Star Sapphires

Sins of the Star Sapphire, running in Green Lantern Corps vol. 2, issues #29–32 (December 2008 – March 2009), is the story arc in which the formation of the Star Sapphires is shown. It both introduces important members of the new corps and reveals distinguishing features which set them apart from their peers. At the beginning of the arc, the Zamarons have crafted their own main power battery. Inside of their main battery are the crystallized "Adam and Eve" skeletons and Star Sapphire gem found when they first arrived on Zamaron. While experimenting with their new means of controlling the violet light of love, the Zamarons (perhaps intentionally) attracted the attention of the Guardians on Oa. Perceiving their visible power fluctuations as a threat, Guardian Scar decides to act on the display rather than wait and "hope for the best." In response, she requests a diplomatic audience with Zamaron's Queen Aga'po. Two other Guardians accompany her, while Lanterns Guy Gardner, Arisia, and Sodam Yat serve as escorts.[5] While on Zamaron, the delegates from Oa find that the Zamarons are in possession of a number of yellow power rings that were left unclaimed after the Sinestro Corps War plotline. The rings are shown being drained of their power (which Arisia interprets as a deliberate display of how the same could be done to green power rings). More importantly, the delegates also discover that a number of female Sinestro Corps members have also been collected after the war and are imprisoned in violet crystals.[6]

Queen Aga'po explains that the women imprisoned in the crystals (Fatality, Karu-Sil, and Kiriazis are specifically named, though other filled crystals are shown in Green Lantern vol. 4 #36) are being rehabilitated. The yellow light of fear is being drained from their rings and replaced with the violet light of love. Queen Aga'po also claims that violet light is filling an emptiness in their hearts and replacing their capacity for creating fear. The delegate meeting ends poorly for the Oans, as the Zamarons refuse to stop their pursuit of the violet light.[6] Perhaps in response, the Guardians unanimously vote that love between Green Lanterns is forbidden within the Corps.[7]

A sub plot is also shown to the reader in Sins of the Star Sapphire which introduces a key member of the new Corps. In the secondary story, Mongul frees himself of Mother Mercy's vines after being imprisoned in Green Lantern Corps vol. 2, issue #26 (September 2008).[8] Ravenous after his imprisonment, he destroys a space craft belonging to newlyweds Kered and Miri Riam (on their way to their honeymoon) in order to ransack it for food. Kered approaches Mongul to ask him to spare their jet packs and enough food for them to find help. In response, Mongul cracks the face plate of Kered's pressure suit, killing him. After Mongul leaves, Miri drifts in space alone for two days before deciding to kill herself out of grief. Before she is able to complete her suicide, a violet power ring finds her and offers to fill the hole in her heart with violet light. Miri accepts and becomes the first new recruit to the Star Sapphires.[5] Miri quickly finds herself fighting for love as she assists a group of Green Lanterns attempting to apprehend Sinestro Corps member: Kryb. Through their temporary partnership they are able to defeat the yellow ring wielder. Though an argument ensues between Miri and Kyle Rayner (one of the Green Lanterns involved in the incident) over whether Kryb should be sent to Oa or Zamaron for detainment, it's agreed that Miri will escort Kryb back to Zamaron for reconditioning and re-education.[9]

In the issues of Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps serving as preludes to the Blackest Night event, the Star Sapphires continue to make preparations for the predicted conflict. After undergoing treatment within a violet conversion crystal, Fatality emerges as a newly transformed Star Sapphire. Her first thoughts upon being released are to seek out John Stewart (a Green Lantern she'd been trying to kill for causing the destruction of her home planet).[10] Upon finding him, however, she saves him from Agent Orange's attacking Orange Lantern constructs, demonstrating that they are unable to absorb constructs made from violet light. She admits that revenge is no longer her goal, and that she has other plans.[11] In the following issue, she reveals that she's attracted to Stewart, may have always been, and the Star Sapphire has given her the ability to finally absolve herself of her survivor's guilt.[12] After Fatality's successful conversion, Miri and Queen Aga'po observe that Kryb appears to be crying inside of her crystal (seemingly distraught over being separated from the children she kept imprisoned on her back). Queen Aga'po remarks that it is a sign the treatment is working.[13]

