Crazy Quilt

Crazy Quilt v2

By Sébastien Andrivet

Source of Character: DC comics

Reasons: While I’m sticking, as usual, to the chronicling-what-was-actually-seen-in-primary-sources approach, Crazy Quilt has a rather unusual appearances track record. His appearances per publication date go like this : 1946 ; 1951 ; 1979 ; 1983 - and so on until 1999. An easy solution is to compress the timeline by displacing his first appearance in your campaign - for instance, instead of the Boy Commandos in 1946, he clashes with the Newsboy Legion clones in 1992, and his career takes place after that. Or you could keep him as a 1940s villain and have fun coming up with reasons for his timeline (Time travel ! Hibernation ! Relativistic speed adventures ! Colour-coded immortality ! Or perhaps he was born in 1900 as a Century Baby from the Wildstorm Universe !).

Batman #368 already has an implicit retcon, though - in this issue the initial defeat of Quilt is attributed to Robin (Grayson) instead of the Boy Commandos. So you could also use that version.

Quotes

Crazy Quilt

“Just because I see only colour, the law may think I’m through ! The fools will learn differently, however ! Everything I do will be in colour - of many shades !”

“One more step and I fire, Robin ! You’ll meet your doom in colour !”

“You *are* going to operate on me, Doctor Dexter… or next time, I’ll make certain your precious hospital is reduced to a smouldering cinder !”

“Welcome to round two of my interrupted vengeance. I have the best seat in the house up here — better than ringside — and your death, Robin, will be the best sight my helmet’s new eyes have seen… Pound him.”

Game Stats — DC Heroes

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Crazy Quilt

Dex: 04	Str: 03	Bod: 04	Motivation: Psycho
Int: 05	Wil: 03	Min: 04	Occupation: Criminal
Inf: 05	Aur: 04	Spi: 05	Resources {or Wealth}: 006
Init: 014		HP: 030

Skills: Accuracy (Helmet-mounted Laser Beam): 07, Accuracy (Helmet-mounted Flash): 09, Acrobatics (Athletics, Climbing)*: 04, Artist (Painter): 06, Artist (music (keyboards)): 04, Gadgetry: 03, Thief (Stealth)*: 04, Vehicles (Land, Air)*: 04, Weaponry (Firearms)*: 04

Advantages: Familiarity (Art history), Language (Quilt likely speaks some French), Scholar (Colours)

Connections: Underworld (Low), Street (Low)

Drawbacks: SPR (Can only see bright colours - it later became a CPR as his eyes were ruined and he became entirely blind), SIH of Robin

Equipment:

Early on he had standard US Army firearms - perhaps he’s a former GI.
- Colt M1911A1 [BODY 04, Projectile weapon: 04, Ammo: 07, R#02]. He sometimes has two.
- ’Garand‘ M2 selective fire .30 Carbine [BODY 04, Projectile weapon: 06, Ammo: 30, Range: 05, Bonus : May use a burst mode increasing Projectile weapon to 07 - each burst costing three Ammo (5pts), R#02, Recommended STR: 02 (03 with bursts), Limitation: Projectile weapon has No Range, use the listed Range instead]
Crazy Quilt used to carry a bucket of luminous paint in his getaway vehicles, to splash opponents he had to fight so he could see them. Said vehicles included cars, an autogyro and power boats.
CRAZY QUILT HELMET Mk1 [BODY 03, Flash (Steady ill. only): 05, Note: Flash shines bright colours (one red beam, one yellow beam and one blue beam), allowing Crazy Quilt to see clearly]. This was used in the 1950s.
Light switch bug [BODY 01, Flash (Area of Effect 2 APs): 04, Miniaturisation: 04]. This gizmo is plugged in instead of a standard light bulb ; when the light is turned on it plunges the room into a disorienting swirl of dull colours. Crazy Quilt has also developed sunglasses that filter those out for his henchmen.
CRAZY QUILT HELMET Mk2 [BODY 03, Flash: 09, Illusion: 06, Limitations/ Illusion only to remove existing elements, not create new things (-2), all of the helmet’s Powers can be Blocked or deflected or reflected using a reflective surface]. This was used in the 1970s.
At one point he trapped a stairway with the following to prevent access - ROCKET-FLARES POD [BODY 04, Projectile weapon: 07, Ammo: 20, Weaponry (Itself): 04] and HYPNOTIC PINWHEEL [BODY 02, Mental paralysis: 08, Note: The light is bright enough to penetrate closed human eyelids without losing potency.]
CRAZY QUILT HELMET Mk3 [BODY 04, Control: 07, Flash: 09, Hypnotism: 09, Laser beam: 09, Shade: 06, Limitation: Control and Hypnotism can be resisted using Shade, and are both Minor Marginal, all of the helmet’s Powers can be Blocked or deflected or reflected using a reflective surface, Note: Entirely relieves his SPR, even when it is full blindness]. This helmet, built by Kinski, connects to electrodes that have been surgically drilled into Crazy Quilt to connect the circuitry of the helmet to the brain. Thus, his sight relies on video cameras, which might be important for some Powers that only affect artificial sensors or natural sight. The wires between the helmet and the electrodes are about a yard long.

