Crazy Jane

Crazy Jane
Crazy Jane as depicted on the cover of Doom Patrol (vol. 2) #63 (January 1993)
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Doom Patrol (vol. 2) #19 (February 1989)
Created by	Grant Morrison (writer) Richard Case (artist)
In-story information
Full name	Kay Challis (legal name)
Species	Metahuman
Team affiliations	Doom Patrol
Notable aliases	Various, see Alters
Abilities	Various, see Alters

Crazy Jane (legal name: Kay Challis) is a fictional character, a comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics. Created by writer Grant Morrison and artist Richard Case, the character first appeared in Doom Patrol (vol. 2) #19 (February 1989), which was published by the DC imprint Vertigo Comics. She suffers from dissociative identity disorder as a result of childhood trauma, and each one of her 64 alternate personalities, or "alters", has a unique superhuman ability. According to the afterword in the first trade paperback collection of Morrison's run on Doom Patrol, she was based on Truddi Chase's autobiography, When Rabbit Howls, which Morrison had been reading while creating the series. ^[1]

Jane is portrayed by Diane Guerrero in the TV series Doom Patrol on Max along with Skye Roberts portraying Kay Challis. ^[2]

Fictional character biography

Jane Morris is the current dominant alter, or host, of Kay Challis's system (used to refer to every alter someone has as a collective). Kay Challis, as a result of repeated childhood trauma and abuse, developed dissociative identity disorder. After being exposed to the alien Dominators' "gene bomb", each of her personalities gain a different super-power. ^{[3] [4]}

The superhero Cliff Steele, or Robotman, suffered several losses due to this bomb, which killed many of his Doom Patrol teammates. He was struggling emotionally. While staying in the same institution as Jane, Will Magnus asks Cliff to look after her, which leads to Jane joining the Doom Patrol. During this time, she confronts her past and decides to cooperate with her alters. ^{[3] [5] [6]}

Alters

Crazy Jane's alters are organized in a mental subway grid called "the Underground", their headspace. Each alter has their own "station", which appears to serve as home when they are not in control. In the lower section of the Underground is a well where the alters can go to destroy themselves. This is where Miranda was "killed". This well houses Daddy, an alter who resembles their father, in the deepest, most protected part of the Underground. The alters consist of:

