Carol Ferris


Caroline "Carol" Ferris is a fictional character appearing in the. She is one of many characters who has used the name Star Sapphire, and was the long-time love interest of Hal Jordan, the Silver Age Green Lantern. In her role as Star Sapphire, Ferris has been active as both a supervillain and, more recently, as a superhero. Her original design was based on Elizabeth Taylor.

Publication history

Carol Ferris first appears in Showcase #22 and was created by John Broome and Gil Kane. Her Star Sapphire form didn't appear until Green Lantern vol. 2 #16.

Fictional character biography

Early history

As Ferris Aircraft's vice president, Carol Ferris, the only child of aerospace mogul Carl Ferris and his wife Christine, hired Hal Jordan and quickly found herself attracted to the fearless test pilot, who was secretly the superhero Green Lantern. However, the young couple’s romance quickly became complicated when Carol took over the company from her father and the Zamarons crowned her the new Star Sapphire. When the Zamarons discovered that she was in love with Green Lantern, a servant of their estranged friends, the Guardians of the Universe, they sent her to defeat Green Lantern in battle as Star Sapphire.
Over the years, Star Sapphire and Green Lantern would duel again and again, but each time Jordan would defeat Ferris and revert her to normal. Jordan and Ferris separate when Carol is engaged to Jason Belmore; later she is confined to a wheelchair. It was during this time that Carol found out that Hal Jordan is Green Lantern.

Secret Origin

The storyline revised parts of Carol and Hal's history. In this retelling, the two first met when they were eight, as they watched Hal's father, Carl Ferris' best friend, experience mechanical problems with his plane. With a choice between crash landing in Coast City or the nearby desert, Hal's father chose to fly into the desert. Over the years, the guilt over what had happened ate away at Carol's father, eventually driving him to sickness, forcing Carol to give up her dream of being a pilot and take over as CEO of Ferris Air. Unwilling to have people know of her father's illness, Carol told them that he had retired to Miami. When Hal, who had hated Ferris for what had happened, discovered the truth, he and Carol found solace in each other's grief. However, their relationship is stifled by Carol's refusal to date employees.

Predator

When Carol Ferris was cured of her evil Star Sapphire persona, she developed a third subconscious identity, the male "Predator". Deprived of Hal Jordan's love at the time, Carol found everything she wanted from a man in the Predator—masculinity, strength, and care. Physically separated from Carol's body, the Predator repeatedly appeared as a mysterious figure, protecting Carol's beloved company Ferris Aircraft from the threats of Eclipso, the Demolition Team and Jason Bloch. He also established the company Intercontinental Petroleum to let her regain control of Ferris Aircraft. Finally, the Predator started to court Carol and battled Hal Jordan for her love. Hal defeated the Predator and witnessed him merging with Carol into Star Sapphire.
Now fully evil, Carol took over ruling Zamaron but her reign was short; the Zamarons, following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, abandoned their queen and their homeworld to live in another dimension with their male counterparts, the Guardians of the Universe. Carol was furious and vowed revenge on Hal and the Green Lantern Corps. After several battles, Carol found her chance to hurt her ex-lover and murdered Katma Tui, whose power ring had been rendered inert following the destruction of the main power battery on Oa. Hal kept John Stewart from killing Carol, straining their friendship in the process.
In the third Green Lantern series, the nature of the Predator entity was retconned as being a parasite creature from the planet Maltus and that the entity had corrupted Carol and was responsible for making her murder Katma. The Green Lantern Corps purged Carol of the entity, saving her life in the process. But her time under the creature's control, along with the destruction of Coast City and the discovery that her father had faked her mother's death, caused Carol to reject a distraught Hal Jordan. Instead, Carol opted to stay with her mother and find her own path.
However, Carol would not be gone from the world of super-heroism for long. She became the administrator of Extreme Justice's Mount Thunder facility. Her time with the team came with the revelation that she was pregnant, despite not having sex and the realization that the child was the unborn life essence of the child conceived when the Predator entity raped the first Star Sapphire. Furthermore, it was revealed that Star Sapphire was not Carol transformed as had previously been believed, but some sort of energy-based being who inhabited Carol's body. Shortly after giving birth to their child, Neron appeared and offered to purge her of these two entities. Carol agreed, and then watched as the now separate entities were killed by Neron, who departed with their baby in his arms.
Ultimately though, the events of Infinite Crisis effectively wiped out the above-mentioned stories. Blackest Night #1 established that in an untold story, Carol became free of the Star Sapphire persona sometime before Katma Tui's death. However, the Sapphire had found a new, unnamed host, and that it was this new Star Sapphire that murdered Katma Tui. Furthermore, much of the Predator's backstory was changed as "the Predator" was re-introduced as one of the manifestations in the emotional spectrum; the living embodiment of love. The entity was held by the Zamarons on their home world until freed during Sinestro's liberation of his Yellow Lanterns during the 2009–2010 "Blackest Night" storyline.