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Background

Real Name: Unrevealed
Marital Status: Unknown
Known Relatives: None
Group affiliation: Usually the leader of his own criminal crew
Base Of Operations: Gotham City
Height: 5‘11” Weight: 172 lbs. Age: 43 by his second appearance
Eyes: Blue (at some points, entirely white) Hair: Brown (at some points, shaved bald)

Powers and Abilities

Despite what his old official writeup says, Crazy Quilt seems to be quite multi-talented, especially since I have assumed he had built most of his colour-themed gadgets himself. By the time he gets his third helmet, he even has an excellent track record when it comes to hitting even such difficult targets as Batman or Robin - I have assumed he spent most of his HPs to boost his AV when fighting them.

Quilt is big on henchmen - he will almost always operate with a half-dozen of heavies.

History

Apparently born in the 1900s, the famous artist who signed his paintings ’Quilt‘ was exposed in many galleries and museums, and famous for his unusual use of colour. Right after the war, in 1946, he embarked on a tour of the recently-liberated Europe, painting the continent’s beauty. This is at this point that the truth would be exposed - ’Quilt” was actually a criminal mastermind ! His paintings, once examined with a special lens, would reveal daring criminal plans to be executed flawlessly by his accomplices. Gasp !

However, Quilt did not only have allies - at one point, a rival hoodlum named Louie barged into his workshop with a gun in hand. He shot Quilt, who managed to shoot back and kill Louie ; but although he had survived the bullets, he was now a blind man. The artist then began a quest, going from surgeon to surgeon in the hope of regaining his sight, usually accompanied by mob gunmen. Eventually, one surgeon was forced to operate using some kind of odd procedure ; after several weeks of treatment and recovery, the bandages around Quilt’s eyes were removed. However, everything was very blurry - Quilt could only see clearly the brightest colours. His men gunned the surgeon down, and Quilt went mad due to his new condition. He was now an insane criminal obsessed with colour - Crazy Quilt !

Soon, the demented criminal started striking around Paris - during the night his men would paint jewellery stores and banks in bright colours so their boss could see, then on the following morning they would savagely attack with guns blazing. One such attack was foiled by the Boy Commandos, who captured most of his crew - through Crazy Quilt escaped after being thrown into the Seine by a car crash. Undaunted, Crazy Quilt carried on and launched his master plan - stealing the Mona Lisa. He had several of the Louvre building painted red to mask his real target, then had his autogyro pilot drop him on the roof ; climbing down on a rope, he sneaked in, knocked out a guard and absconded with the world-famous painting.

The Boy Commandos and Crazy Quilt fought in Notre Dame ; though the Boys managed to prevent him from running away with the painting, he did escape in a power boat driven by a henchman. However, he was eventually arrested somewhere in the US, and sent to prison. There, he worked on painting car licence plates - something brightly coloured which he could see. During the winter, he slowly and discreetly painted an overhead fan in a special colour scheme ; in the summer, when the fan was turned on, the hypnotic swirl of colour mesmerised everyone and the dastardly villain fled.

(As previously mentioned, this appearance seems to have since been retconned away and turned in a clash with Robin (Dick Grayson), presumably in Gotham ; Quilt’s network was throughout the US, not in Europe).

Mayhem in Gotham

Coming to Gotham City (where else ?), Crazy Quilt botched his triumphant return ; but while thinking and playing the colour organ (a unique instrument producing colours on a screen as well as music), he came up with a strange plan where he would steal… all the colours of Gotham ! Quilt then launched seemingly insane plans - attacking a yachting club ball and spraying only the most colourful pieces of jewellery with a special bleach to turn them white, sabotaging a colour TV demonstration, spraying Gauguin paintings with the same ’special bleach‘ to turn them white, etc. At one point, when Robin intervened, he even sprayed him and turned his colourful uniform white !

