of Two Worlds”, as it focuses on both Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) and a version of himself from an alternate timeline (also Miller).
“The Flash” was an absolute bomb, but Muschietti still defends it. Apparently, he’s proud enough of “The Flash” to pay homage to the main character in his other work.
“It: Welcome to Derry” airs on HBO and is streaming on HBO Max. New episodes release Sundays at 9 p.m. EST.
