Then you have Spiral Zone, where you don't get any kind of introduction at all. The theme song talks about the Spiral Zone without any information about it, and the first episode doesn't tell you what it is either, instead showing one of the heroes getting hypnotized by a video game. Honestly, after watching three episodes of the show, I still have no idea what's going on. There's a team of "Zone Riders" wearing arctic camo that work for the military, there's another team of guys covered in red splotches, a bunch of citizens that have the same splotches and yellow eyes, and some kind of zone. I'm as lost after three episodes as I was before I pressed play on the first one.

The Zone Riders - led by the laughably named Dirk Courage - have the only suits that provide them immunity to the effects of the Zone and work with the military to destroy the generators that power the Zone. While I have to make jokes about Dirk's name, the rest of the Zone Riders have more depth than any of the Black Widows. The requisite German member (so they can give him a bad accent), Tank, gets the most characterization, where in the third episode he reveals he lost his wife and children in the Zone. They're not dead, of course, just stuck in there. And as easily as the Zone Riders get in and out of the Zone, I'm not sure why they can't get them.


Coolness - 2. First off, I've got to talk about his voice. He's voiced by the fantastic Neil Ross, who after lending his voice to heroes like Springer from Transformers, Herc Armstrong from Inhumanoids, and Ace McCloud from Centurions, finally got his chance to play a villain. Unfortunately for us, he just speaks like he's got laryngitis. It's so disappointing! Second, he's got a cool looking vehicle called the Bullwhip Cannon (again, only found that on Wikipedia). Too bad I never saw him do anything with it - it blew up more often than I saw it shoot anything. In fact, I'm not sure I ever saw it fire a single shot.
Effectiveness - 6. Overlord may not be able to drive and he might need a lozenge, but he is a great villain. He has taken over half the country and has an army of brain-washed people which makes the Zone Riders reluctant to fight back. He constantly thwarts the good guys' plans, already knowing their attacks and setting traps against them. I always like the cartoons where the good guys are at a disadvantage and the Spiral Zone definitely fits that bill. After a visit to Wikipedia, of course.
Check back next week when we watch Blackstar and look at the other Overlord,
Doesn't the Spiral Zone encompass the entire world?
ReplyDeleteNot completely. It goes around the world but there are so many holes in it that it only effects half of it. I know he's always trying to build generators to expand its reach.
ReplyDeleteThe author didn't do enough research: most of the points he complaints about or mocks are actually explained in the rest of the series. He only watched the first three episode and apparently doesn't know that they were labelled and broadcasted out-of-order: the pilot episode is, ironically, episode 4: "Mission into Evil". Here's a fansite with extensive informations:
ReplyDeletehttp://millartime.com/spiralzone/tonka/story.htm
I did admit when doing posts about the villains in cartoons that I didn't watch as a kid that I would only watch 3 episodes just to get a feel for the villain. Unfortunately, it is a time constraint I had to place on myself as I have a full-time job and a toddler. Thank you for the link, I'll check it out as this show definitely deserves more attention.
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