Crazy Jane

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Crazy Jane

Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Doom Patrol vol. 2, #19 (February 1989)
Created by	Grant Morrison (writer) Richard Case (artist)

Characteristics
Affiliations	Doom Patrol
Abilities	Various

Crazy Jane is a fictional character in the comic book Doom Patrol, created by Grant Morrison and Richard Case. The character is heavily inspired by the book, When Rabbit Howls, a first-person account of Dissociative Identity Disorder written by Truddi Chase. Jane is the dominant alternate personality of Kay Challis, who suffers from multiple personality disorder. As a result of exposure to the alien Dominators' "gene bomb", each of her 64 alternate personalities has a different super-power.

Kay Challis had been molested by her father since she was five years old. The first time her father molested her, she was putting a jigsaw puzzle together; this would be an important symbol in her future. Kay eventually withdrew completely and was replaced by an alternate personality answering by the name "Miranda." One Easter Sunday, Miranda was victim of an attempted rape in a church, triggering flashbacks to her former abuse, the destruction of the "Miranda" personality and the completion of the massive personality fragmentation. Kay was committed to a mental institution soon after.

When the gene-bomb went off, Jane was affected and each of her alters gained a different power (e.g. Black Annis has retractable claws, Flit can teleport). Cliff Steele was staying in the same institution as Jane when Will Magnus asked Cliff to look after her, which led to Jane's becoming a member of Doom Patrol.

Near the end of the Grant Morrison run of Doom Patrol, Jane underwent a pilgrimage back to her childhood home, facing her own traumas and overcoming them. This brought peace to her inner turmoil, and her personalities integrated into facets of a more normal, if complex, single personality.

Unfortunately, upon returning to Doom Patrol, Jane was attacked by The Candlemaker and thrown into another dimension, similar to the real world, where she was interned as a schizophrenic and treated by shock therapy. Cliff eventually rescued Jane from the other dimension and went to live with her on Danny the World, formerly Danny the Street.

In Rachel Pollack's run, it was revealed Jane's alters still existed, and Cliff left her and returned to Earth.

Recently, Jane made a cameo appearance in Teen Titans #36, where she was seen on Danny the World through a portal in Dayton Manor in Prague.

[edit] Personalities

Crazy Jane's personalities are organized in a mental subway grid called the Underground. Each personality has its 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 personalities go to destroy themselves. This is where Miranda was killed. The Well houses the Daddy persona of Jane's mind.

A number of Jane's alters are named after Sylvia Plath poems. Other sources of names may be songs by R.E.M., Incredible String Band, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. The name "Crazy Jane" is taken from a Richard Dadd painting. W.B. Yeats' poem "Crazy Jane Talks with a Bishop" may also be a source, as might Nick Drake's "Hazey Jane".

Crazy Jane: The dominant personality. No powers.
K-5: The original Kay Challis, who vanished at age 5. She is "sleeping" in one of the lower stations of the Underground.
Miranda: The former dominant personality; she destroyed herself after the church incident.
Liza Radley: A normal personality awakened as a result of a loving environment; she pushes Jane on to her recovery.
Daddy: An impression of Jane's father as a giant monster made of insects, excrement and puzzle pieces. Daddy talks with Jane's voice. It was destroyed.
Driver 8: Conductor of the Underground subway; possibly named for the R.E.M. song.
Black Annis: An aggressive misandrist, equipped with sharp claws, red eyes, and blue skin.
Baby Doll: A childlike personality that believes everything is lovely.
Scarlet Harlot: A nymphomanic with the power to create ectoplasmic projections and absorb stray psychosexual energy.
- Baby Harlot: An integration of Baby Doll and Scarlet Harlot.
Penny Farthing: She has a stutter.
The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter: An artist with the power to psychically activate her paintings; whose name is taken from the title of an album by the Incredible String Band.
Rain Brain: She speaks in a stream of consciousness and can take on an abstract immaterial form.
Flit: She can teleport anywhere. Dresses in late 80s fashion.
Mama Pentecost: An expert enigma and cryptogram solver.
Sun Daddy: A gigantic figure with a sun for a head with the power to throw fireballs.
Sex Bomb: She explodes when sexually aroused.
Stigmata: Bleeds from hands and feet and relives the church incident endlessly.
No One: Is very aggressive; was able to sense the Fifth Horseman and the Painting before it was activated.
Lucy Fugue: She has radioactive bones and see-through skin. She can also generate harmonic vibrations, a power she used to defeat the Antigod.
Hammerhead: She is very aggressive towards everyone.
Spinning Jenny: Prone to panic attacks.
Flaming Katy: She is a pyrokinetic.
Lady Purple: She can see the future; her name possibly comes from Siouxsie and the Banshees song "Christine."
Pepper's Ghost
Merry Andrew: Dresses as a Harlequin and carries toys.
Driller Bill
Pretty Polly
Snow Queen
The Sin-Eater: She believes she must suffer for her sins. Jane brings her out as a defense when being tortured.
The Signal-Man
Jill-in-Irons: She is wrapped in large chains. Possibly a reference to Jack-In-Irons.
The Secretary: A neat and orderly pessimist.
The Weird Sisters: A three-in-one personality.
The Engineer: He assists Driver 8 in maintaining The Underground.
Kit W'the Canstick: An old woman who carries a burnt-out candle.
Jack Straw: A living scarecrow.
The Pointman: He assists Driver 8 in maintaining The Underground.
Sylvia: She bears Jane's feelings of claustrophobia. She wants to be a poet.
Butterfly Baby: Constantly suffers in the deepest part of Jane's mind.
The Shapeless Children: Constantly repeats "Daddy don' do it".
Bizzie Lizzie Borden: Jane's ninth alter, who may not be real.
Blood of the Lamb: No given information.

There were still other personalities in Jane that haven't been properly identified yet. They are: A nun with a chainsaw, a red-head girl with a beauty mark in a red dress, someone in gladiator gear, one in biker gear, a red-headed school girl, a boy with short blonde hair, a person with an orange, odd-shaped head, and a woman whose face is shadowed over.

[edit] Relation to Ragged Robin

Grant Morrison's later series, The Invisibles, included the character Ragged Robin. Given to introducing herself with the phrase, "I'm nuts," Robin shared with Crazy Jane the real name 'Kay' and a distinctive doll-like style of make-up. Readers immediately speculated that this character was indeed Crazy Jane, mildly disguised for copyright reasons; The Invisibles was creator-owned, while Morrison's Doom Patrol had been work-for-hire.

As the series progressed it became apparent that Robin could not be Jane in the simple sense of Jane having migrated to The Invisibles from Danny the World. Conversely, connections between the two characters continued to grow, such as Robin developing false memories of a childhood not unlike Jane's.

When in Anarchy for the Masses, Disinfo's guide to The Invisibles, the interviewer mentioned that readers thought Robin might be Jane, Morrison cleared things up by answering, "Well, she is. She's The Invisibles' universe version of Kay Challis, who is, in the DC universe, Crazy Jane. It is part of the whole DC Hypertime."

Another hint at this connection comes in the final issues of volume one of The Invisibles, when a dummy's head, having been kicked off by Boy, lands in Robin's lap. Robin reacts by saying "Brrr, deja-vu." The scene mirrors a similar moment towards the end of Morrison's Doom Patrol run, when a severed head lands in Jane's lap.