Darkbird

A SilverHawk carrying Quicksilver's security clearance is admitted to Dollare, the bank world of the Galaxy of Limbo, and welcomed by Lord Cash. Once inside he attacks, breaches the defences and takes Lord Cash hostage, announcing that he wants all the money in the galaxy. Lord Cash calls Earth and reports that Quicksilver is the attacker and the SilverHawks have turned bad.

At Hawk Haven, Commander Stargazer tells the team that Earth has ordered him to disband them. A report recorded by Tally-Hawk shows the truth: Hardware has built Darkbird, a copy of Quicksilver, and Mon*Star has sent him to capture Lord Cash so the Mob can take all the money in Limbo. Stargazer orders the team to capture Darkbird, rescue Lord Cash and save Dollare, and the Steel twins unveil a new weapon, the Skynet. Meanwhile Hardware demands to be paid for making Darkbird, and Mon*Star sends him back to work.

The Mob, heading in to load a cargo ship with the loot, spots the SilverHawks, but Quicksilver chooses to free Lord Cash first. Darkbird ambushes the Mirage and hits Steelwill, whose arms are trapped as his power fails. Quicksilver sends the others back to Hawk Haven to repair Steelwill and the Mirage and goes on alone with Tally-Hawk. On Dollare, Darkbird gloats to Lord Cash that the rescuers will be burned by the bank's own defence fields, while Mon*Star, told that things are going wrong, transforms to finish the job himself.

Steelwill, running on new parts Steelheart has installed, flies back in with the team. In the fight Quicksilver is buried under a fall of coins, the Mirage splits up to cut off any escape, and Quicksilver ends up thanking Tally-Hawk for the help. Afterwards Lord Cash apologises for mistaking Darkbird for a SilverHawk, and Quicksilver tells him he would have been fooled too.

A bandit who bears an uncanny resemblance to Quicksilver attacks the bank of Limbo.

Quicksilver: "I don't believe it. He's my identical twin."

Mon*Star: "What? You miserable, monstrous mechanic."

Quicksilver: "In fact, if I'd been you, I'd have been fooled by that thing too."

Steve Perry's script turns a bank planet against the SilverHawks in its opening scene. A SilverHawk with Quicksilver's face and Quicksilver's security clearance is admitted to Dollare, welcomed by name, and then turns on the place; when Lord Cash calls Earth, he does not ask for the SilverHawks, he reports that they have gone bad.[1] Earth takes his word for it, and we cut straight to Commander Stargazer telling his team that he has been ordered to disband them!

The Hawk Haven scene that follows plays the premise with a light hand. Bluegrass gets the best of the banter, calling the frame-up "lower than a snake in a wagon rut", but the line that lands is Quicksilver's, watching the report Tally-Hawk recorded as Mon*Star shows off the copy Hardware built: "I don't believe it. He's my identical twin." Anyone who knows Quicksilver only by his face can be fooled by a copy of it, and everyone in that position, from the desk on Earth to Lord Cash, gives his reputation away at the first sight of the copy. The people who do know him never waver.

The design sells that premise better than the dialogue does. Darkbird is Quicksilver's model redrawn, white hair where Quicksilver's is dark, and dark rings around the eyes that turn every close-up into a leer; on Dollare he gloats to his hostage against a red-orange lattice that makes the vault look like the inside of a jewel.[2] The animation needs no caption to separate them, and we can always tell them apart even when Lord Cash cannot.

The Mob gets a scene of its own that is funnier than it needs to be. Hardware wants paying for his work, and Mon*Star, sitting on what he expects to be the wealth of the Galaxy of Limbo, answers "What? You miserable, monstrous mechanic." before reminding him he could always work for someone else. Nobody in the Mob trusts anybody. The SilverHawks do the reverse. When Steelwill comes back after the ambush that trapped his arms, he waves off Bluegrass's concern with "These new parts Steelheart installed work better than the old ones", which picks up the mechanical hearts fitted in The Origin Story.

The weakness is Darkbird himself. He is drawn with care and written as a set of boasts: he asks Mon*Star to let him smash something, he declares that he was built to trash SilverHawks and will not stop until the job is done, and he never once has to pass as Quicksilver in front of anyone who knows him. The premise asks for that scene, and we never get it. Earth disbanding its own team on the strength of one call is the same shortcut from the other side. Both are what a twenty-two minute slot does to a story about a double. It leaves room to set up the frame-up and room to clear it, but none to play the impostor as a character.[3]

It resolves in Quicksilver's reply to Lord Cash's apology: "In fact, if I'd been you, I'd have been fooled by that thing too." He forgives Lord Cash for taking Darkbird for him, and he does it with a laugh. Darkbird is a good idea told in a hurry. Earth and Lord Cash both doubt Quicksilver, and the SilverHawks never once do.

1 ^ Earth's first answer to Lord Cash is to contact the SilverHawks at once, and he has to explain that the SilverHawks are the problem.

2 ^ Darkbird's plan for the rescue party is to let Lord Cash's own defence fields incinerate them. It is the one cruel idea given to a character otherwise written in boasts.

3 ^ What we get of him with his hostage is a trade of threats: Lord Cash promises Darkbird three hundred years on the penal planet, the prison Mon*Star broke out of in The Origin Story, and Darkbird laughs at him.

1. First appearance of Darkbird, built by Hardware on Mon*Star's orders; Hardware complains that he has not been paid for making him.
2. Dollare's security admits Darkbird as SilverHawk code name Quicksilver, security clearance A-one, so the copy passes the bank world's checks as well as its eyes.
3. The Steel twins introduce the Skynet, which Stargazer calls a special weapon for downing a SilverHawk.
4. Steelwill returns to the fight on new parts Steelheart installs after Darkbird's ambush, following the mechanical hearts the twins were given in The Origin Story.
5. Mon*Star transforms mid-episode to finish the job himself, after deciding that if you want anything done, you have to do it yourself.
6. In the closing group shot at 19:48 the Copper Kidd is painted red rather than his usual copper.
7. The closing quiz continues Bluegrass's lessons for the Copper Kidd from The Origin Story; this time the question is where the planets get their light, and the Kidd finishes on eight points for the day.

4 names enter the series in this episode.

• Lord Cash
• Darkbird
• Dollare
• Cargo Ship

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.