Yesterday, on the 17th of January 2020, I posted a drawing I made of Cynthia and Carter Channel, and then later this text post:
awright fuckers its 11:04 PM who wants me to start drafting an in-depth analysis of a dc comics character who’s only appeared in 4 panels and looks different in each one
In this essay I will analyze DC Comics character Cynthia Channel based on the 4-ish panels she appears in, as well as the rest of the comic that surrounds her. Content warning for sexism, mild body horror, and death.
Cynthia first appears in 1993, in Robin Annual #2: Bloodlines Earthplague: Looking Sharp. In this issue, we are introduced to the Psyba-Rats, a group of teenage hackers and thieves. Razorsharp (aka Rae Sharp), Channelman (aka Carter Channel), and Mega-Biter (aka Michael Wasko) scale some building that belongs to Bruce Wayne while contacting Hackrat (aka Reginald Hackman), who is monitoring them from their van.
Side note: The Psyba-Rats supposedly have another member named Cullen Thane and codenamed Output, but as far as I can tell this person is mentioned in exactly one panel by Tim Drake, and their status is listed as “unknown.”
Long story short, Robin meets the hackers on the roof, causing them to run away. They then go to a construction site to meet with their employer, named Collector, who shoots Megabiter because the team failed to get the information he wanted. Rae and Carter run away, and, interestingly, Rae calls him “Chester,” which he doesn’t like.
This scene is the first and last time the name “Chester” is used for Channelman, and while this could have significance in some way, it’s also very possible that the writers forgot what his first name was. The names of all the Psyba-Rats are pretty inconsistent in this issue (Sharp vs Sharpe, Hacker vs Hackrat)
So then, while hiding from Collector’s goons, Rae and Chester(?) get bitten by an alien parasite named Venev who drinks their spinal fluid and turns them into “New Bloods” which as far as I can tell just knocks them out and gives them some brand new, arbitrarily-assigned superpowers. It’s some comic book bullshit called “Bloodlines” which I never heard of until now and I’m sure won’t be important later. Hackrat finds them and brings them back home to recover. Razorsharp wakes up first and quickly finds out she can make her arms into really sharp blades. While Hackrat fills her in on what he remembers of the night before, Channelman interrupts by speaking not from his unconscious body, but from a couple of TVs, as his face appears on every screen in the room.
Channel immediately uses this newfound power to annoy Razor and Hack at full volume, and make the TV display whatever he wants. The first thing he changes it into (from the initial picture which is just his face) appears to be a spoof of I Dream of Jeannie.
This honestly makes me feel uncomfortable to look at, but it’s Cynthia’s first appearance, so I guess I’ve gotta. Carter is dressed up as Tony Nelson, and he’s holding hands with a woman dressed like Jeannie. In the panel after this one, Carter talks about how he can “change re-runs” and “get the castaways off Gilligan’s Island,” but it’s just him dressed up as Gilligan. I find it pretty significant that this woman is the second character to show up on Channelman’s screen, and she does so immediately.
I’m also going to say that Channelman is in the denial stage of grieving Mega Biter’s death. Razor, however, is much more angry and wants revenge on Collector. So they infiltrate his place and Channelman puts some clowns on his security monitors.
Long story short again, Robin teams up with them and gets thrown out a window, causing Razor to forgo killing Collector in order to save him, which brings us to the end of Robin Annual #2.
The Psyba-Rats also have a story in Showcase ’94, Issues #3 and #4, but Channelman doesn’t do much of anything interesting.
Now that the backstory’s out of the way, I can actually focus in a bit more on who I’m actually here to talk about, but that’s still a little difficult.
The team then got their own 3-issue miniseries in 1995, titled The Psyba-Rats. In this book, Carter goes through much more frequent costume changes based on what he’s saying or how he feels, which is mostly used for ill-paced comic relief.
He’s also… incredibly sexist, which I feel like I should acknowledge.
I prefer to read it as ironic, but of course that’s just my personal version of the story and not necessarily what was intended by the writers.
One thing I find interesting: while parodying a show that Razor wants to watch, Channel mentions that he has “better guests” than the real thing.
Who are his guests? Are they all characters played by Carter? Who is Paul? Marlon Brando, according to my brief research, was a real-life actor with some “odd eating habits.” Teri Garr is another real-life actor who was on Star Trek. If Channel is referencing a real show, I have no idea what it is. Keep in mind this comic came out in 1995, which is a little before my time.
Directly after this, the Psyba-Rats are attacked (by some dude named Branchwater, he’s angry at them for stealing some data) and Channelman’s body is killed. Razor staunchly refuses to mourn him, which I can’t really blame her for.
Funny, I don’t remember Hack being this upset over Megabyte. Different events impact different people in different ways, I guess.
