Spiral Zone

Spiral Zone is a futuristic cartoon syndicated in 1987 involving the world's five most elite soldiers fighting a renegade scientist who has invented a mind-control bacteria and taken over half of the world (the afflicted area is in the shape of a spiral, hence the title). There was also a toyline from Tonka and the comic books were published by DC.

Plot

On June 18, 2007, renegade military scientist Dr. James Beck - code named Overlord - uses a hijacked space shuttle to drop his deadly Zone-producing Generators across half of the Earth. Thus is born the SPIRAL ZONE.

Millions of people are trapped in the dark mists of the SPIRAL ZONE and become transformed into Zoners with lifeless yellow eyes and strange red patches of Zone Bacteria growing on their faces. Because they have no will to resist, Overlord makes them his slave army.

His followers are known as Black Widows and these were: Bandit, a one-time terrorist of Middle Eastern origin; Duchess Dire, well-known as a criminal and troublemaker, wanted in half a dozen countries for blackmail, grand theft and other crimes; and Razorback and Reaper, basically a couple of run-of-the-mill criminals who saw an opportunity for power. Thanks to another one of Overlord's inventions, the Widow Maker, the Black Widows are immune to the hypnotic effects of the Zone. However, due to prolonged exposure to the Zone, their eyes have turned yellow and their bodies are covered in Zone Bacteria. Inside the Zone, skies were always dark. The humans were marked by yellow eyes and lesions on their skin (animals were also effected) and there were also such markings on buildings. His other plans were: destroy the forces of good selected to fight them and conquer the world by bringing everyone under their control with the Zone-producing Generators. The Zones fed off human energy, which was why Beck did not kill anyone inside.

With major cities Zoned, the nations of the world put aside their own differences in order to fight off Beck, now called the Overlord, and his Black Widows. However, only five soldiers using special suits to protect themselves from the Zone could do it. While easy to destroy, Zone generators were impossible to capture as they were booby-trapped. There was also the fact that Overlord would drop more generators onto remaining military and civilian centers and thus the Zone Riders had to stop those plans, forcing a long and bitter standoff.

Black Widows

The renegade scientist not only invented the zone generators but also an antidote process giving him immunity to the bacteria. He used this antidote process on his small group of soldiers. While immune to the mind-altering effects, each Black Widow still has lesions on their skin.

* Overlord - commander
* Bandit - master of disguise
* Duchess Dire - assignment expert
* Razorback - bladesman
* Reaper - manhunter

From their headquarters at the Chrysler Building of New York, the Black Widows also have a black aircraft. The Overlord rides the Bull Whip Cannon, an eight-wheel all terrain vehicle with a cannon. The other Black Widows ride Sledge Hammers, which look like thrones on triangular caterpillar tracks and sport whirling mace-like arms on either side to smash things in their way.

Zone Riders

The overlord's initial strike put all the major capitals of the world in the zone. This chaos brought forth international cooperation even between the United States and the Soviet Union. Scientists have discovered a rare material, Neutron-90, that immunizes people from the bacteria. Unfortunately, this material is in such a small quantity that only five protective suits could be made.

So a group of five elite soldiers were put together.

* Colonel Dirk Courage - commander, American
* Master Sergeant Tank Schmidt - heavy weapons specialist, German
* Lieutenant Hiro Taka - infiltration specialist, Japan
* 2nd Lieutenant Max Jones - special mission expert, American
* Corporal Katerina Anastacia - medical officier, Russian

From a base inside a rocky mountain, the Zone Raiders ride an aircraft jet to be dropped off on mission points around the world. Dirk Courage rides the Rimfire, a monowheel vehicle that looks like a cannon set on a giant wheel. The other Zone Raiders ride armored combat monocycle Zone Riders. Each Zone Raider wears a specialized backpack.

Later Characters

A little after halfway through the series, several new characters joined the story. The Zone Raiders welcomed:

* Lieutenant Ned Tucker - demolition expert, Australian
* Lieutenant Benjamin Davis Franklin - field scientist and lab assistant

and the Black Widows enlisted

* Crook - French corrupt politician
* Raw Meat - wild off road trucker that befriends Bandit

Toys

Spiral Zone was actually created in Japan by Bandai in the mid 80s as a line of extremely highy-detailed figures with futuristic military technology. Later, in the United States, Tonka took the name Spiral Zone and created a less-articulated and less-detailed line of figures and toys for the U.S. market and sold them with the marketing support of a TV series.

Airing and Syndication Information

Spiral Zone is an Atlantic-Kushner Locke Production in association with Orbis Communications and The Maltese Companies. The 65 30-minute episodes were syndicated late September 1987 in the United States.

Sources

* [http://www.spiral-zone.com/ SPIRAL-ZONE.com - The #1 resource for both the Tonka and Bandai SPIRAL ZONE series. Home of SPIRAL ZONE: The Complete DVD Collection.]
* [http://www.virtualtoychest.com/spiral/spiral.html Spiral Zone Toys info]
* [http://www.mastercollector.com/articles/reviews/review042703.shtml Flashback Review: Spiral Zone]
*Tv.com show|id=2819|title=Spiral Zone
*imdb title|0169492