Carol Ferris once again gains the attention of the Zamarons as well. After a divorce and giving up the chance at being with Hal Jordan, he is no longer in her life and a hole in her heart has formed. While flying his former plane, the Zamarons send her one of their new violet power rings to fill it.[14] Ferris' reunion with the violet light is not fully shown until Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps #2 (July 2009). In Tales of the Star Sapphires: Lost Love, Ferris initially expects to be possessed by her violet power ring as had been the case with the Star Sapphire gem. The ring explains to her that the Zamarons have changed service to the Star Sapphires: it must be voluntary and now extends to an entire violet Corps. The ring reveals that Ferris has the potential of becoming the most powerful Star Sapphire, and also has the ability of leading the Star Sapphires into war alongside the Green Lantern Corps. At the end of the story, the power ring keeps its word and does not recruit Ferris until she gives it permission. She is, however, manipulated by being told that her love (Hal Jordan) may die depending upon the outcome of the War of Light. By joining the Star Sapphires, Ferris may be able to prevent that from happening.[15]

After his run-in with the Red Lanterns and Blue Lantern Corps during the Rage of the Red Lanterns plotline, Sinestro's attention turns from Oa to Zamaron. Before attempting to defeat a splinter cell of yellow ring wielders led by Mongul, he decides it's necessary to rescue the captured members of his Corps that are being converted into Star Sapphires.[11] Glimpses of a planned Sinestro Corps attack are first shown coming to fruition in Blackest Night #1 (July 2009). Carol Ferris is depicted confronting the Sinestro Corps robot, Tekik, as conflict between the two Corps rages in the background.[16]

The passage taken from The Book of the Black at the end of Blackest Night #2 states that love will be the first emotion to fall in the Black Lantern Corps' crusade against the colored lights.[17]

Green Lantern vol. 4 #45 and 46 depicts the battle between the Sinestro Corps and the Star Sapphires. During the conflict, the conversion crystals are compromised and the Sinestro Corps members inside are released. Kryb immediately abandons the battle to see to her children; she is followed by Sapphire Miri Riam and the two eventually reach Kryb's planet to find her children are gone. Kryb begs Miri to help her find her children promising to return to Zamaron of her own free will if Miri helps her. Miri senses that Kryb's love for her children is genuine and, despite the fact that Miri is repulsed by Kryb, agrees to help her. Back on Zamaron the battle takes an unexpected turn when deceased Sinestro Corps members resurrected as Black Lantern arrive. Carol Ferris and Sinestro are forced to work together until Hal Jordan and the Indigo Tribe arrive. The battle rages on until two black rings head for the violet Central Power Battery, bonding to the two crystallized lovers inside (who are Prince Khufu and his consort Chay-ara; the original forms of Hawkman and Hawkgirl). The two are transformed into Black Lanterns and their escape causes the battery to explode, causing widespread devastation to the planet and freeing the Predator. The damage is so great that the Sapphires are forced to abandon the planet to the Black Lanterns, fulfilling the Book of the Black's prophecy. Carol joins with Hal, Sinestro, and Indigo-1 to face Mongul on Korugar. The loss of the Central Power Battery does not appear to have affected Carol's powers.[18]

Carol travels with the rest of the group to Okaara to recruit Larfleeze and Atrocitus. Then they head to Ryut to determine the status of the Black Central Power Battery.[19] Finding that it has been moved, they head to Earth with the intention of destroying the battery with the combined white light of creation. Ultimately though, the white light they produce fails to destroy the battery, and appears to feed Nekron's power.[20]

When Ganthet duplicates the seven colored rings to deputize partners for each of the bearers, the violet ring chooses Wonder Woman as Carol's partner, deciding that she has great love in her heart, has love for all the creation and no one loves the light more than her on the planet. Wonder Woman was under the control of a black ring (from being one of numerous resurrected superheroes), but she and the violet ring's power are enough to break the black ring's hold, turning Wonder Woman into a Star Sapphire.[21][22]

In the aftermath of the Blackest Night, the Zamarons rebuilt the Central Power Battery and Queen Aga'po began using her life-force to power the battery until they could capture the Predator and reseal the entity into the Violet Power Battery in order to recharge it.

