#cyberella

Cyber

edit this is like two panels later.. This comic is so fucking weird.

Edit TWO IT GOT WEIRDER

Cyberella is 12 issues long and was written by Howard Chaykin and pencilled by Don Cameron. It was published under DC's Helix imprint, which tried to be the sci-fi equivalent of Vertigo. It was originally called Matrix until the movie came out.

Cyberella takes place at some point in the 21st Century where North America has been taken over by Karoshi-Macrocorp through use of their flagship character Cyberella, who started out as a cartoon called Li'l Ella and before that a child actress named Ella Fiscus who was ripped apart in the 1920s.

The focus character is Sunny Winston, a "Level One Blue Nanostacker" with a better perspective on Cyberella than most. When she's arrested for using unauthorized moves in the Cyberella computer game (which KM uses to monitor all citizens) during her interrogation there's an electrical surge from the recent deployment of Wormhole One which turns Sunny INTO Cyberella. And she has no love to give for her owners as she's forced to fight against the literal hell on Earth they've unleashed.

I can't argue that Cyberella and Knights of Guinevere are truly similar, but the idea of a cartoon character mascot openly rebelling against the people who've gutted and exploited her for control of the world which is now a dump is more than just food for thought.

I would, of course, condescendingly refer to their "subhuman" intelligence and blame them for my failures. I would be especially cruel to my loyal lieutenant and commander of the Gore-Killas, the dreaded Silver-Whack!

Would this mistreatment cause the Gore-Killas to resent me and sympathize with the heroes? Well, those foolish super zeroes might think so, when they convince Silver-Whack and the other Gore-Killas to betray me at the very moment of my triumph! They will sabotage my ultimate weapon, giving those super fools the chance to turn the tide of battle. In a painful irony, my own hubris blinded me to just how intelligent my creations had become.

What those super zeroes don't know is Silver-Whack's true plan. In a post credits scene at the end of Season 1, Silver-Whack and a troop of elite Gore-Killa Commandos return to the burnt wreckage of my lair. They take my cybernetics research, my cyberization stations, and even my charred corpse. In an act of cybernecromancy, the Gore-Killas use the very same technology that turned them from gentle apes into cybernetic abominations to turn my corpse into a wretched half-dead, half-machine mockery of my magnificence. The series ends with one last shot of Silver-Whack communicating with a troop of wild gorillas deep in the jungles of Africa.

Unfortunately, the series did not get renewed for a second season. The show's more mature themes made it a bad fit for the 8-14 demographic the studio was marketing to. Conservative groups got the show removed from many channels after the episode where Cyberella explicitly states that she is transgender, which in addition to the cybernetics from her time as one of my loyal lieutenants, leaves her feeling like she doesn't belong anywhere. Worst of all, the accompanying toy line was plagued with delays and production problems, completely missing the Christmas 1993 sales window and performing poorly overall.

However, the show developed a cult following over the years. In 2018, Viacom (who acquired the rights to the show after the small Peruvian animation studio who originally produced the show went bankrupt) published a 25th Anniversary Art Book celebrating the series. Notes from the original writers and director were included in the book. These notes explained that season two would have a number of episodes featuring Silver-Whack and his growing army of Gore-Killas. Silver-Whack would continue the show's theme of split identity, torn between the gentle soul of an ape and the evil influence of his reanimated advisor, me. Also, Cyberella would have finally started dating Shade Shifter, the shape-changing bad boy hero with a heart of gold.

In one episode, I would have a cybernetic yeti that I called the Gore-Chill-a.