It was, of course, a trick — the ’bleach‘ was actually a special washable ink, and the plan was to steal the ’bleached‘ jewels, paintings, etc. once everybody assumed them to be ruined and worthless. Robin, of course, deduced this - and predictably was knocked out and thrown into a colour-themed deathtrap, from which he escaped to arrest Crazy Quilt. Holy 1950s stories, Batman !

When he later reappeared, Crazy Quilt managed to steal an experimental laser from S.T.A.R. Labs after months of scheming and waiting, and dazzled Batman and Robin long enough (using his special colour-helmet) to flee. With the laser, Crazy Quilt confronted one Dr. Norman Dexter to force him to operate on his eyes to restore his sight, using the experimental laser. The operation succeeded in the nick of time, scant seconds before Batman and Robin defeated the defences Crazy Quilt had erected around the operation theatre. However, during the fight, Robin used a mirror to Block a beam of light from Crazy Quilt’s helmet - which reflected the intense light in the villain’s still fragile eyes, ruining the operation and blinding him again.

Crazy Quilt eventually hired and located rogue computer genius Kinski, who built a neural interface and an entirely new helmet. Kinski’s helmet worked just fine, and was redesigned and included a laser to boot. However, Kinski got greedy and demanded to be paid on the spot, and Crazy Quilt killed him using the laser. His sight restored after a fashion, Quilt now had one main objective — kill Robin ! He managed to ambush, Flash and severely beat up Robin, in part thanks to Batman asking Robin to stay behind as he investigated what he thought was a trap laid by Crazy Quilt to kill Robin. This caution was due to the simple fact the teenager in the Robin suit was a new person - Jason Todd, in his first outing. Todd survived the ordeal, though, but that was a ruse - Crazy Quilt used another new function of his helmet to implant him with a suggestion to take out the Batman by surprise and come back alone to an ambush site.

Robin did so and went to the spot, and was about to be overwhelmed by Crazy Quilt’s thugs and killed - but he had somewhat overcome the Hypnotism and had let directions to Batman before knocking him out. Batman got rid of the thugs before they could finish Robin off, and distracted Quilt long enough for Robin to bounce Quilt’s Control beam back to him by using an improvised mirror. Now in Control of Quilt, Todd had him remove, unplug and smash his helmet.

Minor modern appearances

After that incident, Crazy Quilt’s appearances follow the “random villain in a crowed of villains” pattern. Thus, he was part of the prisoners freed and given back their costume (including, in Quilt’s case, what seemed to be a fully functional helmet) by the Joker during one of the occasions he took control of Arkham Assylum. Along with several other villains (such as Mirage, Mr. Freeze and, after a coin toss, Two-Face), he chose to left rather than be a footsoldier in the Joker’s plan.

Likewise, by his next appearance, Quilt was part of the crowd of prisoners the insane doctor Arkham unleashed against the Batman - who managed to beat up everyone. In keeping with his new theme, Crazy Quilt was also part of the crowd of prisoners (142 of them, according to the narration) who found themselves free in Belle Reve during the Underworld Unleashed crisis - apparently he had been imprisoned with a working copy of his helmet. Quilt was also part of the numerous super-villains who decided to lit up a candle to gain a boon from Neron. It would seem that he left before asking for a boon, though, along with several other villains who witnessed Neron beating Mongul up.

Crazy Quilt was next seen as part of the - wait for it - large group of villains who were duped by a JLA plot revolving around Brain Wave (actually the polymorphed Martian Manhunter) assembling a new Secret Society of Super-Villains. The plan worked beautifully and most if not all the assembled villains were captured by the newly-reunited JLA.

Finally, in 1999, the attentive reader could spot Crazy Quilt in two crowd scenes featuring the Arkham Assylum villains.

Description

See illustration.

Personality

While he was originally a daring thief with an odd gimmick, Crazy Quilt has always been portrayed as a casual killer - in fact he definitely seems to prefer or even enjoy killing witnesses, potential liabilities, etc. Beyond his bloodthirstiness, Crazy Quilt is also define by his burning desire to regain his sight through some weird mean or another - no matter what it takes. One he has succeeded, his next obsession is to kill the man who burned out his eyes (and, in at least one version of the continuity, has always been his nemesis) - Robin. Note that, whilst Crazy Quilt hates Robin, he’s also to some degree afraid of him because of what the Boy Wonder has done to him in the past, and is careful and crafty when it comes to him - he doesn’t just charge in blasting.

Crazy Quilt is dangerous, ruthless, cruel and fairly smart.

Since Crazy Quilt has mostly been seen as an Arkham Assylum inmate these last few decades, it is possible his sanity took a turn for the worse compared to his last ’full” appearances.

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