The Q Rider

The Q Rider is a series produced by Toei Company as a prequel to the Kamen Rider Series. Although fans say, it's not a Rider show, Toei have stated on their official website that Q Rider is not considered a Kamen Rider show it is however considered the spiritual predecessor to the 1971 series like how Ultra Q is in the Ultra Franchise despite not being related to Ultraman or how Gotham is set Pre-Batman.

Q Rider premired on Japanese TV on the 22nd August 1970 and ran for 43 episodes, you could say it ran for 44 episodes if you count the pre-premire special for Kamen Rider as it features events up until Hongos capture by Shocker and the destruction of the SSP. The series is based on popular shows at the time like The Twilight Zone as it has a massive array of creatures and fictional alien races that are sent out to wreak havoc, by a terrorist organisation called The White Roses of Japan which is basically an early version of Shocker.

Plot: The Special Search Patrol are a group of humans who are living their lives everyday in order to investigate weird events or suspected bombings and protect people from monsters and other types of terrorism made by The White Roses of Japan, an evil terrorist organisation who plan to mine the earths natural resources and plunge the globe back into the dark ages...- Narrator (Episode 1)

Characters: Q Rider- Takeshi Hongo (SSP Commander)

SSP Members: Lieutenant Maria Komayachi Secretary General Howe Private Tanahashi Foot Soldiers

Main Villians: Great Leader White Rose Clansmen Nethersoul

Notes: Q Rider is not considered an official entry into the Kamen Rider Series, however Toei said the reason to this was because of the target audience this was aimed at, whilst the 1971 series was aimed towards young boys, Q Rider was aimed towards, older kids, teenagers and young adults.

The suit used in the show resembles that of Skullman, a manga created by Shotaro Ishinimori but with a few differences including but not limited to, a red cape being added, the mask is now at an upward slant so more of the face is revealed and the suit being made of metal instead of fabric, along with Hongo having a gun, arm spikes, a sword and bommerang shurikens.

Despite not being part of the series, Hongo did use the suit on a number of occasions after the series ended, the main example of this was in Super Hero Taisen GP: Kamen Rider 3gou where he detransformed out of Kamen Rider 1gou and used a large capsule to equip the Q Rider suit to fight 3gou and Faiz who were under Nova Shockers influence.