End of Star Sapphire

In Green Lantern #119, Hal decides to visit Carol. He makes himself visible and tells Carol he is going to help her, but that she will not remember his visit. He reaches into Carol and pulls out the Star Sapphire gem, which causes Star Sapphire herself to re-emerge. The Spectre detains Star Sapphire and puts her back into the gem. He hands the gem to Carol and lets her finish the job, which she does, and starts feeling much better.
In #6, Hal and Carol finally come to terms with their relationship. In Northern California at Ferris Aircraft, Carol Ferris is reminiscing over her former life when a mysterious power revitalises and reforms the abandoned, condemned fields. Hal Jordan, using his powers as the Spectre, appears. She asks Hal whether he remembers anything from when he was the Spectre. Hal says he remembers it as if he were watching it from the outside. How Spectre thinks, and who he talked to beyond this life, Hal cannot recall. Hal apologizes for everything Carol had to go through. Carol says she survived and that she is not going to sell the airbase. She says that if Hal can rebuild his life, so can she, and that she is going to do so with her husband, Gil. Carol says that she can use a good pilot. Hal says that he appreciates the offer, but he has other plans.

Return

The Star Sapphire crystal briefly possesses Carol, before detecting that Hal Jordan had feelings for his fellow pilot, Jillian "Cowgirl" Pearlman, and leaves Carol's body. She and Hal work together to free Cowgirl from the crystal. Knowing that she still loves Hal and that it is not fair to her husband, she files for divorce.
The Star Sapphires, sensing the heartache Carol has been carrying over Hal, send a violet power ring to her, transforming her into one of their number. She is seen wearing her original Star Sapphire costume, reciting the Corps' oath along with various other members of the Star Sapphires.
The Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps miniseries sheds light on the exchange between Carol and the violet ring sent to her. The ring reveals that all those chosen to wield the violet light must accept it willingly. The ring tells Carol that she has a hole in her heart but Carol continues to deny it. The ring tells Carol that she has continually put aside her own happiness for the benefit of others. Because she is capable of doing this, Carol could become the most powerful Star Sapphire in the universe and that the Zamarons recognized this and sent her the ring with the intention of having Carol lead the entire Star Sapphire army into battle alongside the Green Lantern Corps. Carol still refuses to accept the ring, but the ring shows her a vision of the War of Light and indicates that Hal Jordan will not survive and tells her that by accepting the ring, she can save him. Still having feelings for Hal, Carol accepts and is called back to Zamaron by Queen Aga'po where Carol's army awaits to defend the planet from the approaching Sinestro Corps.
In her first battle, Carol questions why she is here in the first place. Then she takes on Sinestro who says that he has never held ill will toward Carol and wonders why she is doing this for a man who has never truly given his heart toward her. The two engage in a fight and are equally matched until Carol attempts to encase him in one of the brainwashing crystals that the Zamarons use to "recruit" new followers. Sinestro lashes out after witnessing a vision of Arin Sur, his former love, blasting Carol across the battlefield where she was subdued by two other Yellow Lanterns and Sinestro himself. However, before he could capitalise on the advantage, the Black Lanterns invade, led by Amon Sur, shocking both Carol and Sinestro. The two are rescued from certain death by Hal and the Indigo Tribe. The group escapes Zamaron moments before Black Lantern rings reanimated the bodies of the two beings whose love fueled the Star Sapphire's central power battery, devastating the planet in the process. For some reason, the loss of the Star Sapphire's power source did not seem to affect Carol's powers. It was revealed that the Queen was powering the violet rings in the absence of the central power battery; this, however, was causing her to age.
After a failed attempt to combine the light of her power ring with the six lights coming from the other Corps-Leaders makes Nekron able to possess resurrected heroes, Ganthet forces a secret protocol in her ring, forcing Carol to seek out a deputy. Eventually, she deputizes Wonder Woman as a temporary Star Sapphire, due to her great ability to feel love, thus undoing Nekron's control of the Amazon. The Lanterns are then attacked by the Black Lantern Spectre. In an attempt to stop the Spectre, Hal releases Parallax's essence, deciding to join with him again to fight back. Carol tries to stop Hal, but he refuses to be swayed. Carol kisses Hal, telling him "I love you", before Hal allows Parallax to possess him. In the epilogue of Blackest Night, Carol wants to talk to Hal about their relationship, but Sinestro comes along and interrupts their talk to serve his own goals. She is in Las Vegas where she takes on the Predator who has possessed a man who is infatuated with a young woman to the point of obsession. She frees him from the Predator by kissing him. After that, Carol and Hal are taken to Zamaron. The Queen gives her life to sustain the central power battery and gives her title to Carol Ferris.
