Damn it, I was SURE I was going to the first and only one to cite this! I LOVED this cartoon when I was a wee lad, and I’ve had a fondness for magic rings ever since.
Okay, my fallback ring is the magical Wishing Ring (which grants wishes over time periods decreasing by sevenths) from E. Nesbit’s weirdest and probably finest fantasy novel, The Enchanted Castle.
It was white gold, not platinum.
There’s a few more some people haven’t mentioned.
Ovaltine Secret Decoder Rings, immortalized in the movie, A Christmas Story.
The Phantom had TWO rings: one worn on the Phantom’s right hand, which left a skull shaped “Death’s head” indention when he punched you. The other ring had for Ps that formed a cross. When he pressed it against your skin, it indicated you were under the Phantom’s protection.
Lana Lang was given an alien bio ring that allowed her to attain the powers of many Earth and alien insects, which she used to fight crime in her short-lived career as The Insect Queen.
The novel, Middle Passage, had the dwarf-like ship’s captain Ebenezer Falcon (captain of the slaver The Republic) invent magnetic rings that unlocked specially designed revolvers so that none but the wearers could fire special guns he designed.
Lex Luthor fashioned a ring made from green kryptonite to keep Superman at bay, which eventually gave him kryptonite posioning, which facilitated the death of his body, which he had cloned, which he transferred his mind to and came back reborn as his own son. I’m amazed his political opponents weren’t able to do more with this! This guys won the presidency?
Speaking of Xanth novels, (no need to be embarrassed Chronos) I seem to recall a ring that was stretched to allow people access to either the Brain Coral or either the world inside the Gourd, possibly both.
Didn’t the gems of the Infinity Gauntlet start off as precious stones set in separate rings?
Special mention to the accessories worn by Zsa Zsa Gabor, Ringo Starr and Mr. T.
Infinity Gems, as those who’ve owned them know, come with an adhesive backing, perfect for adhering to one’s forehead.
Does this include the telephone “dials” that worked for Dial “H” for Hero?
CandidGamera. Oh, so they’re like the little lights in the palms of all those people in Logan’s Run. Ahhhhhh.
Yes. But the Infinity Gems only turn black when you’re becoming too obscure a character, not based on age.
Musn’t forget Queen of Wands…
In the movie 9 to 5, Lily Tomlin’s character (in a dream sequence) had a fat ol’ ring with a secret compartment filled with soluble poison that she used to stir into Mr. Hart’s coffee.
Q must’ve hooked James Bond up with at least one ring-based accessory, but I’ll be durned if I can think of any.
In the latest reboot, Legion flight rings also make the wearer invisible to Federation scanners.
The Wonder Twins. No rings apparent.
There’s the red ring of Macha and Nemain, goddesses of war, from Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry
Doc Savage, The Man Of Bronze --he used rings with various gadgets in them, on occasion.
They included–
[ul]
[li]A skeleton key device[/li][li]A flash grenade[/li][li]a hiding place for explosives[/li][li]acid capsules[/li][li]a hding place for various drugs[/li][li]a one-shot gas gun[/li][li]a smoke grenade[/li][li]a miniature 2-way radio (very advanced, for the 1930’s).[/li][/ul]
And in the Lupin The Third Anime Movie, Castle of Cagliostro, there is a matched set of rings, one gold, one silver, inscribed with a ram & a goat, respectively. When inserted into two aperatures in a clocktowers’s frieze, a hidden floodgate opens, revealing Cagliostro’s treasure-- a hidden Roman city, concealed under the waters of a lake. Intact! Complete with marble statuary from the pre-Christian era!
TNT and Dan the Dyna Mite were 40s DC heroes who were a chemistry teacher and his student. Somehow the chemicals affected the rings they wore so when they touched them together, they each got powers.
Later, TNT died and Dan took both rings and when he would touch them together, he would get his powers.
That was from Cruel Lie or Crewel Lye or whatever the punny title was. Dor went into the past, met up with Vadne, a “neo-Sorceress” with the talent of “topology.” She took a standard sized ring and deformed it into a hoop. It initially just made objects that passed through it vanish and only later was revealed to lead to the Brain Coral.
Would the eponymous ring from The Ring count?
That was actually Castle Roogna in which Vadne created the Hoop. I think the REVEAL of where the Hoop led was in Crewel Lye.
How about Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire?
How about the thumb ring/molecular string/laser-garrotte thingy from Johnny Mnemonic?
The glass-breaker ring fron Die Another Day
Didn’t Emperor Ming’s have a ring of power? I don’t remember exactly what it did, though.
Sonic ring in Die Another Day.