Burnout

Hotwing is escorting a tanker of precious jewels to the edge of Limbo when Zero the Memory Thief brings Mon*Star a scam. He will steal Professor Power's memory, take over the Artificial Sun, and make Limbo pay for its sunshine, or give it too much; and the first ones he burns out will be the SilverHawks. At the Sun, Zero flatters the professor, asks him to look at his memory tapes, and drains his mind with the memo-prod, leaving him asking who he is. Using the stolen knowledge, Zero focuses the Sun's rays into one beam on Hawk Haven, and the professor is taken to Mon*Star's fortress.

At Hawk Haven, Stargazer blames the air conditioning, but the heat swells the doors shut and jams the cooling system, and he and the Steel twins find themselves trapped in their own home. Stargazer calls Hotwing off the escort to investigate. At the Sun there is no sign of the professor, and Hotwing cannot make sense of the controls, but he bends the beam away from Hawk Haven and, on Stargazer's suggestion, turns it on Brim*Star.

Seymour drives Hotwing into Brim*Star, doubling the meter for the risk to his paint job. Windhammer is sent to put the fire out with a rainstorm and runs out of rain. Hotwing frees the professor from his cell, but Yes-Man catches them in a corridor. Zero cannot bend the beam back: he stole everything the professor knew, but not how to apply it. Mon*Star offers a bargain, and Hotwing insists that the memory comes back first. Restored, the professor hurries back to fix the overheating Sun. He tells Hotwing he has learned never to trust the Mob, and Stargazer asks Hotwing for one of his quick clean-up spells.

Zero steals Professor Power's memory and takes over the artificial sun, which roasts HawkHaven when the doors jam.

"We may know everything the professor knows, but that doesn't tell us how to apply it."

Hotwing: "The SilverHawks always keep their word, Mon*Star."

Professor Power: "I've learned something. Never trust the Mob."

Bill Ratter's script is built on a thief who steals everything Professor Power knows and then cannot use it. Zero the Memory Thief arrives at Mon*Star's fortress with what he calls a great scam: steal Professor Power's memory, and with it the know-how to run the Artificial Sun, then charge Limbo for its sunshine. Mon*Star improves on it at once, deciding that anyone who will not pay should get too much sunshine instead, and that the SilverHawks should be the first to burn.

The con itself is the best scene in the episode, because Zero does not break in; he flatters his way through the door. "Word is that you're a genius at fixing anything," he tells the professor, and adds that everyone says he is the best in the galaxy. The professor, pleased, lets him in to look at his memory tapes, and a minute later he is standing in a crackle of pink light asking, "Who am I?"[1] It is a cruel little sequence, and the voice work sells it: the professor's vanity is played for a warm laugh right up to the moment the memo-prod switches on.

Zero has the knowledge but not the man who knows how to use it. He can aim the Sun at Hawk Haven with his new learning, but when Hotwing turns the beam on Brim*Star and the Mob needs it moved again, the thief is lost. "We may know everything the professor knows, but that doesn't tell us how to apply it," he admits, and from then on the Mob cannot move the beam. Mon*Star needs the professor, the professor needs his memory, and Hotwing, who has already freed the professor, insists the memory comes back before anybody touches a lever.[2]

The staging of the heat at Hawk Haven is good, too. Stargazer at his desk fanning himself, sure it must be the air conditioning; the Steel twins putting their shoulders to a door that will not budge; the discovery that the cooling system has jammed as well, and Stargazer's flat realisation that they are "trapped in our own home." The scene starts as comedy, and by the time the three of them stand together the windows behind them have gone red.

The weak spot is Hotwing at the Sun. He arrives, says he cannot make head or tail of the controls and that only Professor Power can straighten this out, and then bends the beam away from Hawk Haven all the same. Zero is stuck with all the professor's knowledge, yet Hotwing, with none of it, manages what Zero cannot, and the dialogue at that point is too muddy to show how he manages.[3] It is the kind of shortcut a twenty-two minute slot forces, since the Steel twins and Stargazer have to be saved before the last act, but it takes some of the sting out of Zero's failure a few minutes later. Getting into Brim*Star by hailing Seymour's cab is a repeat of the trick from Hotwing Hits Limbo, and Seymour, doubling the meter to cover his paint job, is at least funny about it.

Hotwing gets the last word on the bargain: "The SilverHawks always keep their word, Mon*Star." The professor's moral is aimed at Zero's flattery: "I've learned something. Never trust the Mob." Zero stole everything the professor knew and still could not run the Sun without him!

1 ^ Zero's pretext is that his memo-prod works but his reels will not go round, so the professor is asked to fix the very tapes that will hold his own mind.

2 ^ Professor Power can be seen at the edge of frame behind Mon*Star and Zero at 10:12, the first sign that he has been carried off to Brim*Star; the dialogue does not say so until Stargazer tells Hotwing at 12:45 that the Mob has him.

3 ^ The soundtrack from 13:00 to 13:40 is almost impossible to make out, so how Hotwing moves the beam is not established.

1. Zero the Memory Thief returns from Zero The Memory Thief, and his reel-to-reel tapes and memo-prod are the tools of the theft again.
2. Professor Power and the Artificial Sun, both first seen in Save The Sun, are the target here; the professor's drained state is drawn as pink energy.
3. Hotwing opens the episode escorting a tanker of precious jewels to the edge of Limbo, and is two miles short when Stargazer calls him off.
4. The heat swells Hawk Haven's doors shut and jams the cooling system as well, so Stargazer and the Steel twins cannot even leave.
5. Stargazer suggests turning the beam on Brim*Star to give the Mob a taste of their own medicine.
6. Seymour's cab gets Hotwing into Brim*Star unnoticed, as it did in Hotwing Hits Limbo; this time Seymour doubles the meter because the flames will scorch his paint job.
7. Windhammer is ordered to put the fire out with a rainstorm and reports that he is running out of rain.
8. Stargazer calls Hotwing 'Magic Man' and asks for one of his quick clean-up spells; the closing quiz is on Skylab, and the Copper Kidd ends on ten points.

One name enters the series in this episode.

• Tanker

Appearance lists compiled from the episode articles on the ThunderCats wiki, checked against this site's encyclopedia. Names we have no entry for are shown without a link rather than left out.