Kay Challis

"Because it's you. You just cause me more trauma. Everything you do just brings me more pain. And it's time for me to grow up and be on my own."

—Kay Challis to Crazy Jane.^[src]

For Kay's host, see Crazy Jane.

Kay Olivia Challis is a girl who developed 64 alters from the trauma of being abused by her father. Each of Kay's alters have a meta-human ability of their own, residing within her psyche in a place known as the Underground. Jane, the host or primary alter, does not have her own powers. After being abused past a point she couldn't handle, Kay gave up her primary role to Miranda and withdrew into her subconsciousness.

Physical Appearance[]

Underground[]

Kay is shown to be a small child within the Underground. Kay herself is shown to primarily wear a simple farm dress and her only notable accessory is a simple white headband.

Surfaced[]

When going up to the "surface" and gaining control of her body, Kay's hair becomes longer and she now dons the same headband Kay wears in the Underground.

Biography[]

As a little girl, Kay was sexually, physically, and emotionally abused by her own father. The experience caused her to develop dissociative identity disorder and manifest 64 different alters.

In 1954 one night, Kay's father dragged her to a well at their farm to punish her for disobeying him. Her father forced her in the bucket so he could put her in the well. Kay attempted to apologize for disobeying and begged him not do it, but he kept lowering her into the well, anyway. While trapped in the well, Kay dropped her stuffed animal "Amelia” in the water during her attempts to escape due to her caving into her fear and thus falling into a panic. This trauma created the "Well" in a place called the "Underground" as the representation of her greatest fear and her father's abuse.

As seen in her memories, Kay's alters had already seemingly formed during her early adolescence, and identified themselves immediately as separate people. Due to her inability to understand the psychological damage incurred to her daughter, Elena instead concluded that her daughter was possessed by "demons". This caused her mother to have her exorcised by the local town priest in a feeble attempt to have the "demons" removed from her daughter, This was done by having Kay being constantly dunked into a tub of holy water repeatedly until the "demons" left her body. The trauma of this event and her current alters inability to make them stop eventually resulted in the creation of a new alter, "Miranda", who after a brief argument with the other alters to keep Kay safe in their mind, successfully surfaced and proceeded to manipulate the priest and the church goers into thinking that she was "saved" and successfully convincing them that she was now "cured". After that, Kay permanently receded into the Underground and handed over full control of her body to her new "Primary". Later, Miranda proceeded to subtly threaten Elena to never do something like this again, lest she reveals to everyone what truly occurred in their home. Eventually, Miranda continued acting as the primary alter during middle school, where Miranda got into much trouble with her teachers due to her refusal to answer or be referred to as "Kay" and insisting on being called "Miranda".

Eventually, Miranda, not wanting to put up with their father's abuse any further, ran away from home in order to try and give Kay and the other alters a chance at happiness.

Sometime in 1969, Miranda created something akin to a normal peaceful life for herself. She got a stable job as a waitress in a diner that more or less kept them fed and provided for them, making her and the other alters feel content. One day, Miranda was approached and asked out by a local musician, Johnny Bill's, for a date. Miranda, wanting to move forward and forget their past trauma and believing that Johnny could help them, agreed to go out on a date with him. Eventually, the two became a couple and moved in with each other.

However, due to wanting to finally have sex with Miranda, Johnny arranged a "house warming party" that eventually evolved into a full blown orgy and she was pressured by Johnny to participate. Pressured, Miranda agreed under the belief that she would only have sex with Johnny, despite the objections of the other alters. Believing that it would be good for them, Miranda ignored their objections and went ahead with it. However, Johnny instead had her have sex with one of his friends instead, This greatly hurt Miranda and reminded all of the alters of their abuse under their father. This triggered her and resulted in Miranda losing control as several other alters began to manifest. The first was Penny Farthing, then Pretty Polly, followed by Scarlet Harlot and finally Hammerhead, who successfully fended him off them, before returning to Miranda. Humiliated and hurt, Miranda attempted to leave despite Johnny's pleas.

Miranda soon found herself dragged back to the Underground, where all of her fellow alters, angered by her actions, expressed their disappointment, hurt and pain at Miranda having failed to "keep them safe". They further mentioned how Scarlet Harlot, Pretty Polly and Penny Farthing were particularly traumatized by the event. In a daze, Miranda went to see Kay to apologize. Hurt by her primary's actions, Kay only slammed the door on Miranda face.

