J'ahrl J'onzz charges J'onn with the task of hunting down those who had imprisoned him within the Sphinx: Martians who have taken to inhabiting the bodies of a succession of humans. In the heart of the Vatican, Cardinal Alonzo de Guzman receives a succession of unusual visitors, they are the seven renegades, who have taken over a variety of bodies in their quest to survive and thrive on the alien planet. J'onn does not know their whereabouts, but uses one of the personas that remains to him, a lady reporter, to learn of a girl who (so her mother claims) has been possessed by the spirit of her father-in-law. This is bound to be one of the renegades, so he tracks her down, but finds he is expected.

He is taken to the catacombs beneath the Vatican, where each of the renegades attacks him in turn: they have all taken over bodies with metahuman abilities. He slips away from them, though they still have a lock on his mind, to the home brought for him from Mars by the Spectre. Here, he is protected by the spirit of J'ahrl J'onzz, who whips up a sandstorm to prevent the renegades from entering. One of them is killed in this storm, but the others escape and vow to win this war against the Manhunter. J'onn, afraid of exposing his friends to be taken over by the renagades, realises he must fight this war alone.

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