• 666: A fearless and scary persona who has the ability to control nuclear energy.
• Alice: An introject from the children's novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, her personality being adorable and docile. In the Underground, Alice is a beautiful young woman with blonde hair, she wears a childish blue Victorian dress and a white apron. She can manipulate emotions and convert them into destructive energy.
• Baby Doll: A telekinetic childlike alter that believes everything is lovely. She is said to be one of the few in the system that trust men. But being in this forever phrase does leave out a weakness for her being in that state.
• Baby Harlot: An integration of Baby Doll and Scarlet Harlot. Most find her as an improvement from the original, same as there personalities her powers are also fused, this power is Ecto-Telekinesis which is to levitate matter with ectoplasmic movement.
• Bear: Bear or mostly known as Burden Bear, she is a woman appearing with a large stone chained on her back,has blonde hair and wears a bear strap whichs fits her determine and unknowing personality. Her powers allow her to control the earth and can break off pieces of the boulder on her back to manipulate.
• Bizarrely Shaped Orange Head: Just like the name, she has an orange shaped head, a green and white striped pajama-clad girl. She has a fear of "physical touch" and normally decides to hide since her body is made radioactive energy making her very dangerous.
• Bizzie Lizzie Borden: An unknown personality. It is unknown whether this is a real personality or just an alter ego of Jane's. She possesses 360 enhanced senses, having a little reference to the honored murder Lizzie Borden, who committed double homicide.
• Black Annis : An aggressive alter equipped with sharp claws, red eyes, and blue skin. She is a misandrist and never lets any men pass her to protect the system.
• Blood of the Lamb: In this form, her body is covered head to toe in blood coming from unknown (or nonexistent) wounds remembering the incident at the church. She can manipulate the blood of herself and others. She seems to be oblivious to her surroundings, and the others avoid her from her because of her unpredictable behavior but mostly says her name before attacking someone.
• Bubble: Bubble spawned as a coping mechanism, but is now just a frantic persona wandering around the Underground. She speaks gibberish, casts illusions on others and is aware when she is in an illusion. Not much else is known about her except she is visible on the Underground map next to Rain Brain and Lucy Fugue.
• Butterfly Baby: Constantly suffers pain on a Hellraiser-like level in the deepest part of the mind. She can make sonic screams at audible to ultrasonic frequencie.
• Chainsaw Nun: A Catholic nun who was made from the church incident with both of her arms, replaced with rusty chainsaws.
• Crazy Jane: The dominant alter or "host". No apparent powers but she has the ability of longevity. Her name is derived from that of a character in several poems by William Butler Yeats, as well as the eponymous painting by Richard Dadd. ^[7]
• Daddy: An introject of Jane's father, who manifests as a giant monster made of insects and puzzle pieces. It resided in a mental representation of the Well before being destroyed. Has not been said whether Daddy is a personality or an alter ego of Jane, but actually a terrible monstrous dominated by the ravages of suicidal and deadly thoughts, and wants Jane to commit suicide to destroy Kay's other personalities. Being a conclusive infection of Jane's sexual abuse, he was later destroyed. Even though he knew he could be reincarnated with Jane's depression, his powers allow him to take the powers of an alter once killing him.
• Daisy: She appeared in the crowd of Kay Challis' alter egos to interfere with Cliff and Driver 8's entry. She appears as a woman with dark-blue hair and a shadowy face.
• De La Mummy: A woman with her body made out of bandages where she can control and manipulate them.
• Dr. Harrison: She has a white streak of hair and blue eyes. A businesswoman who can telepathically detect the trauma of others and to influence anyone who hears her voice. Mr. Nobody describes her as insane, cold, calculating and cannot be trusted all the time.
• Driller Bill: A dark-skinned woman in a worker's jumpsuit with a black and yellow beanie. Arguably as aggressive as Hammerhead, yet also fond of Baby Doll and her antics. Driller Bill can generate drills from her body and use them too make the Underground tunnels, on the surface she is able to make earthquakes and fissures making her very destructive.
• Driver 8: The conductor of the Underground subway, named after the R.E.M. song. The Driver's hat has an infinity symbol (a sideways "8") on it.
• Empty Emily: A red-headed school girl with a brilliant mind. Her powers of telepathy cause her mind to be corrupt and depressed due to people's thoughts in her head.
• Flaming Katy: One of the "protector" alters, protecting Jane whenever she feels threatened. Very antisocial and dangerous, someone who does not like to be interrogated. She is a woman made of living fire, powers of pyrokinetic and can fly. Also usually emerges at Baby Doll's request.
• Flit: A girl dressed in late 1980s fashion. She can teleport anywhere and has some kind of ADHD, she is constantly using her power to travel around and doesn't like standing still in one place.
