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Power calls for courage, peace and freedom, within the Zone
We will fight for our honour
What is right, we'll defend
Fight the Zone, Zone Riders
Earth's most powerful soldiers are Earth's last chance against the Spiral Zone!

This is another mid eighties toyline with a cartoon series.  The cartoon was interesting and the visuals were some of the best of the time.  The toys though were a throwback to the 70s.

The packaging was good, the toys inside was more Barbie and Action Man than the usual 80s toys.  The figure had cloth clothes and plastic accessories and were huge.  Nonetheless, there are still huge fans of these toys.

 

The Good guys were known as the Zone Riders. They were soldiers drawn from the ranks of world's developed westernised nations.  They are trying to fight, contain and defeat the Black Widows, a group of terrorists who uses Zone generators to spread a plague that zombifies the inhabitants in the Zone.  Talk about chemical and biological warfare. Typical of the eighties, the Black Widows were drawn from the ranks of the "evil" countries of that period.  Well, evil from the American viewpoint.  East Europeans, Russians, Cuba, Red China.  Not very politically correct these days. The Black Widows could only survive within the Zone and were somehow immune to the plague caused by the Zone generators.  The Zone Riders weren't immune within the Zone and had to wear special protective gear, particularly to protect their breathing passages, since the contagion within the Zone was an airborne vector.

One of the good things about the toys was the cassette that came along with each figure.  The usual modus operandi of the time included a mini comic.  This cassette though elevated the experience of the toys.

The other good thing was the infomation available within the toys.  These had a military feel to them and gave a lot more detail than the cartoon series - a must in the days before the internet.

Of course, as is typical of most military toys, weapons of all types abound.  The figures came with a multitude of accessories and if that weren't enough, there were extra "packs" of clothing and weapons and accessories for one to "dress up" these manly soldiers.

For more info about the cartoons head over to the Spiral Zone at TV tome.  The Virtual Toy Chest has good pictures of most of the toys.

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