Retro Toy Week: DC Direct Star Sapphire!

This is just a bit of a cheat, since I was getting this figure out from the back of the shelves for a future homemade strip, but as long as she's here we'll take a quick look: from 2001, DC Direct's Star Sapphire! Oh...can I recap Star Sapphire's history, off the top of my head? Carol Ferris--of Ferris Airlines, Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan's boss and sometimes love interest--when possessed by the purple gem of the Zamarons, would become the villainess Star Sapphire. Her level of evil varied pretty wildly, from harmlessly trying to get GL's attention, to murdering Katma Tui. (I'm used to her being the later, extra evil; and to Hal not being in any particular hurry to have her back as Carol.) Maybe that's been retconned: there have been a few different Star Sapphires, even before the creation of an entire corp devoted to "the violet light of love." Or the Pink Lantern Corps, it's all girls in...ok, kind of hot outfits. Man, for the eightieth time, I don't have a problem with the Zamarons or the Controllers or whoever having their own pseudo-Green Lantern Corps, but I didn't think everybody needed their own damn rings. What's that? Merchandising? T-shirts? Yeah, ok. I liked it just fine when the Star Sapphire girls wore their gems on little bonnets, and the Controllers' recruits got Darkstar uniforms that offered about as much protection as an extra pair of socks.

By the way, also probably retconned: Carol is like the second or third female DC Comics character that got magically pregnant in the nineties with some alien/evil/unconventional baby, that is never going to be brought up again. Power Girl too, and you could probably count Donna Troy on that one too. Oh, comics. OK, the actual figure: shoulders, hips, glove-top wrists, and neck. The latter is a bit restricted by the combination of the giant hair and huge collar, but that's not uncommon for female figures to this day. Star Sapphire Classic also came with a gem base. Comparing her to the brand-new DCUC Star Sapphire...hmm. New Star's hair is just as restrictive on the neck joint as the Classic. New has reams more articulation, but it does break up the sculpt a bit, she doesn't have the same weight to her, and Classic's head sculpt has so much more life. Classic seems like she's having way more fun; while New looks pretty unenthusiastic about being a superhero. Maybe it's the outfit. (I don't read the Green Lantern books a ton lately, but Carol just seems like she would rather be doing anything else.)

I'm kind of liking Classic more right now, but we'll see if that sticks after I do more photos with them both.