Fantascreen

Hardware has built the Fantascreen, a machine that shows its victim his wildest fantasy and makes him a mindless slave, and he and Mon*Star decide to test it on Steelwill, reasoning that if it can take the strongest will in the universe it can take anyone's. Mo-Lec-U-Lar disguises himself as Grod the Informer and lures Steelwill to the planet Fence with a tip about something big, maybe too big for the SilverHawks. Steelwill flies in on the Sprinthawk, and Grod leads him straight into Hardware's trap. By the time Hardware reports back, Steelwill answers every order with "I will obey", and the Mob presents him to Mon*Star as its latest criminal recruit.

At Hawk Haven, Steelheart senses through her telepathic link that her brother is in trouble. Tally-Hawk relays what happened on Fence, and Commander Stargazer sends the Mirage to find the Fantascreen and destroy it in the hope that will free Steelwill. The Mob is waiting: Steelwill attacks the Mirage and nearly brings it down, then heads back with Hardware to prepare the Fantascreen for the rest of the team. Bluegrass tracks them into a warehouse on Fence, and the SilverHawks launch after them.

Inside, the Mob takes the team prisoner, and Mon*Star, in his transformed armour, arrives to watch the SilverHawks get their first dose of the Fantascreen. Steelheart refuses to go in, so Mon*Star orders her brother to put her there. Instead she reaches out to him through their link, and Steelwill agrees to follow her lead.

Afterwards Quicksilver tells Steelheart that without her link to Steelwill they would all have been destroyed by their own fantasies. Asked what his fantasy was, Steelwill says he turned into a giant Tally-Hawk and captured Mon*Star, and the others admit it was theirs too: they all share the same ambition, to make Limbo safe from Mon*Star.

Hardware devises a machine that can turn Silverhawks into mindless Mob slaves.

Quicksilver: "The point is, Steelheart. I couldn't have done the same."

"My telepathic link tells me he needs help."

"You call it, I'll play it."

Who are you when somebody else is doing the wanting for you? Steve Perry, who turned Quicksilver's face against him in Darkbird, turns a SilverHawk's own mind against him here, and the Mob picks the hardest target on the team on purpose. The reasoning is that a machine able to take Steelwill's will can take anybody's, so Mo-Lec-U-Lar puts on the face of Grod the Informer and pitches the tip at his pride: the tip, Grod says, is "Maybe too big for the SilverHawks", and Steelwill is not the sort to let that pass.

A will can be captured through the thing it wants most, and once the Mob has captured Steelwill's, only his sister can reach him. Steelheart feels the capture through the twins' telepathic link before anyone has told her.[1] The Fantascreen shows its victim his wildest fantasy and keeps him there. It is a cleverer weapon than the Mob usually manages, because it asks nothing of Steelwill but that he enjoy himself, and he puts up little resistance. Steelwill comes out of it answering every order with the same words, "I will obey."

The animation draws the capture and the cure in the same colour. When the trap closes, bands of pale blue light coil around Steelwill's arms, and later the same bands wind around Quicksilver as the Mob closes in on the team. When Steelheart finally reaches her brother, the link between them shows as that same blue light, burning in her eyes.

The standout is that final scene, built on a neat reversal. Mon*Star cannot make Steelheart walk into the Fantascreen, so he orders her brother to do it. Yet Steelheart turns the move round. "It's my only chance," she tells herself as she tries to make contact, and when she gets through, she keeps it short and calls him "little brother".[2] Steelwill's answer, "You call it, I'll play it", is the first line since Fence that sounds like Steelwill, not the Mob.

The weakness is that the episode names Steelwill's willpower as the prize and then never lets him use it. He goes under within the first scene on Fence, without a struggle we can follow, and he spends the rest of the half hour as muscle for the Mob.[3] Mo-Lec-U-Lar fares worse; his quick change into Grod is the best trick in the setup, and after it he drops out of the story. Both are casualties of a twenty-two minute slot with a disguise, a capture, a rescue flight and a second capture to fit in. Saving its time for the twins is the right call, but it costs the opening its tension.

Asked what his fantasy was, Steelwill admits he turned into a giant Tally-Hawk and captured Mon*Star, and the rest of the team confesses that it was theirs too. This is Steelheart's episode!

1 ^ The team hears of the capture twice. Steelheart feels it through the link, and then Tally-Hawk relays what happened on Fence, which leaves the Mirage reporting to Stargazer that "looks like they really nailed Steelwill".

2 ^ Steelheart calls him "little brother", though the two are twins.

3 ^ Steelwill's first job for the Mob is to attack the Mirage, and he nearly downs it before somebody aboard announces "My bird pulled it out!"

1. Mo-Lec-U-Lar disguises himself as Grod the Informer to lure Steelwill to Fence; Hardware cues the disguise as his "quick change act".
2. Steelwill flies to Fence alone in the Sprinthawk.
3. Steelheart feels her brother's danger through a telepathic link between the twins, and Quicksilver credits that link with saving the whole team.
4. Tally-Hawk relays what happened on Fence to Commander Stargazer, who sends the Mirage to find the Fantascreen and destroy it.
5. Mon*Star appears in his transformed armour, with its spiked helmet, alongside Hardware when the team is captured.
6. Steelwill's fantasy was turning into a giant Tally-Hawk and capturing Mon*Star, and the rest of the team says it was theirs too.
7. Steve Perry also wrote Darkbird, the other early episode in which a SilverHawk is turned against the team.
8. The closing quiz is about the Moon: its distance from Earth (240,000 miles) and the tides, and the Copper Kidd doubles his score to ten points.

One name enters the series in this episode.

• Warehouse

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.