Sorry that there’s been a bit of a
gap between these posts. I’ve just started a new job and I’m still getting used
to the scheduling and the new routine. It’s rather difficult for a creature of
habit like me to change said habit. Now that I’ve gotten out of the way, on
with the show.
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| Crime never looked so good. |
Love sticks, yeah, yeah. Love
stinks, yeah, yeah. And few people know this better than the subject of this latest
post, Carol Ferris, the Star Sapphire. Unlike the other characters I’ve
mentioned this week, Carol has been flying around and causing trouble since Hal’s
earliest days as a Green Lantern. She’s his main love interest, and is also one
of his most dangerous enemies when she’s got her Star Sapphire powers. Let’s
get to it.
Carol Ferris and Hal Jordan have
been on again, off again for about as long as Rogue and Gambit of the X-Men
have been. Their dads, Carl Ferris and Martin Jordan, had been friends for
ages, Martin even worked as a test pilot for Carl’s aircraft design company.
Their kids most likely would have been as well, had it not been for an
unfortunate accident. When the two were eight, they had the great misfortune of
witnessing Martin’s death. There was a mechanical malfunction, and Martin
crashed into the desert near Coast City rather than risk lives crashing near
the City in the hopes of getting aid faster. Martin died in the desert, which
drove a wedge between Hal and Carol. They remained friends, but there’s always
a certain level of awkwardness when you blame your friend’s father for your
father’s death. Carol and Hal went on to be top notch pilots, but Carol
unfortunately had to give up that dream rather early. Her father, constantly
blaming himself for the death of his best friend, was working himself into an
early grave. Rather than see her father commit a long drawn out suicide, she
took over Ferris Aircraft and more or less forced her father into retirement. A
short time later the new CEO made Hal Jordan one of her first hires.
The two have always had a pretty
intense attraction for each other, but have fought if off due a number of
different reasons. As adults it was because Carol refused to date her
employees. Around this time Hal was inducted into the Green Lantern Corps, and
was thus a little too preoccupied to chase Carol as much as he would like. Sometime
after that Carol was chosen for a higher calling. A group of alien Amazons,
rather uninspiringly called the Zamarons (They inverted two letters, how lazy,)
chose Carol as the new Star Sapphire. In their culture this is something like a
“Queen’s Champion,” and comes with a number of benefits. Namely, having the
quazi-mystical Star Sapphire Gem inserted into her body and being given Green
Lantern like abilities. This transformation made Carol susceptible to the
Zamarons mental control, and when they learned that 1.) There was GL on her
world, and 2.) That their new champion was in love with him, they sent their
Star Sapphire on a rampage. She and Hal battled for years, Carol often losing
her memories of the events after being seperated from the Star Sapphire by Hal,
but that gem continued to find its way back. It’s like the One Ring, if it was
powered by Love instead of Sauron energy. She and Hal were continually on again
and off again as she slipped back and forth from his archenemy to his boss, but
things seemingly ended when she started dating and then married a fella named
Gil. I cannot find his last name, for some reason.
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| Have glowing eyes ever been a good sign. |
Over the years it’s revealed that
the Star Sapphire is itself a sort of living entity, which used Carol and other
women as an Avatar, or living suit, in order to effect the physical world. The
Star Sapphire developed something of an obsession with Hal Jordan, wishing to
destroy her nemesis emotionally as well as physically. So when she learned that
Hal had a new main squeeze in the form of fellow test pilot Jillian “Cowgirl”
Pearlman, she abandoned Carol and possessed Jillian. While happy she was freed
from the constant possessions, Carol’s personal life took something of a hit
when she realized that she was still in love with Hal. She divorced her
husband, as it wasn’t fair to him for her to stay when her heart wasn’t in it.
After sifting through her broken memories of her time as the Star Sapphire, she
finds Hal and fills him in on the things she’d learned from her resent separation
from the stone. Apparently, the Zamarons were originally a sort of female
warrior cult among the alien beings that would become the Guardians of the Universe.
