5. Spiral Zone
Number of seasons: 1
Number of episodes: 65
Original run: 21 September – 18 December 1987
Spiral Zone is yet another sci-fi cartoon (yes, I am a big fan of sci-fi) and when it was first aired, it was set in the future of 2007, but since we’re already in 2015, this can easily be retconned to be set in the year 2027 or 2197. This cartoon actually has a more post-apocalyptic vibe to it as it tells the story of how a renegade military scientist, Dr. James Bent, uses what is known as a Zone Generator across half of the Earth, thus creating the Spiral Zone.
Those who are trapped in the mists of the Spiral Zone are transformed into “Zoners”, zombie-like creatures but aren’t exactly undead, they just lose the will to resist. With this, Bent then becomes the Overlord, who uses these Zoners as his slave army to aid his quest to conquer the world. Besides just the Zoners, Overlord also has his followers known as the Black Widow who are immune to the Zone.
With just about every country in jeopardy, the nations of the world put their differences aside and form a team of Zone Riders to thwart Overlord’s plans. These five soldiers are equipped with special suits to protect themselves from the Zone. They also ride in special vehicles that help them traverse the wastelands and are also armed with a ton of firepower to defeat the Black Widows who also have similar vehicles.
While Spiral Zone does share quite a lot of similarities to the likes of G.I. Joe, it is slightly different as the teams on both sides are much smaller, so the movie can really focus on each characters skills and also relationship with each other. If made into a movie, it will of course have a much darker tone as the world is essentially a wasteland and in dire straits.