Miranda, in self-disgust and disappointment, began to develop doubts on her role and this in turn caused her to search for "answers" that lead her to consult the The Sisters for help. They directed her to The Well that then lead to her being destroyed by Daddy and replaced by Jane. Jane proceeded to angrily berate Johnny and his friends before leaving and dumping him.

Jane, as the new primary of Kay, went onto spend a majority of her life within mental wards and asylums due to her erratic and frequently violent behavior. During which, Jane was noted to frequently sneak out of the asylum to attend punk rock concerts or wander around. These excursions would usually end with her being forcibly retrieved and beaten by the orderlies back to the asylum. Eventually, sometime while being "treated", Jane was experimented on by scientists, but one of their experiments gave her alters their unique metahuman powers.

In the 1970's, Jane was liberated by Dr. Niles Caulder. Then in 1978 she met Larry Trainor and Rita Farr.

Return to the Doom Manor[]

In 2019, Kay returned to the Doom Manor, living there alongside Cliff Steele, Larry Trainor and Rita Farr. She initially harassed Dr. Caulder with Sylvia and Hammerhead, but upon meeting Cliff, Hammerhead entered a verbal standoff with him that culminated in Cliff's crotch being grabbed. Despite this, however, Cliff soon formed a friendship with Jane, and, subsequently, the Hangman's Daughter. Some time later, while Dr. Caulder left town, Jane painted Larry's bus black and led the group during a trip into town. There, she took Cliff to a toy store to buy a gift for his daughter, before confronting him with the fact that she was still alive. Before the conversation could continue, the two were confronted by police officers, with whom Hammerhead attempted to start trouble. Before this could continue, Rita had a meltdown, causing her to morph into a massive blob. Jane briefly switched into Sun Daddy in an attempt to stop her, but Cliff dismissed that solution. Shortly following, Hammerhead mocked Rita in an attempt to calm her down, but to no avail. They eventually stopped Rita, and returned to the mansion, where they were soon scolded by a returned Chief. He explained that enemies would come for them, and so they had to leave, all but Cliff taking the bus. Not long into their journey, Jane suggested that they instead join Cliff, who had stayed in town to protect the residents. They suddenly noticed a rather odd albino donkey.^[1]

Later it was revealed that "Kay Challis" does still indeed exist in the deepest part of The Underground, as seen during Jane's journey to the Well, where she encountered the original Kay, residing in the old memory of her childhood home, putting together her jigsaw puzzle.

Powers and abilities[]

Powers[]