They split off when the Guardians swore off all emotions save Willpower, and
set about a warrior religion around their chosen emotion, Love. Funny how they
claim to charish love, but do their damnedest to keep two people apart. Any who,
as they’re in the middle of their discoveries, Jillian attacks. Hal is able to
fend her off with some help from Carol, and they’re able to subdue her. Just
after that, a group of Zamarons appear through a portal. They state that they’re
going to take Carol and Jillian as the first of their new Corps. While Hal held
the Zamarons off, Carol was able to get the stone away from Jillian, but the
two are immobilized in violet crystals by the gem. Hal is given an ultimatum by
the twisted rock, announce who he cares about more, so the stone could take her
as its new host. Always one for option three, Hal kisses one of the Zamarons,
which somehow convinces the stone to abandon the two women it knows for sure
Hal has feelings for, for the complete stranger. Rocks are dumb. The Zamarons
are forced to retreat, as the stone reacts poorly to its new host.
On Zamaron, the warrior women agree
that Hal was in the right. He showed then that the Star Sapphire stone was
simply too much power for one being to hold at any given moment. And, they
further agree that while the Guardians may have been onto something with the
whole “Magic Rings” thing. The Star Sapphire stone is shattered and used to
create a new batch of Lantern Rings. They scatter their power rings, much like
the GL Corps, to find folks with that fit their criteria for the new Star
Sapphire Corps. Wouldn’t you know it, one comes back to Earth for Carol. It
offers her a place among the new Star S Corps, as the leader of the Star
Sapphire’s Army. She initially refuses the Ring, but the Star Sapphire Ring
talks her into it, after showing her visions of the destruction that is to come
during the “Blackest Night,” and heavily implying that Hal will not survive the
“Night” if Carol is not there leading the Zamarons. She then accepts the ring,
becoming an all new Star Sapphire. Since then, Carol has been an ally of the GLCorps, and fought alongside them on a number of occasions. From reluctant
villain to true hero, it’s a heck of a journey.
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| Uhm... Carol I think you forgot a part of your costume. Kind of big, important section of the costume. |
Carol’s powers are derived
originally from the Star Sapphire Gem, and later a Star Sapphire Ring. Both
give her the standard Lantern Corps abilities, flight, energy barriers,
creating Hard Light Constructs and so on. The Violet light comes with some
unique abilities, like teleportation, the ability to hone in on ones loved ones
even across the great distances of space, and even resurrecting the recently
deceased, provide that someone who loved them is willing to give a little power
to the ritual. The Violet Light is also immune to things like the rage inducing
effects of the Red Lanterns, and the energy absorbing powers of Agent Orange,
but there is a trade up. It’s revealed that those Lantern Corps that are
farther from the middle have a very high risk of being controlled by their
rings. If we look at it ROY G BIV style, that means that the Sinestro
(Yellow,), Green, and Blue Lantern Corps have little to no ill effects on the
user, everybody else has a draw back. The Reds are filled with bestial rage,
Agent Orange is constantly greedy and hungry, the Star Sapphires can be
consumed by intense jealousy and also rage, and the Indigo Tribe I’ll talk about
tomorrow. So because of this Star Sapphires need a great deal more mental
control over themselves than their GL counterparts. Carol is also a top notch
pilot and business woman.
Once in a 24 hour period or so,
Carol needs to recharge her ring by uttering the Star Sapphire Oath, “For
Hearts long lost and full of fright, / For those alone in blackest night, /
Accept our ring and joing our fight / Love conquers all – with violet light!”
We’ve seen Carol in both her
civilian form and as a Star Sapphire on a few occasions. She’s usually seen as
the main love interest of Hal, and/or one of his greatest enemies as Star
Sapphire.
She was largely a background
character in Justice League and the
sequel show Justice League: Unlimited.
Like Sinestro she usually appeared to be the bad guys counter to John Stewart’s
Green Lantern powers. She’s never addressed by her real name, but show creators
have stated that they intended this Sapphire to be Carol. She and Sinestro are
the main reason that Lex Luthor and his cronies survived the resurrection of a
new and improved Darkseid during the series finale. They use their rings
shielding abilities to keep everyone from suffocating. She joins in the fight
against Darkseid and his parademons, and is last seen running off when the JLA
gives the bad guys a few minute head start before being apprehended.