• Gladiator: Gladiator appeared when Jane was being bullied at school and stood up to the bullies who were bothering her. In the Underground, she appears as a woman with black hair in a masculine style with a medieval outfit. She has the ability of self-duplication with her cloning abilities having no limit.
• Grimm Reaper: She is a necromancer, who can control the dead and uses this power to help Bizzie Lizzie Borden hunt Daddy. In the Underground she appears in a torn black outfit with a long dark cape with a hood, her face is shaped like a skull and she carries a sharp, pointed scythe.
• Hammerhead: Another protector like Flaming Katy. She is highly aggressive and possesses superhuman strength and durability. In the Underground, she is bald and wears a leather jacket with a winged skull on her chest.
• Hillbilly: A masculine and autistic personality, which causes his emotional weaknesses. His name is visible on the "map", next to Sylvia and Stigmata. He can jump really high.
• Hunt Hound: A fearless personality, who appeared when Kay's father hunted her as if she were a merciless dog and he was a hunter, that when she came to be to defend when he does theses actions. She has the ability of a hound, where she find and track anyone from their smell.
• Innocence: An unknown personality, her station is seen next to Babydoll. She suffers alone in the Underground due to her being a trauma holder. Her power allows her to paralyse anything she touches, but causes her to believe she didn't do it giving her the name Innocence.
• Jack Straw: A living but mute scarecrow who watched Kay get abused soon later getting burn by her father. He has high degree of controlling plants and can produce large amounts of flammable methane gas, which allows him to be a flamethrower as well.
• Jeann: Another worker at the Underground, with a black cloth on his neck revealing his suicidal thoughts, and is constantly over looking everyone who comes across her. He can fire off lasers from his eyes, which can cause damage to their intended targets. His station could be seen as Cliff was falling into Jane's mind. ^[8]
• Jill-in-Irons: She is wrapped in large chains. A reference to Jack-In-Irons.She has the able to project magnetic fields, with her controlling most metals.
• Kaleidoscope: A personality original to the Doom Patrol series. She is formed from the fusion of all other personas and has the ability to warp reality at will.
• Karen: A perky but unstable alter with the power to cast "love spells" on anyone with eyes glowing a baby blue color when activated. She loves '90's rom-coms and her boyfriend, Doug. She primarily takes control when Jane is severely depressed.
• K-5: The original host, Kay Challis, who vanished at age 5. She is dormant in one of the lower stations of the Underground.
• Kit W'the Canstick: An old woman who carries a burned-out, wish-granting candle.
• Lady Purple: A mysterious cloaked woman with precognition, and the power of time. Speeding up, slow down, forward, and back.
• Liza Radley: A stable, more "normal" appearing alter, awakened as a result of a loving environment, who pushes Jane to recovery. She has ths ability to make compounds of almost any time with some being tear, laughing, knockout, acidic, mustard which can burn the eyes, sleeping, freezing gas and many more to try and help Kay, with her claiming she is the new and better "Miranda". By having many characteristics of her, other personalities don't know how to react to Liza and feel threatened by her
• Lucy Fugue: She has radioactive bones and see-through skin. She can also generate harmonic vibrations, a power she used to defeat the Antigod. In the live-action series, this alter has electrical powers. In the Underground, this alter is portrayed as an Asian woman with blue-streaked hair.
• Magpie Mist: A silly but understanding where she is capable of flight and can release a special kind of dust that makes her victims fall asleep, as she has complete control of their dreams.
• Mama Pentecost: An expert enigma and cryptogram solver who can translate any language. She resembles an Asian woman in a black kimono with white glyphs.
• Merry Andrew: Dresses as a Harlequin and carries toys. She can secrete pheromones that make others laugh uncontrollably.
• Miranda: The former host who took over after Kay went dormant, she destroys herself after the church incident. Her "station" is occupied by an indescribable horror, visible from a distance only as a light.
• Mother Widow: A frightening four armed persona with the ability to expel webbing and powers of a spider.
• Mr. Brownstone: A gothic man who has the power of a vampire
• Normal Nancy: She manifested in the Underground when Jane developed depression during her adolescence. In The Underground, she is an obese woman with deep depression bringing comfort to other personalities who help her mental issues. When on the surface, the body grows hundred feet tall as she possesses all the abilities of a giant.
• No One: An aggressive persona and was made after Kay was told she wasn't good enough. In the Underground, she walks down the abandoned tunnels and when spotted she usually runs away not wanting to talk to anyone. Whoever looks at her face, can see their fears making them turn pale.
• Peek-A-Boo: A very quiety but sneaky personality who's powers of invisible can help her sneak quickly and quietly
• Penny Farthing: A Victorian woman with superhuman speed.
• Pepper's Ghost: He is a mysterious and aesthetic personality. He basically have all of the powers of a ghost with him being able to becoming intangible, possess the bodies of his enemies