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Kay's mind contains 64 different 'personalities', more modernly (correctly) known as alters, each one with a different set of powers.
Meta-human physiology: Kay was experimented on by a group of scientists, causing each of her 64 alters to gain a different super-power. Whether or not this was their intention is unknown.
- Shapeshifting: When Jane switches between her alters her physical appearance instantly changes, including differences in eye color, hair color, hair style, tattoos and to a certain level her clothes.
- Pyrokinesis: The alters Sun Daddy and Flaming Katy have the power to set themselves and other things on fire.
- Enhanced strength: Hammerhead is shown to have above average strength, being able to punch Cliff up a flight of stairs. When Mr. Nobody opened up a vortex to suck up a town, she was shown capable of stopping the Doom Patrol's bus. Flit is also capable of tossing around grown men with ease and killing with her bare hands.
- Metal creation/manipulation: Silver Tongue has the ability to generate sharp metal versions of words she says, and manipulate their forms, such as shaping the word "Underground" into a sword.
- Wallcrawling: The unknown wall-crawling alter is able to cling to walls, allowing her to stick to roofs or climb to great heights.
- Teleportation: Flit is able to teleport between locations and can bring others with her. The exact limits of this power are unknown, but Flit was able to teleport from the United States to Paraguay with little effort, indicating that distance is not an issue.
- Persuasion/Mind control: Doctor Harrison is able to use her metahuman charm to manipulate people, instilling ideas that her victims find they must act on. At her peak, Doctor Harrison used this power to convert an entire psychiatric ward to her newly invented Cult of the Recreator.
- Size alteration: When transforming into Sun Daddy, Jane makes herself much larger to the point that she stands more than twice as tall as Cliff. Also in the underground, Daddy is able to make himself bigger when he appears.
- Enhanced durability: Sun Daddy was immune to an attack from Celsius. Hammerhead is also durable. This was proven when she punched Robotman and was thrown against the wall by Candlemaker trying to protect the other alters from him.
- Affection manipulation: Karen has the ability to force feelings of affection in people, ranging from romantic love to just friendship. This ability seemed to not work on Cliff, due to his robotic physiology.
- Sexual Energy Absorption: Scarlot Harlot is able to absorb sexual energy.
- Sonic scream: Kay unleashed her powers for the first time after being alone without any alters protecting her from unknown entity in the Underground. She lets out a powerful sonic scream that destroy most of the Underground. This scream occurred simultaneously outside of the Underground, flipping the bus.
- High level intellect: The Secretary has high level intellect that helps keep the underground functioning and alive. She was able to use the computer to search for the recommended resort information very quickly, this allows her to complete the task perfectly.
- Multilingualism: According to Mama Pentecost and The Secretary, Mama Pentecost is fluent in most languages which includes light and color. She was able to understand Keeg.
- Psychic Paintings: The Hangman's Daughter has the power to create psychic paintings. This was proven when made a painting of Cyborg killing the whole team.
- Immunity to Scants infection: Possibly either due to her Metahuman physiology or her DID, 'Daddy' (an introject of Kay's father), disguised as Miranda, displayed complete immunity to being infected with Scants and was otherwise immune to their ability to increase ones indulgences to act on their "bad ideas" and was otherwise immune to being harvested of "idiot".
- Enhanced Smell: Black Annie was able to smell Cliff from a few feet away when he was in the underground.
- Claws: Black Annis has extremely sharp claws.
- Cryokinesis: The Snow Queen possibly has cryokinesis.
- Illusion Casting: It's possible Peppers Ghost has this ability.
- Future Visions: Lady Purple is able to see the future.
- Force Field Generation: It's possible that Bubble has this ability.
- Fragokinesis: It's possible that Sex Bomb has this ability.
- Immaterial Form: It's possible that Rain Brain has this ability.
Enhanced longevity: Jane looked the exact same age she is in 2019 when she first came to Doom Manor in 1978. Since she was a baby in the 50s, that would make her in her 60s during the events of the series.
Psychic Construction: Kay has been stated to be the one responsible for creating The Underground, as seen in "Possibilities Patrol", where she admitted to creating the Underground when the number of her alters began to grow.
- Alter Creation: Kay has stated to purposefully created her many alters in order to cope with her numerous traumas and is the one responsible for granting each of her alters their individual purposes.

Former powers[]

Telekinesis: As seen during her fight against Dorothy Spinner, Baby Doll, while surfaced, possessed the metahuman power to telekinetically move objects with her mind. She was seen to be powerful and skilled enough to lift Dorothy and forcibly push her into a fire furnace, slam the door, lock it, then open the gas valve with her mind. Since Baby Doll was purportedly killed, Jane may have lost this power.
Flight : Flaming Katy has the power to fly via using her pyrokinesis towards the ground. Since Katy was purportedly killed, Jane may have lost this power.
Electrokinesis: Lucy Fugue has the ability to generate and manipulate electricity. Since Lucy Fugue was purportedly killed, Jane may have lost this power.

Abilities[]

Skilled hand-to-hand combatant: Jane, Hammerhead and Flit are shown to be capable hand-to-hand combatants. Whether this the ability came with their Metahuman powers or simply a skill shared by all of them is unclear.
Psychoanalysis: Doctor Harrison is adept at observing people's behavior, and from that, concluding what trauma they have endured, which she can then use to manipulate them.
Charisma: Doctor Harrison is a talented and charismatic leader who is able to form a cult at the mental hospital.
Leadership: When Daddy appeared as Miranda, he persuaded the other alters that the well was made to heal them, which lead to him persuading them to throw Baby Doll and Flaming Katy down the well. And later on took Jane's role as primary.
Painting: Crazy Jane and The Hangman's Daughter were both displayed to be skilled painters. Albeit, the Hangman's Daughter was shown to be more talented than Jane.
Cooking: Miranda was a talented chef

Weaknesses[]