For that mission the Zamarons contacted Carol Ferris on Earth, and reveal to her that the Predator was on the planet. While searching for the violet emotional entity, Carol travels to Las Vegas where she locates the Predator, now inhabiting the body of a man who is infatuated with a woman who does not even know who he is, and defeats it alongside Larfleeze and Hal who also had come searching for the love entity. The three then take the Predator back to Zamaron, however when Carol discovers the intentions of the Zamarons, she argues that the Guardians' technology that the Zamarons-based the battery on can be powered by the ambient love in the universe and refused to deliver the Predator. Upon hearing Carol's words, the Zamaron Queen Aga'po used the last of her life force to charge the Central Power Battery, leaving her title of Queen of the Star Sapphires to Carol.[23]

Not much later, Zamaron is invaded by Queen Shriek of Hawkworld and her Hawk-Men. Carol and the Predator with the help from Hawkman and Hawkgirl tried to stop the Queen from taking the power of the Battery for herself, until the Predator bonded with the Queen. The Hawks eventually separate the Queen from the entity, as the skeletons from the Hawks past incarnations come alive due to the power of the Violet Battery and take Queen Shriek to the inside of the battery where she's sealed away with all the skeletons.

The Zamarons are the first to acknowledge, after learning of Larfleeze's role in banishing the Orrery of Archangel Invictus into another dimension, that the events like Sinestro becoming a Green Lantern once again, the fall of the Sinestro Corps, the Red Lanterns' Central Battery being poisoned, the return of Invictus and the Reach invasion in Odym are no coincidence,[24] a fact that was currently revealed to be the Guardians of the Universe doing as they try to bring about the rise of the Third Army.

• Queen Aga'po (of Sector 1416): The queen of the Zamarons, who was asked by the Guardians if she will discontinue the Zamarons' pursuit of the violet light, but refuses.[6] She is notified of the approach of the Sinestro Corps upon the Zamaron planet, and responds: "Yes. Let them come. For love will conquer all."[15] She sacrifices her life to power the Star Sapphire battery during Brightest Day, naming Carol the new queen.[23]
• Carol Ferris (of Sector 2814): The vice president of Ferris Aircraft, former love interest of Hal Jordan, and previous bearer of the position: Star Sapphire. After employing Jordan for a time as a pilot with Ferris Aircraft, he claims he cannot be near her without being with her. As she does not date employees, he left to resume his career in the United States Air Force.[25] Due to her heartache over Jordan's absence, a violet power ring was sent to tell her she has the potential to be the most powerful member of Star Sapphire Corps.[14][15] The ring also tells her that, by leading the violet Corps, she will be in a position to protect Jordan during the War of Light; hearing this, she accepts the invitation.[15] After the death of Queen Aga'po, she is named the Star Sapphires' new queen and is stated to be the most powerful Star Sapphire in the universe.[23]