• Pretty Polly: Named after the folk song, she wears a black Victorian dress and has X's carved into her eyes with an unremarkable personality. Her ability is contract perception where read the aura/powers of anyone she looks at giving the personas an advantage in fights.
• Rainbow Warrior: A kind guy who can produce rainbow-colored energy from inside his body.
• Rain Brain: He speaks in a stream of consciousness and can take on an immaterial astral projection.
• Rockstar: A British metalhead woman who looks the same as the band Kiss, with her electronic guitar she can channel vertical waves of winds which cause mass destruction to the user's environment. She is a little temperamental but decently chill persona.
• Rowdy Ronda: A red headed woman with a beauty mark in a red dress she is known for having an irresistible and charming beauty, with her using this to control and manipulate her hair movement.
• Sarah Furness: A middle age woman who is known as a librarian in the Underground, she has enhanced intelligence from all the books she reads.
• Scarlet Harlot: A nymphomaniac who can create ectoplasm projections and absorb stray psychosexual energy.
• Secret Sally: A young girl who is fragile, but strong with her whole entire body made of diamond she can control her body making many structures or she can make them from the ground.
• Sex Bomb: She explodes when sexually aroused.
• Shy: A cyclops woman who has visual memory reading, the power to look into a person's mind and read their memory. She always hides her face in her hands because of her scary looks.
• Strawberry Fields Forever: An arrogant and very authoritarian personality. Her appearance is like Queen Elizabeth I, as she has the power to control and interface with plant life, allowing her to control it.
• Silver Tongue: Her vocalizations are materialised in silver font, and can then be used as bladed weapons.
• Spinning Jenny: Prone to panic attacks. Her panic attacks can cause sonic screams which make her targets ears bleed.
• Stigmata: She bleeds from her hands and feet and relives the church incident endlessly. Stigmata can see or sense entities, such as spirits/ghosts that are normally invisible to humans.
• Sun Daddy: A gigantic figure with a sun for a head with the power to throw fireballs.
• Sylvia: She bears Jane's feelings of claustrophobia. She is locked inside of a small room, reciting poem fragments. She believes if she can put the fragments together she can use them as a key out of the room. Speaks in poetic dark rhythm with a spooky voice when surfaced.
• Tag: He knows the answer to a question or problem he faces and formulates how to overcome any obstacle. Since he has no mouth, he uses his telepathy to communicate.
• Teacher's Pet: This alter is a literal pet and can communicate with animals.
• Tina the T-Rex: She has a different personality than the others, she has the physiology of a Tyrannosaurus, she has the same abilities as the dinosaur; strength, durability, resistance, dermal armor, etc.
• The Balladeer: After the apparent deaths of Baby Doll and Flaming Katy, she becomes a mourner to sing the ballad and led a funeral procession to the well. Her station is located in the deepest parts of the Underground that none of the other alters have ever interacted, met, or seen her before the funeral procession.
• The Boss: A man in a suit and has a long prehensile tongue.
• The Chief : The mysterious new alter who led the Unstoppable Doom Patrol, taking after and replacing Niles Caulder.
• The Engineer: He assists Driver 8 in maintaining the Underground.The Engineer is a master of disassembleany kind of machinery in only seconds, and construct conple, machinery from scratch at a similar rate.
• The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter: An artist capable of bringing the images in her painting to life, allowing the characters that she painted to come out of the painting into the real world. Her name is taken from the title of an album by the Incredible String Band. She resembles Frida Kahlo.
• The Orphan: This young blonde boy has the ability to alter or transform matter, energy, elements, objects, and people.
• The Pointman: He assists Driver 8 in maintaining the Underground. He can merge with and possess any technology, with complete control of it.
• The Secretary: A neat and orderly pessimist who rarely shows emotion. Her job is to perform tasks (such as filling, sorting, fixing, building and assemble, cleaning, etc) much faster than others are capable of doing.
• The Shapeless Children: Constantly repeat "Daddy don' do it". They are made to constantly relive the trauma of Kay in the deepest part of the Underground. The Shapeless Children can change their shape, size, color, density, voice, texture and cellular composition if they choose to.
• The Signal-Man: Another railroad-themed alter that helps maintain the Underground order. He can disconnect himself and others from reality.
• The Sin-Eater: She believes she must suffer for her sins. Jane brings her out as a defense when being tortured.
• The-Skeleton-in-the-Closet: A naked lesbian skeleton with glowing nuclear bones. As she can make nuclear energy out of her body.
• The Snow Queen: She has the power to create and shape ice.
• The Wall Crawler: Able to scale walls and ceilings, no matter how rough or smooth they are. She has only been seen in one of the videotapes of Caulder's interviews.
• The Weird Sisters: A three-in-one alter similar to the Three Witches. Shown as a Three-Headed Lady.

