 Eighteen-year-old Joe Shimamura, a rebellious, spiky-haired half-Japanese youth, wakes up one afternoon to find himself lying on an operating-room table with a strange suit and superhuman abilities such as the ability to move faster than the human eye. After escaping from the laboratory, he soon discovers that he is the ninth in a series of cyborg weapons - ordinary humans from all over the world, captured and augmented against their wills to become devastating warriors. Some of these include a genius baby from Russia, an impoverished cook from China, and a freedom fighter from Africa. The culprit behind this act is Black Ghost, a terrorist group that aims for money and power by selling illegal weaponry to warring nations worldwide. Based on the classic but unfinished Japanese comic book by the late manga godfather Shoutarou Ishinomori, Cyborg 009 follows the story of the nine cyborg rebels as they seek to halt the sinister intentions of Black Ghost while also attempting to deal with the alienation caused by their new identities.