House of Mystery #148 (1/65)

But wait...there's more! There's "The Beings in the Color Rings!" by Dave Wood & Joe Certa. Four giant rings (yellow, blue, green, red) with a pink center holding a pair of evil eyes! Ring one stole a yellow cab, returning it blanched of all color. J'onn J'onzz gave chase, only to be snared by a flying purple octopus that matched his strength...or was he? "I fear Manhunter not feeling well! Why he do crazy jig in sky at time like this...? Oh, oh! Color-ring creature moving on prowl! Man-hunter! Look! Oh gollies!"

Yes, the Manhunter had fallen into an illusory trap, while the rings stole the color from a blue dolphin sign. Once freed, J'onzz used his "incredible Martian super-memory" to recall text from the Book of Diabolu, that warned about the color being enslaving mankind (which helps explain why we should care about this ridiculous "menace.") In true optimist fashion, MM decided that there's, "No sense in attacking it again...It would just spawn that mirage beast against me..." Why was this courageous hero never as popular as Superman, again?

It's elementary logic (and I really mean that) to figure out that the color green would be the next target, so MM rolled up some grass off the ground like a rug (????,) and had both it and himself sucked into the rings' world. The stark white Martian battled his way through vicious Spagetti-O's, who gained strange powers from each color they stole. J'onn fell into a burnin' ring of fire, and went down, down, down. At about that time, Zook swiped a kid's toy fire engine, then cranked up his body temperature to red hot. The clueless rings drew him in (a felony in all fifty states,) and Zook "...put the ice on flames...save Manhunter..." J'onzz spun like a top, sending the Cheerios flying. Then, Manhunter sent Zook back home to safety while he monkeyed with the color machines. Those machines sucked the color out of the Ring-Creature, and it disappeared! "It couldn't survive with the complete absence of color!" If you say so, J'onn.