Later, Queen Khea open a portal from Hawkworld to Zamaron. As she started an invasion on Zamaron with her manhawks, they are approached by Carol and the Predator. Carol battles the Hawk family Hawkman and Hawkgirl to a standstill while trying not to destroy the universe. She is saved by Hawkman and Hawkgirl. She then tells Hawkman the reason is that the couple have a great love, a greater love then she and Hal Jordan could ever have. Afterward, Carol arrives and tells Hal and the others what happened on Hawkworld. Carol and the other leaders of the color corps besides Hal are sucked into the Black Book, although Hal is able to escape with her ring. Guy Gardner later uses Carol's ring along with Atrocitus's Red Lantern ring in order to remove Parallax from the central power battery. Hal and Kyle Rayner rescue her and the rest of those stuck in there from the Black Book. After Krona is killed by Hal, she reclaims the violet ring of the Zamarons. When Hal is stripped of his ring, she returns with him to Earth.
Carol later removes the Star Sapphire ring and bails Hal Jordan out of jail after he saw a woman being attacked on a film shoot and thinks it's real. Carol offers Hal a job at Ferris Aircraft, but not as a pilot because of insurance issues. Hal asks her out to dinner and Carol thinks he is going to propose. When he does not, she walks out on him and drives away, leaving him without a ride. Later, Carol is shocked by the TV news and finds Hal was working with Sinestro. After Hal returns to Earth, he asks Carol to take him back after telling her she is the one person he thought of when he thought he was going to die. Carol accepts Hal's apology and they renew their relationship.
When Sinestro forces Hal to assist him by threatening to kill Carol, she dons the Star Sapphire ring so that she can eventually help Hal, but Hal and Sinestro are confronted by the Indigo Tribe, who take both of them and teleport away.
When Kyle Rayner comes to Ferris Aircraft looking for Hal, he and Carol witness Hal and Sinestro fighting Black Hand, prompting Carol to re-don her Star Sapphire ring to help Kyle fight off Black Hand's Black Lanterns. However, when they arrive at the scene of the fight, they discover nothing but more 'conventional' zombies and are informed that Hal and Sinestro are apparently dead. However, Carol rejects the idea that Hal is dead as the link between her heart and his which she can sense via her ring is still intact, with her ring's visions informing her that Kyle must unite the powers of all seven Corps in himself to stop this latest threat.
When the First Lantern is freed, he begins to drain off all the Lantern Corps of their emotions, minds, and memories with the intention of seeing how their life choices had changed them. In the illusions of Carol, she is battling the Atlantean warship on the carrier, but she eventually regains her Star Sapphire ring and escapes from the First Lantern's influencing powers. Carol locates Kyle and helps him after he is attacked by the First Lantern.
After getting a lock on Sinestro's location, Carol and Kyle arrive at the planet Korugar's ruins, where Sinestro attacks them both, blaming them for his home's destruction by the First Lantern. When Carol demands to know where Hal is, Sinestro states that Hal is dead, but Carol refuses to believe him and attacks. While they attack Sinestro, Green Lanterns Simon Baz and B'dg arrive and subdue Sinestro. Simon tells Carol that Hal is alive, but trapped in the Dead Zone. In the final battle, Carol and the reserve Lantern Corps attack the First Lantern. When the First Lantern is finally destroyed, Carol reunites with Hal after he escapes from the Dead Zone.
Despite her past with Hal, Carol goes on to develop feelings for Kyle as she spends more time with him as he explores his White Lantern abilities, to the extent that she is one of the few people aware of his survival after he seemingly sacrifices himself to recharge the emotional spectrum. When Kyle splits the White Lantern ring into seven after realizing that the power is too great for him to control on his own, he chooses Carol as one of the six new members of the White Lantern Corps; however, she decides to keep her violet ring.

DC Rebirth

Carol is able to sense Hal's actions when he creates a ring out of willpower. Sometime later, Carol returns to Earth. Hal thinks about her throughout the Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps run, and his greatest desire is revealed to be having a family with her, as previously shown in the Book of Oa. When Carol and Hal finally reunite, they kiss.

