“Nominally” the Boss: The Rise and Fall of Carol Ferris in Silver Age Green Lantern Comics

Most studies of gender, superhero comics, and the Cold War focus on problems of national identity and containment of Communism as they relate to masculine gender formation. When superhero girlfriends are mentioned—and they rarely are—the women are labeled “nuisances,” “superfluous,” and little more than convenient markers of heterosexuality for the male superhero. Though usually career-minded, ambitious women, they seem easily duped despite apparent intelligence and professional acumen. This paper challenges these characterizations through an examination of Carol Ferris, the employer and occasional love interest of Hal Jordan, the alter ego of Silver Age Green Lantern. I examined twenty-one Green Lantern stories in which Ferris appeared, beginning with her introduction in “Secret of the Flaming Spear” in Showcase #22 and concluding with “The Secret Life of Star Sapphire,” in Green Lantern #16. Intelligent and multi-talented, Ferris demonstrated for readers that gender might not limit one’s potential, but it certainly would make it difficult to navigate the male-dominated world of aircraft manufacturing. While Jordan’s masculinity is assured through his dangerous occupation, his superhero identity, and his heterosexual pursuit of Carol Ferris, her feminine gender formation, at least according to 1950s standards, required her to do little more than find a suitable husband. Elevated to the presidency of Ferris Aircraft in the final pages of her introductory story, creators John Broome and Julius Schwartz systematically disempowered her using infantilizing language and plot points that reduced Carol to something more misogynistic than even the damsel in distress trope. Praised for having “a real fine business head on her shoulders” at the outset, by Green Lantern #16, Carol Ferris had literally lost control of her mind. Her narrative arc, I argue, demonstrates the lengths taken by mid-twentieth century cultural producers to undermine successes achieved by women in the early Cold War era.