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| It's pretty sad that the Lego Batman 3 is the only other "Appropriatly" outfitted version of Star Sapphire that I can find. |
We see her again in Green Lantern: The Animated Series. She
begins as Hal’s long suffering boss and potential love interest, who is
unfortunately stood up in the opening episode because Hal had to fly into deep
space to battle the Red Lanterns. She’s seen again in “In Love and War,” where she
is abducted by the Zamarons in a bid to capture Hal and his team. She’s given a
spiffy Star Sapphire Ring, which gives her powers, and also grows out her hair...for some reason. She's taken to Zamaron via portal to see Hal. This is where she learns that Hal is Green Lantern,
as she see him in his GL costume but was told she was being taken to the one
she loves. And Carol also points out how idiotic it was that Hal’s tiny mask
fooled her. They’re initially very happy to see each other, but things kind of
hit the fan when she sees Hal had a Zamaron Star Sapphire fawning over him. The
show claims that the new power went to Carol’s head, making her act erratically,
but personally I think that she’s known Hal long enough to know that Hal + Girl
= Hal doing something that he shouldn’t. They’re able to talk her down, and
then everyone learns about the Star Sapphires methods. Namely, they encase men
in Violet Crystals and use them as a power source. The Zamaron Queen, Aga’po,
claims it’s to keep their loved ones safe, but Carol counters that by stating
that keeping your loved one from doing what they need to isn’t love but selfishly
keeping them from their duty. She returns the ring and then is sent back to
Earth. She returns in “The New Guy,” where she breaks up with Hal, since his GL
duties always need to come first. She returns in “Love is a Battlefield,”
because of the new Anti-Monitor. The Anti-Monitor wishes to know if Love is
stronger than Hate and goes to Zamaron. Carol is chosen as Loves champion, she
has a great line about wanting to finish this quick as “the buffet closes at 8.”
She’s set to fight Hate’s champion, Atrocitus. She’s able to call Hal in for
backup as well. They’re able to defeat Atrocitus, but the Anti-Monitor is
unimpressed. She leaves to destroy more suns, and fulfill her dark designs. The
episode ends with Carol returning to Earth, keeping her ring, and promising Hal
that she’ll “See [him] around the universe.” Had the show continued, I’m sure
we’d have seen her again.
The last appearance I will mention
is in Justice League: Doom. In it,
she’s hired by criminal mastermind Vandal Savage as part of a scheme to destroy
the Justice League. With Vandal’s help, and the contingency plans Batman devised in case his teammates went rogue, she attacks Hal psychologically. They set
up an elaborate ruse, using highly advanced machines and a modified form of the
Scarecrow's fear toxin to make Hal believe that he was unable to save the
foreman of a mine during a terrorist attack. The Foreman was named “Carol” and
designed to resemble Carol Ferris. The Fear Toxin plus a little verbal assault
by the real Star Sapphire caused Hal to completely lose his powers. Batman
arrives a short time later and tells Hal about how Star Sapphire set him up.
Carol and Hal duke it out in the rematch against Vandal Savage and the Legion
of Doom, and while Carol gets the upper hand again, Hal overpowers her. He
catches her as she falls, takes the Star Sapphire Gem from her, and laments the
fact he is always hurting her. I fell it’s interesting to note that of all the
attacks, Star Sapphire’s on Hal was the only one that was non-lethal. Which kind
of fits her MO. She’s interested in making Hal suffer, and while she wants to make
it hurt, I don’t think she has it in her to kill him. Love dies hard.
The “love interest is also an enemy”
thing has kind of been done to death, but considering that Carol Ferris and Hal
Jordan have been around since the 60s, I am pretty confident that they’re one
of the ones that started it. So I’m willing give them a pass on it. I will say
that my favorite version is the Justice
League: Doom, as it encompasses her best elements. She’s so furious at Hal
that she wants him to hurt, but still seems to have enough feelings for him to
not want him to die. The Green Lantern:
TAS version is a close second, as Carol’s dry wit got more than one chuckle
out of me. So yeah, it’s safe to say that I like this character. She’s the
Violent Violet Vixen, the warrior of Love, she’s the original Star Sapphire. Next
time, the champion of Compassion, Indigo-1 of the Indigo tribe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Sapphire_%28comics%29#/media/File:StarSapphireJLU.JPG
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/greenlantern/images/1/1e/Carol_Ferris_Green_Lantern_The_Animated_Series.png/revision/latest?cb=20120319020551
http://greenlantern.wikia.com/wiki/File:Justice_League_Doom_Star_Sapphire.png
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/lego/images/4/4e/Starsaphire.png/revision/latest?cb=20141105205140
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