Much to readcomiconline commenter tootkitty’s chagrin, Channelman does not stay dead, now a “living program” appearing on Collector’s computer.
Collector and Branchwater begin interrogating Channel for information on the Psyba-Rats, but he refuses and brags a bunch about being the “real king of media.”
And, while mocking them with a Wheel of Fortune puzzle, we see Cynthia again! She’s playing the part of Vanna White, and she flips over a letter Y while Carter, as Psyba-Rat Sajak, encourages Collector to buy a vowel. Collector is having none of this, however, and he reveals that since he’s “closed all the modems down,” he is in charge of Channelman’s programming, and places Carter in a Mexican soap opera.
(For the record, Google translates that woman’s dialogue as “We are waiting for you, Hector. Do you have letters?”)
Since this show is in full color rather than Channel’s usual monochrome, and the soap opera woman is clearly programmed by Collector (and doesn’t even look like Cynthia’s previous appearances), I’m going to go ahead and say that she’s not Cynthia.
So, after a day of Collector torturing Channel, Branchwater comes in and confirms the location of Hack and Razor. However, Collector insists that’s not enough data, and Channel gives up the name of the client they stole Branchwater’s file for. Contrived incidents cause some extra shit to happen, Channel escapes, the main plot is something weirdly anti-Islamic, turns out the whole thing was about the recipe for a popular brand of soda, Carter and Cynthia thwart a couple of snipers with… uh… this:
I honestly don’t know what to say.
So the series ends with the Psyba-Rats back in their motel, and Rae, still processing everything that’s happened to her, decides to switch Channelman off with the remote, which… I don’t think was possible before? Did becoming fully digital change something about how Channel was able to interact with monitors?
For reference, this was right after he gained his powers:
At any rate, the Psyba-Rat’s next appearance was in Catwoman #25: The Crooked House, which seems to be about the man from Lemon Demon’s When He Died. Channelman is not wanted on this mission.
They also show up in Catwoman #29: Thieves, featuring this fucked up squirrel:
But Channelman is once again snubbed.
Which brings us to the most recent appearance of the Psyba-Rats, in May 1999, in Young Justice #8: The Uninvited Geeks. Guess who infiltrates Young Justice’s Headquarters! None other than Carter and Cynthia Channel!
They short-circuit Red Tornado and Carter calls Hackrat “Hackington,” which causes his codename to later be misspelled as that in the DC Comics Encyclopedia.
Speaking of names, Cynthia finally gets hers! She’s also exaggeratedly upset over Hack’s comment.
The issue continues with the Psyba-Rats fighting Young Justice, including Channelman taking over a holographic projection of a video game character, which he can do apparently, until Razor meets Robin and calls off the mission on account of them being allies.
And so, in lieu of the files they were supposed to retrieve, the Psyba-Rats send a computer virus to their client, who turned out to be Roland Desmond, aka the villain Blockbuster. And that, as far as I can find, is the last we see of the Psyba-Rats.
So, not including images, I just wrote four whole pages summarizing the history of an obscure comic book team. It’s about time I actually get into talking about Cynthia.
So who is Cynthia? She has no speaking lines besides sobbing (mood) and changes costume each time we see her, but usually wearing dangly earrings. You could argue that she’s just a character or even “prop” that Carter came up with spontaneously to help with his TV gimmicks, but why would he do that? He could be every character by himself. It’s confirmed that Channelman likes to play shows and movies with the actors switched around, but these scenes aren’t actually drawn in the comic. And while the woman I’m calling Cynthia could be read as different actresses in her first two appearances (Barbara Eden and Vanna White), those are only when Carter is also dressed as somebody from the same show. Carter doesn’t usually appear with other characters on his screen unless either it’s a character programmed by someone else, or it’s Cynthia. This leads me to believe that Cynthia is a separate person from Carter with her own thoughts and feelings, but living in the same digital program as him.
To use terminology a little more familiar to me and possibly to you as well, Carter and Cynthia are part of the same system. They’re headmates. And that’s how I’ve been referring to them since I first got into Psyba-Rats back in October.
Is that me projecting? Yes, maybe. Is there something wrong with that? Fuck no. This is my analysis post and I get to chose the theory.
You really can’t overlook the sexism present in these comics, no matter how much I write it out in my own interpretation of the characters. Carter and other characters often talk about women like they’re objects, and Cynthia only has a background role in her own program. It sucks. Still, I find these old books really interesting and fun in the way that weird, shitty, old, comic books can be and I fucking love the Psyba-Rats in all of their appearances.
Area teen depicts two niche comic book heroes as characters from a voice actor’s youtube let’s play channel, in what is possibly his most obscure piece of fanart yet
