Star Sapphire
28 years ago - Deborah Camille Darnell is born, the daughter of a famous art forger.
16 years ago - 12-year-old Deborah begins to learn art forgery while in school.
9 years ago - 19-year-old Deborah begins working as an art forger.
4 years ago - 24-year-old Deborah takes an apartment in New York City in the same building as Kyle Rayner. They are casual acquaintances and flirt occasionally.
3 years ago - 25-year-old Deborah is found by the newly spawned Star Sapphire symbiote after it fails to bond with Jennifer-Lynn Hayden, and completely embraces her newfound power. She battles Kyle Rayner, who manages to suppress the symbiote before she escapes.
1 year ago - 27-year-old Deborah is found by Gorilla Grodd who helps her reactivate her connection to her symbiote. She joins the Legion of Doom.
This one is going to be interesting, because while this is our timeline's Star Sapphire, it's really not where most of the history of the character is to be found. For the bulk of both our timeline and the comics, Green Lantern's love interest Carol Ferris was Star Sapphire. Unfortunately, that story featured some pretty weird themes that removed Carol's agency from her in ways that, if you think about it, are kinda disturbing. I'm not suggesting that we don't use these ideas; it's a pretty intrinsic part of the story of Hal Jordan. It's just very common for female characters to be subjected to some pretty messed up treatment and to never really give them space to DEAL with that treatment. If we're going to include this, then I happen to think we should allow for some space so that Carol can heal.
Plus, you know... we have a new Green Lantern. Let's give him his own Star Sapphire.
Plus, you know... we have a new Green Lantern. Let's give him his own Star Sapphire.
Star Sapphire's Comic HistoryWhile the name Star Sapphire was almost always associated with Carol Ferris up until it was adapted into one of the many Lantern Corps in the Green Lantern mythology, it actually predates even the modern concept of Green Lantern. Star Sapphire first appeared in 1940 as a enemy of Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash. She was a Queen from the 7th dimension looking to conquer Earth. There have been retcons that attempted to work this original Star Sapphire into later versions that included her alien backstory, but this is still a good way to establish that the concept of Star Sapphire has always been less concrete and more conceptual.
The best-known version of the character was an alien entity that possessed Green Lantern's love interest and mind controlled her to attack him, wiping her memory after the fact. The fact that this story exists is a pretty clear indication of how messy the gender politics of comics were in those years. Over time Carol's level of control over her Star Sapphire persona would wax and wane, and occasionally you'd see other people becoming newer versions of what had basically become a well-established but problematic Green Lantern villain. |
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Deborah Camille Darnell actually wasn't the first person to become Star Sapphire after Carol Ferris. There were other alien characters who showed up in the pink swimsuit. In her original incarnation, Deborah was actually Remoni-Notra, an alien that had been chosen as the new queen of the Zamorans and by extension, the new Star Sapphire (the specifics of exactly what a person had to do to become the Star Sapphire really was in constant flux). She took her human name when she posed as a flight attendant in Ferris Air to get closer to Carol and recover the Star Sapphire.
There were a few other people that showed up over the years as new takes on the character before Geoff Johns rebooted the Green Lantern mythos. His new take established that Star Sapphire was one of several, that the Zamorans were tied to the Guardians, and eventually that they were in fact one of the many Lantern Corps that coexisted along with the Green Lanterns. They were powered by love the way the Green Lanterns were powered by willpower and the Sinestro Corp were powered by fear. I've said this in a LOT of places, so I'll just repeat myself quickly here. This redesign of the Green Lantern mythology might have been epic, but it took away a lot of the ideas that made all these characters fun and interesting in favor of making it all feel connected. I'd much rather see these villains have individual origins. We basically need to figure out what out Star Sapphire will be. |
Our Star Sapphire StoryThe general idea that the Star Sapphire is a living crystalline symbiote is a good place to start. It works pretty well if we imagine that this entity thrives by bonding with someone that has an emotional connection with a Green Lantern and creates an alternate hybrid personality. This removes a lot of the background noise of the concept, cleaning it up and making it a little bit more palatable. We've already established that Abin Sur's ship was used as safe storage for dangerous alien artifacts (like a sci-fi Conjuring). If we imagine that the Star Sapphire symbiote was stored there, then it automatically suggests a story where Abin also encountered it. Maybe it tried to bond with his wife?
The whole concept starts to feel like a crystalline version of the Venom symbiote over in Marvel, and that actually works really well. It can even have offspring. This way even after Carol is freed and the entity that had bonded with her is destroyed, there can be a new entity that interacts with Kyle. This is where we bring in the name of former Star Sapphire Debora. Rather than try to bring back the Ferris Air stewardess, we essentially built a new character that would exist in the world of Kyle Rayner but also embrace her role and become a more traditional villain. |
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Star Sapphire's CostumeI have to admit, I'm a little torn on this one. While the decision to keep Carol Ferris in her original silver-age costume is an easy one, it's a little tricky to know where to go once Deborah takes over. On one hand, she's meant to be more of a femme fatale, more readily embracing the role, and it really does make a certain sense that she would have a much more revealing, sexualized, Witchblade-style costume. On the other hand... come on, man. That's just... that's just WAY too much.
The modern comics have actually given their current Star Sapphire (it's still Carol, btw) a full body jumpsuit, but it kind of suffers from the same issues as a lot of the modern-day changes to the Green Lantern mythos; it just looks very same-y. There's really nothing fun or unique about it that makes it stand out. While I agree that the costume is often way too oversexualized, there has to be a happy medium where Deborah has crafted a MORE sexualized costume without leaving her fighting the Justice League wearing dental floss. |
Star Sapphire's FutureThis new Star Sapphire has a connection to Kyle Rayner in that they had some low-level attraction to each other, but it's nowhere near the bond that Carol had with Hal. She's meant to be a more traditional femme fatale villainess. The powers of Star Sapphire are pretty formidable, and if we set up a version of the character that isn't hampered with all the weird agency-stealing plot devices that plagued Carol, we're left with a pretty great comic book baddie.
She's currently a member of the Legion of Doom, which means she'll be battling the extended Justice League in that upcoming story. Moving forward from there I'd actually like to see this character used a bit more prolifically. For now she might be a bit of a blank slate but I really like how open she is to be used and expanded as the foil in a lot of future stories. Just... maybe with a slightly more robust costume. |
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