• Dela Pharon (of Sector 1416): The lover of the now deceased Green Lantern of space sector 1416 from the planet Xanador, whose extreme interpretation of "love" caused her to kill her lover and encase their world in a violet crystal so that they could "be together forever".[26]
• Fatality (of Sector 1313): A princess from the planet Xanshi and former member of the Sinestro Corps, who was captured by the Zamarons after the Sinestro Corps War and sealed in a violet crystal meant to rehabilitate her yellow power ring.[6] Fatality eventually emerges as a converted Star Sapphire, and immediately decides to locate John Stewart.[10] Formerly her adversary, her hatred for him has been transformed into romantic interest.[12]
• Miri Riam (of Sector 1852): A newly-wed from the planet Lartnec who was heading for her honeymoon when she and her new husband Kered were attacked by the space tyrant Mongul. Mongul destroyed their ship, murdered Kered, and leaves Miri to drift in space alone. Planning to follow her husband into death, her suicide is interrupted by the arrival of a violet power ring that offers to fill the hole of [her] broken heart with the light of the Star Sapphire and Miri accepts.[5]
• Miss Bloss (of Sector 1416): A Zamaron member of the Star Sapphire Corps who is first featured in Blackest Night promotional imagery.[27]
• Race: A female alien with yellow skin that is first featured in Blackest Night promotional imagery.[27]
• The Lost Sapphire: First featured and named in promotional imagery for the Blackest Night event, her appearance and identity are presently unknown.[27]

• Guy Gardner (of Sector 2814): The third male to belong to the Star Sapphire Corps, Guy used Carol Farris's Star Sapphire ring along with the Red Lantern Ring during the War of the Green Lanterns in order to remove Parallax from the Central Power Battery, powering the ring with his love for his role in the Corps; he is the first male shown to wield a Star Sapphire ring.
• Abraham Pointe (of Sector 2814): The second male to belong to the Star Sapphires, who did not possess a violet ring, but was chosen to be the host of the Predator. The entity was eventually purged from Abraham's body which returned him to his human form.
• Khea Taramka (of Sector 2814): The Queen of Hawkworld, while not possessing a ring, as the current host of the Predator, she does not need one.[28] The entity was eventually purged from Khea's body which returned her to normal.
• Krona (of Sector 0): Krona temporarily became a member of the Star Sapphires when he put on Carol Ferris's power ring during the War of the Green Lanterns story-line. After he is killed, Carol's ring returns to Carol. The fourth male to belong to the Star Sapphires.
• Superman-Prime (of Sector 2813): Superman-Prime temporarily became a member of the Star Sapphires during the Blackest Night storyline when a black power ring temporarily transforms him into a Star Sapphire. Also the first male to become a member of the Star Sapphires.
• Wonder Woman (of Sector 2814): An Amazonian warrior and princess chosen to be a deputy member of the Corps. A duplicate of Carol's ring is able to free her from the influence of a black power ring by using the intense feelings of love in her heart, her love for the creation and her love for the light.[29] After her subconscious mind interacted with the ‘deceased’ Batman (Bruce Wayne), Diana finally freed herself from the black ring’s influence. Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, is depicted as aiding Diana in accepting the ring.[30] Wonder Woman is later discharged from the Star Sapphires, following her final battle.[31]

A distinguishing feature that marks the Star Sapphires as unique among their peers, in Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps, is their use of conversion crystals. While other Corps exclusively recruit their members by sending out their rings in search of sentient beings, the Star Sapphires are also shown as being able to convert other Corps members into Star Sapphires. By encasing the members of other Corps within violet rehabilitation crystals on Zamaron, the light of their rings is slowly transformed into violet, whereupon they emerge as newly formed Star Sapphires, such as Yrra Cynril (Fatality).[10] Similarly, violet power rings also momentarily encase new members to the Corps in crystal before granting them their Star Sapphire abilities and uniform.[5] Those imprisoned within the crystals can be freed by an outside force, or free themselves if sufficiently motivated, interrupting the transformation process before it's complete.[32]

The silhouettes of numerous Sinestro Corps members are shown within conversion crystals, but they are all released before their conversions are complete.[32] The following characters have been depicted as escaping their crystals before becoming Star Sapphires:

• Karu-Sil (of Sector 2815): Captured after the Sinestro Corps War.[6]
• Kiriazis (of Sector 1771): Captured after the Sinestro Corps War. Queen Aga'po mentions that Kiriazis is a good candidate for conversion.[10]
• Kryb (of Sector 3599): After being defeated by Miri Riam and a group of Green Lanterns, Miri took her back to Zamaron for rehabilitation.[9] Miri later escorts Kryb back to the world where her "children" are kept.
• Sinestro (of Sector 1417): While trying to free the others, Sinestro faces Carol Ferris. She briefly encases him inside of a conversion crystal, but after being shown a memory of his former paramour, Arin Sur, Sinestro is enraged and breaks free by himself.[32]

Lobo was placed in a crystal by Carol Ferris during his battle with her, Hal Jordan, Sinestro, Atrocitous, and Dex Starr. We never see what he does, but Lobo breaks out thanking her "for the peep show." He then whispers to her what he really wants, causing Carol to smack him with a giant hand created by her ring.[33]

It was originally believed that this process simply awakened the love each of these people already had inside them, allowing them to love without being inhibited by other emotions. Statements by Fatality after her ring is destroyed seem to indicate that the conversion process instead forces the convert to feel love regardless of their actual feelings, placing them essentially under mind control.[34]

Corp members of the Star Sapphires use violet power rings, fueled by the emotion of love. They allow the wearer to fly, generate a protective aura, and create violet light constructs.[5][9]

Violet rings have several unique abilities. They can create crystals which can be used to imprison members of other Lantern Corps on Zamaron.[6] Over time, the rings of the prisoners trapped in stasis within the crystals are infected with violet energy. After spending enough time inside, the prisoner will emerge as a Star Sapphire.[10] The rings can also detect when a love is in jeopardy, locate it, and then create a connection to the embattled heart that can be used as a tether. Sapphires are also shown as being able to show others their greatest love.[9] Unlike constructs created by Green Lanterns, Orange Lanterns cannot absorb those made by Star Sapphires.[11] Star Sapphires appear to be able to teleport in order to escape attackers, while their energy constructs release a disorienting dust when destroyed. These two abilities can be combined effectively to avoid being pursued.[12] Violet power rings have the ability to restore the recently deceased to life by drawing power from the heart of one that loves them.[45]

Though Star Sapphires do not have a weakness to other Corps (they are immune to the energy stealing properties of an Orange Power Ring), they are more susceptible to being controlled by their own power. Love is one of the two emotions on the far ends of the emotional spectrum, and has a much stronger influence over its users.[27] Unlike the Star Sapphire gem, which could force itself on a user, violet power rings must be accepted by the wearer.[15]

• The Star Sapphires appear in Green Lantern: The Animated Series. Debuting in the episode "In Love and War", Queen Aga'po is their leader. This version starts out as a villain group, as their conception of love involves trapping men in crystalline stasis chambers, putting them in a permanent euphoric state to ensure nothing bad will happen to them. They rely on their charms to convince men to be trapped willingly, or, if those men already have true loves, attempt to recruit said true loves. Carol Ferris is briefly recruited in an attempt to seduce Hal Jordan, but the ring's effect causes her to turn crazy and attack Hal. He is finally able to bring her back to her senses through a kiss, and she decides to reject the Star Sapphire ring, stating that the Zamarons' methods are not love, but selfishness. One of the Star Sapphire's novices is struck by her speech, and helps Hal and the others to escape, planning to teach her comrades the true meaning of love. In the episode "Homecoming", it is shown that they have stopped being fanatical. They help Hal and Razer by transporting them to Earth and Oa, respectively. In the episode "Love is a Battlefield", the Star Sapphires are attacked by Aya and the Manhunters for the spreading the message of love. As a result, they call back Carol to explain love to Aya. To help prove her case she had to fight Atrocitus. At the end of the episode, she decides to keep the ring this time just in case.

• The Star Sapphires appear in the video game Infinite Crisis.
• The Star Sapphires appear in the video game Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, with Carol Ferris being featured as a playable character, voiced again by Olivia d'Abo.
• The Star Sapphires appear in the video game DC Universe Online.
• The Star Sapphires appear in the video game DC Unchained, with Carol Ferris being featured as a playable character.