Powers and abilities

Carol is a capable pilot and administrator. As Star Sapphire, she can use her gem of power to fly and to hurl blasts of force nearly equal to the power of a Green Lantern's ring. Moreover, the Sapphire bestows upon her a certain amount of invulnerability and allows her to survive in airless space. During the most recent battle with Star Sapphire, Carol was temporarily empowered by Hal's ring, granting her strength and a certain degree of invulnerability. During this, Carol was clad in a version of her Sapphire uniform, but with Green Lantern design. These powers were provided by exposure to Hal's power ring and were temporary. Carol now wields a less powerful violet power ring as a member of the Star Sapphires, which replicates her original powers as Star Sapphire to a degree as well. Despite being helplessly overwhelmed before, Carol's previous exposures to the Star Sapphire's power are assumed to have given her a certain tolerance to the violet ring's current influence.

Other versions

In the alternate universe seen in the story "Whom Gods Destroy" in which the Nazis were not defeated in World War II, Jordan and Ferris eventually becomes President and First Lady of the United States, respectively.
In the 1998 Elseworlds miniseries ', which is inspired by the Silver Age versions of DC Comics characters, Carol Ferris/Star Sapphire is both a villain and a love interest of Hal Jordan.
In the 2002 miniseries Green Lantern: Evil's Might, set during the American women's suffrage movement, Carol is a New York City suffragette and is swept up in a conflict for worker's safety, her hand in marriage, and control of green power rings that have surfaced in town.
Carol Ferris has a central role in Darwyn Cooke's 2004 miniseries '.
Carol Ferris makes an appearance in the 2005—2007 miniseries Justice, in which she is taken hostage by the allegiance of arch supervillains because of her relationship to Green Lantern.
In the alternate timeline of the 2011 "Flashpoint" storyline, Carol Ferris, with Hal Jordan, was on an F-22 Raptor jet entering Western Europe territory before the Shark attacks. Hal forces the Shark to crash his jet into Carol's jet, and both of them barely escape using the ejection system. Upon their return to America, Carol thinks Hal is not living up to his potential. Later, Amazon invisible planes invade over Coast City and Hal and Carol manage to shoot them down and the hydra they dropped on the city. Afterward, Carol is angry at Hal for taking a mission for the U.S. government. Carol insists on joining him in the dropping of the Green Arrow Industries nuclear missile. Hal refuses; however, she goes anyway. During the battles, Carol sees Hal drop the missile through New Themyscira's invisible shield but he is killed in the process. Afterward, Carol returns to Coast City, where Thomas Kalmaku gives her a note saying that Hal was too afraid to say that he had always loved her. Carol sees the engagement ring that he was going to propose to her with.
In the distant future, the Book of Oa shows that Carol will eventually marry Hal and their son would be named Martin Jordan after Hal's father.
In the Year Two series of the prequel comic to the 2013 video game , Carol is portrayed as being Hal Jordan's on/off girlfriend. She recognizes that Hal is concerned over the way things have gone since Superman's Regime escalated and waits for him to come back after he is called away by the Guardian Ganthet. Later on, she observes the Insurgency coming to Ferris Aircraft to steal some planes to use for the Regime/Green Lantern war, notifying Hal of their presence. Hal comes and squares off with Guy Gardner, who saves Carol's life when Sinestro and Ganthet fight. Hal, however, is ungrateful and uses his ring to knock Guy away and take Carol. This leads Ganthet to strip Hal of his ring, leaving him and Carol to plummet. Sinestro offers Hal a yellow ring for a replacement, and Hal reluctantly takes it to save Carol.
In the miniseries Star Trek/Green Lantern: The Spectrum War, in which the universe was destroyed by Nekron, Carol is one of the few survivors after Ganthet sacrifices himself to initiate the 'Last Light' protocol, sending himself, the last ring-wielders, and the last six rings of the other six corps into the new Star Trek universe. While Pavel Chekov is experimenting with his new Blue Lantern ring, he encounters Carol with a wounded Saint Walker, who asks Chekov for help. Although Leonard McCoy—the chosen wielder of the Indigo ring—is able to confirm that Walker will recover, Carol reveals to Hal that Nekron has been drawn into their new universe as well. She then joins the crew in the final battle against Nekron on the reborn Vulcan, culminating in Nekron's defeat while she joins the Enterprise on his mission. After a year traveling with the Enterprise, Carol has begun a relationship with Montgomery Scott, although Leonard McCoy is the first other person on the crew to learn about it.
Carol appears in issue #11 of the Young Justice tie-in comic book series.

Reception

Carol Ferris was ranked 36th in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.
Star Sapphire was ranked 4th on Comicverse's "Top 5 DC Comics Villains Turned Heroic" list.

In other media

Television

as Carol Ferris in Green Lantern