Cyberella #1

 My first experience with the now dead Helix imprint of DC was through The Dome one-shot by Dave Gibbons. My second was through the first three issues of Cyberella by Howard Chaykin and Don Cameron.
 
Sunny Wiston’s relationship with Cyberella best describes the current state of my relationship with DC, and the Teen Titans. “Love without conviction”, as stated by the Lone Gunman Info Net. Ms. Winston lives in the futuristic city of Slangeliego, which stretches from Vancouver to Tijuana, or is it the other way around? And like everyone else in Slangeliego, nay, the world even, Sunny loves fictional cartoon/video game character Cyberella, owned by Karoshi/Macrocorp, the actual owners of the world. But just because she loves Cyberella doesn’t mean she believes everything she says. Heck, she IS just a fictional character.

But who IS Cyberella? What started out in the 1920s as a series of short films about the adventures of a spunky little girl, Li’l Ella, eventually turned into a phenomena that has overtaken the minds of all. Cyberella, by the story’s beginning, is a cultural icon to billions, matching with the likes of Barbie, and Jesus Christ. Cyberella’s history is presented to the readers with two versions, a sugary, PC version which is inaccurate and misleading, and the true, seedy version.

The “brain child” of Kelton Mosby, an obvious Walt Disney parody, the original star of the Li’l Ella films, Ella Fiscus, was said to be Kelton’s niece. Although, rumors persisted that she was actually a midget whom was having a relationship with “Uncle Kelt”. Ella would be killed in 1928 when, during a trip to a factory, she was torn to bits by a haywire machine. Kelt decided to retire the Li’l Ella films out of “tribute” to his now dead lover, but once the Great Depression started, Kelt, with strong-armed animators working for next to nothing, created a series of cartoons based on Li’l Ella. This new Li’l Ella, similar to Mickey Mouse and Betty Boop, is a preadolescent girl with exaggerated features and breasts. And she’s insanely popular.

Through a history of marketing through purloined alien technology and blackmail, Li’l Ella’s history is mixed with subterfuge. Mosby teams up with Bronson Travis of Friendly’s Radio and TV, from Roswell, New Mexico. The site of a botched alien invasion in 1947, Travis helped use stolen alien tech to brainwash the masses into a buying frenzy for any and all Li’l Ella merchandise. However, Travis’ son, Bronson Jr., usurped his father’s place and helped lead a secret smear campaign against Kelton Mosby through use of pornographic comics of Li’l Ella, said to be “near documentary footage of Kelton’s actual relationship with his underage niece”. Mosby died of a heart attack, said to be induced, in a hotel room with under-aged girls.

Inbetween, Bronson Jr.’s company, Macrofamily, would combine with an Asian equivalent known as Karoshi (“Work to death”) to form what would known by as Karoshi/Macrocorp, the company which would go on to secretly gain control over the United States.

After dealing with the rising tide of feminism and continuing slang against Li’l Ella, she eventually went lull until the 80s and 90s. Revived by nostalgia of the baby boomer children who onced loved Li’l Ella, and through use of a library of Mexican horror and wrestling films, Li’l Ella was turned into “Cyberella and the Cyberelves”. Eventually, the children of the 90s ate up Cyberella, and into the 21st Century she continued to grow. Becoming a smash virtual reality game that EVERYONE plays, the Cyberella video game is secretly used to monitor for any and all aberrant behavior in the people. Which has begun to manifest in Ms. Winston.

Now, who is Sunny Winston? A “level one blue nanostacker” and a Cyberella fan just like anyone else. However, Sunny is showing a much more resilient attitude against the social norm. She’s not a “rise up against the machines” type, but she is a bit weird compared to others. Doing unconventional searching and looking in places she shouldn’t, she knows that the world wasn’t always like Slangeliego was now, with people living in virtual reality, inside “sindominiums” and doing everything virtually. Although, she thinks having actual pets might have been a metaphor for something. In the first issue, it appears Sunny actually breaks the fourth wall as she tells the reader, directly, about life in Slangeliego and Cyberella. She still plays Cyberella, though, she just doesn’t buy everything she says. And it appears Ms. Winston’s been winning the games by unconventional means. Brought to the attention of the Data Cops (the police), Sunny is put through painful, role-playing interrogation by Lieutenant Tal Styrn while she’s playing Cyberella.

Meanwhile, Bronson Travis III (who Sunny once had a relationship with) has usurped control of Karoshi/Macrocorp from his father, who is considered legally dead (but still a member of the board). TIII wants to launch Wormhole I, which will allow for hyperspace travel, and expand K’Mac Corp into the 22nd Century. But the energy surge leads to a psycho-electrical shock during Sunny’s interrogation, and manifests Cyberella in Sunny’s body. Thus, Cyberella is given flesh, and Sunny takes a back seat as Cyberella rides out.

Cyberella doesn’t dress in skanky, revealing clothes. She’s got a shock of Bride-of-Frankenstein hair in dark green and black. She talks like “or would you like to add cheating to your list of mortal sins”. It appears as though that Sunny is trapped inside Cyberella, who is a separate entity working through Sunny’s transformed body.

Sunny Winston is a girl after my own heart, with her somewhat blasé attitude towards the workings of her futuristic world and understanding of the truth behind some cultural norms. She doesn’t follow blindly, but she’s not an overt, protesting-esque type of girl. She loves Cyberella, but sees her for what she is. That’s not to say that she’s super-human, as she suffers at Tal Styrn’s interrogation.

Or, maybe I’m building her up to be more than she is.

In any case, if you were to put Cyberella into the archetypical role of Wonder Woman, it would have to be a cyberpunk, dystopian one. What appeals to me so much of the issues of Cyberella is the satire of the likes of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse, in which what it takes people to lose interest in such media creations is a child getting killed by a train.

Sunny Winston’s not-so-blind devotion to Cyberella sticks with me, similar to my now not-so-blind devotion of Teen Titans and DC, violently crushed by the likes of Cry for Justice. It’s refreshing to see a character who, while not raging against the machine with bombs and threats, is not bowing down to it.

It takes place in the dirty type of future, with virtual reality and headset goggles that ran rampant in the 90s, similar to Ralph Bakshi’s failed Spicy City. I love that as well, but I’m not blind to it’s flaws. The only flaw I can find with Cyberella is that narration of the watered-down telling of Cyberella’s history, next to the honest version from the Lone Gunman info net, can be a bit confusing.

I hope to find the other issues soon.