Gangwar - Part I

Every week Mon*Star picks up the paper on Bedlama, now naming him number one on the ten most wanted list, and comes to the Starship Casino to clean out the cash register. Melodia and Poker-Face want the lot. They plan to make him think a rival gang is muscling in, send him chasing a phantom and keep the takings, and Poker-Face arranges robot cars to do it.

The robot cars attack, and Mon*Star flees for Brim*Star, sure that someone is trying to rub him out. At Hawk Haven, Quicksilver offers to round up whoever is behind it, but Stargazer tells him to leave them be: Mon*Star is beyond the law and does not need the SilverHawks' protection. Quicksilver argues that everyone deserves it, and Stargazer orders him and his squad out to patrol the borders of Limbo. Mon*Star sends Hardware and Buzz-Saw to the casino for the pickup, almost a trillion in gold discs, and on the way back they are hijacked, roped together and sent drifting toward the worst of the Light Year Limit.

The SilverHawks spot them. The Mirage cannot fly in there, so Quicksilver tries the swing shot at maximum power, against the others' warnings that he is risking his life for a couple of worthless criminals. The line breaks, and the team goes in after him with Bluegrass at the controls. Hardware and Buzz-Saw come out of the Limit alive.

On Brim*Star, told the pickup was hijacked, Mon*Star puts his gang to a lie detector whose teeth snap shut on a liar. Melodia bolts, which gives her away, and runs for the Starship Casino, so Mon*Star knows Poker-Face is in on it and transforms to go after them. Melodia calls the SilverHawks for help, and they answer. Mon*Star pulls back rather than face them, swearing he will get the two traitors. At Hawk Haven, Stargazer tells Quicksilver that he ignored his orders and was right.

Melodia and Poker-Face use remote-controlled cars to terrorze Mon*star and steal the casino bankroll. First of a two-part episode.

Quicksilver: "Everyone deserves the SilverHawks' protection, Commander."

Commander Stargazer: "Mon*Star doesn't need our protection, Quicksilver. He's beyond the law."

Poker-Face: "I trusted you once before, and look where it got me."

Does a lawman owe anything to a man who is beyond the law? William Overgard's script asks it in the first act and spends the rest of the episode on the answer. The caper that carries the question is fun, though. Melodia and Poker-Face, tired of watching Mon*Star clean out the casino's cash register every week, decide to fake a rival gang with robot cars[1] so that the boss goes chasing a phantom while they keep the take; the episode opens with Mon*Star reading his own headline in the paper.[2]

The real argument happens at Hawk Haven. Stargazer, looking at the report of Mon*Star running for Brim*Star, sees no reason to step in: "Mon*Star doesn't need our protection, Quicksilver. He's beyond the law." Quicksilver answers, "Everyone deserves the SilverHawks' protection, Commander", and is sent to patrol the borders for his trouble. Overgard holds that the law still protects the people who break it, and he tests that by having Quicksilver risk his life for two of Mon*Star's men.

The test comes in the Light Year Limit. Hardware and Buzz-Saw, hijacked and roped together, are drifting into its worst section, where the Mirage cannot follow, and Quicksilver decides to try the swing shot at maximum power.[3] The team tells him plainly that he is risking his life for a couple of worthless criminals, and he goes anyway. The best sequence in the episode follows, from the countdown to the moment the line snaps and the Mirage goes quiet, and it ends with a stranded Mob man shouting to his partner that Quicksilver is their only chance! The SilverHawks go in after him because they cannot leave him out there alone.

The best design work is on the Mob's side of the law. Mon*Star's lie detector is a giant stone face whose teeth snap shut on anyone who lies between them, and the scene of the Mob lined up in front of it, Yes-Man hunched at the bars and Windhammer holding his tuning fork, could have come off a pulp magazine cover. Melodia bolts before her turn, which gives her away, and the traitors end the episode at the casino, bickering: "I trusted you once before, and look where it got me."

The weakness is Stargazer. He is set up as the voice of the other side of the question, and he changes his mind between scenes; we never see what persuades him, only the announcement that he was wrong. Melodia's call for help, the moment that should force his hand, lands with almost no build-up. The likely reason is the structure: this is the first half of a two-parter and has to settle its argument before the Sky-Chomper arrives, in a slot too short to do more than make a speech of it.

But the speech is a good one! "The SilverHawks stand for law and order," Stargazer says, and everyone, "metal or real, good or bad," deserves their protection. Quicksilver risked his life for two gangsters and then defended the pair who robbed them, and his commander, to his credit, admits it. The gang war carries on in Part II, but Stargazer has conceded the argument, and Quicksilver has won it.

1 ^ On patrol, one of the team wishes aloud that they could go looking for "those mysterious black sedans"; the robot cars never get a better name on screen.

2 ^ The headline on the paper at 2:26 reads "Mob Boss Monstar now number one on the ten most wanted list".

3 ^ The take Hardware and Buzz-Saw were carrying when they were hijacked is put at almost a trillion in gold discs; the Warner Bros. one-liner calls it the casino bankroll.

1. Mon*Star's weekly routine, as the plotters describe it, is to pick up the paper on Bedlama and then come to the Starship Casino to clean out the cash register.
2. The fake rival gang is a set of robot cars; the Warner Bros. synopsis calls them remote-controlled, and the SilverHawks on patrol call them mysterious black sedans.
3. Quicksilver's swing shot, run at maximum power after a countdown, is his way into a section of the Light Year Limit the Mirage cannot enter, and the line breaks.
4. Mon*Star's lie detector works by fear: step between the teeth, answer his question, and if you lie the teeth snap you in two.
5. Windhammer turns up only in the lie detector line-up, his tuning fork raised at the gate after Melodia runs.
6. Mon*Star transforms to go after Melodia and Poker-Face, then pulls back to fetch reinforcements rather than fight the SilverHawks.
7. The story continues in Gangwar - Part II, where Hardware and Buzz-Saw are on Penal Planet 10.
8. The closing quiz covers the distance from Earth to the Sun and how long its light takes to arrive, and the Copper Kidd finishes on fifteen points.

One name enters the series in this episode.

• Remote-Controlled Robot Car

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.