In other media

• Kay Challis / Jane appears in Doom Patrol , portrayed primarily by Diane Guerrero, ^[9] Skye Roberts as a child, and Leela Owen as a teenager. In the Underground, "Black Annis" is performed by Helen Abell, Hammerhead is portrayed by Stephanie Czajkowski, Lucy Fugue is portrayed by Tara Lee, Penny Farthing is portrayed by Anna Lore, Pretty Polly is portrayed by Hannah Alline, Silver Tongue is portrayed by Chelsea Alana Rivera, the Secretary is portrayed by Jackie Goldston, Driller Bill is portrayed by Shay Mack, Baby Doll is portrayed by Sara Borne, the Weird Sisters are voiced and motion-captured by Monica Louwerens, Daddy is portrayed by David A. MacDonald, Balladeer is portrayed by Ana Aguilar, Miranda is portrayed by Samantha Marie Ware, and Mama Pentecost is portrayed by Va Liu. This version of Jane is the "designated driver" alter out of the 64 other alters, who prefer if she stays in control while they keep to themselves. In the second season, Daddy impersonates Miranda in a failed attempt to gain control of the body. In the third season, Jane looks after Kay when her body starts to mature. In the fourth season, the alters integrate to become Kaleidoscope, help the Doom Patrol defeat Immortus, leave for outer space, and enter a relationship with Space Case.
  • Jane makes a cameo appearance in "Crisis on Infinite Earths" via archive footage of a deleted scene from the first season. ^[10]

See also

• Legion, a Marvel Comics character with superpowers and dissociative identity disorder.
• Stephanie Maas / Critical Mass, a character from the comic book series Rising Stars with superpowers and two "personalities".
• Moon Knight, another Marvel Comics character with supernatural superpowers and dissociative identity disorder, among other mental illnesses, who operates as a vigilante.
• Typhoid Mary, another Marvel Comics character with dissociative identity disorder, who operates as a supervillain / antihero.
• Kevin Wendell Crumb, of the 2016 film, Split , who possesses 23 "personalities" and powers.
• Two-Face (Harvey Dent), a DC Comics character with dissociative identity disorder.

References

1. Wolk, Douglas (August 21, 2014). "Review: 'Doom Patrol Omnibus' shows Grant Morrison's master plan". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved January 22, 2023.
2. Holub, Christian (April 11, 2019). "'Doom Patrol' star Diane Guerrero on what it's like playing a character with 64 personalities". EW.com. Archived from the original on April 12, 2019. Retrieved June 9, 2021.
3. Irvine, Alex (2008), "Doom Patrol", in Dougall, Alastair (ed.), The Vertigo Encyclopedia, New York: Dorling Kindersley, pp. 61–63, ISBN   978-0-7566-4122-1, OCLC   213309015
4. "Crazy Jane- DC Universe".
5. Doom Patrol (vol. 5) #8. DC Comics.
6. Doom Patrol (vol. 5) #6. DC Comics.
7. Morrison run issue #30 page 13
8. Doom Patrol (vol. 2) #30. DC Comics.
9. Otterson, Joe (July 30, 2018). "Orange Is the New Black Star Diane Guerrero Joins Doom Patrol Series at DC Universe". Variety . Retrieved July 30, 2018.
10. Martin, Michileen (January 15, 2020). "Every Crisis on Infinite Earths cameo ranked". Looper. Archived from the original on April 2, 2020. Retrieved April 2, 2020.

External links

• Richard Dadd painting Archived August 11, 2011, at the Wayback Machine