Power instability: Like the rest of the Doom Patrol members, Jane has little to no control over her alters and their individual abilities. This proves to be a weakness as when they need a certain ability, and the alter with said ability is preoccupied or merely unwilling to help. While her alters can be beneficial, they can also be a weakness, as Jane has no control over them, and they are free to come and go as they please.
Separated memory: Each of Jane's alters have different memories exclusive to them due to the dissociative amnesia symptom of her disorder. This means that in order to question Jane about a specific event, one must coax out the alter dominant during the event; this is seen in Donkey Patrol when Victor Stone tries to converse with the Underground about what they saw during their time in the dimension created by Mr. Nobody. This could be circumvented if the personality decides to share their memories via talking with other alters in the underground.
Physiology: Jane's biology can change with each new alter, meaning that some of them are allergic to Peanuts while others aren't. Presumably this means that Jane can develop other such allergies and medical conditions depending on the alter dominant at any given time.
Aggression: Some of Jane's alters have very high levels of aggression and anger. Hammerhead possesses an explosive temper and gets extremely angry with minimal provocation and Sylvia seems to have similar issues. Katy is also noted as being highly volatile and antisocial and Jane also has a volatile temper and is easily angered. This is most likely a coping mechanism due to trauma.
Obsession: Karen is shown to be highly obsessive when dealing with and desiring her "one true love" and is shown to be highly manipulative in insuring "their happiness", having frequently used her power to make him and his family love her. When pushed comes to shove, Karen has also shown to be highly violent, unstable, volatile and sociopathic when her "true love" is denied to her and would not stop at any means to make sure they be together.
Psychological childishness: Baby Doll has also showcased sociopathic and cruel tendencies when surfaced due to her being frozen at the psychological and emotional age of a three year old. That causes her to react impulsively violent and throw tantrums when provoked due to still not fully understanding the full consequences or implications of her actions, a behavior that eventually lead her to her supposed death.
Manipulation: Doctor Harrison has shown to have highly manipulative and low-empathy tendencies that often causes her to manipulate others into extreme self harm, coupled with her power. This, however, also causes her to become highly arrogant and develop a tendency to always think that others will do what she wants.
Trauma: Kay struggles with PTSD following her childhood abuse.
Human physiology: Jane, at her base level, is a normal human woman who has no powers and can be hurt or killed as easily as any other person. She stands at 5'2 with little muscle and her strength level is typical for a woman with her frame.
Trust issues: Whenever Jane comes across someone she or the other alters have trouble trusting, one of her alters takes over and reacts accordingly depending on their personality. In the beginning of the show, this mostly applied to Hammerhead, who would often react aggressively even in situations that didn't require it, such as when the cops showed up to her and Cliff in the pilot episode. Her first reaction is to start a fight with them. However, it seems to apply to all 64 alters as shown in Season 2, where it was openly stated by Jane and Hammerhead during their conversation regarding Baby Doll's death that a majority of the 64 alters do not trust men.

Appearances[]

Season 1[]

Season 2[]

Season 3[]

Season 4[]

Gallery[]

Promotional images[]

Alters[]

Trivia[]

Alters that appeared on the map of the underground, but have not yet made an appearance include:
- The Signal-Man
- Unknown Gladiator
- Unknown Red-Headed girl
- The Sin-Eater
- The Snow Queen
- Bizzie Lizzie Borden
- Blood of the Lamb
- Lady Purple
- K-5
- Bubble
- Jeann
- No One
- The Pointman
- Pepper's Ghost
- Sex Bomb
- The Shapeless Children

Notes[]

There are 13 alters that have not been named.
3 of Kay's alters are gluten-free, and 12 are allergic to peanut butter. While it is not clear which alters these are, evidently Jane herself is not one of them.
Based on flashbacks showing Kay as an infant in 1950, her date of birth would be somewhere between 1948 and 1950, making her in her late sixties to seventy. Jane's actress Diane Guerrero was born in 1986.
During her childhood, Kay had a stuffed animal that she named "Harry", that for a majority of her early childhood, was her only friend.

References[]

↑ Carver, Jeremy (writer) & Winter, Glen (director) (February 15, 2019). "Pilot". Doom Patrol. Season 1. Episode 1. DC Universe.

[1] Carver, Jeremy (writer) & Winter, Glen (director) (February 15, 2019). "Pilot". Doom Patrol. Season 1. Episode 1. DC Universe.

[1]