Spiral Zone: Proudly made in Japan

One thing I discovered about the Spiral Zone series is that it was actually based on a Japanese series, also called Spiral Zone.

Here's the Japanese version of the Zone Runner, simply called the Monoseed:

Here's the basis for Commander Dirk Courage's Rimfire, the Monoseed 2:

And it even had SD (Super Deformed) toys!

Even Spiral Zone is an example of how many great ideas start in Japan, the most notable being Transformers and manga/anime.