Save The Sun

Hawk Haven is waiting on Star Tanker Three, out on a refuelling run, and the Commander is worried. Steelheart tells him to relax his rivets, since there has not been a tanker raid for months, and he tells her not to count her satellites before they are in orbit. On Brim*Star, Mon*Star boasts that he is about to control the Artificial Sun, the most powerful force in the Galaxy of Limbo, and burn out anyone who resists him.

At the Sun, Melodia stands over Professor Power as the tanker docks, promises him the SilverHawks will not find out until it is too late, and calls in her friends while the station sits in radio blackout and the Mob sets anchor charges. The Professor gets away in an escape pod and flags down Seymour, whose Space Hack has been without a fare for three hours. At Hawk Haven, Stargazer is fuming that the tanker is overdue when the cab brings the Professor in with the news: the Mob has hijacked the sun. Melodia blows the anchor charges and crows that the Mob owns the sun, and Stargazer sends the SilverHawks up to fix it.

In the Mirage the team waits on Stargazer's interception point, grumbling that figures are not his strongest suit. He gives them zone eight, sector seven, overhears a crack about a scavenger hunt, and orders them to move. The SilverHawks hail Star Tanker Three, order it to heave to for boarding, and split up to take the tanker and deal with Melodia, whom Bluegrass ropes with his lariat. Afterwards the sun is back on station, Professor Power thanks the team, and the Copper Kidd, who took the hits, gets to turn night back into day.

The mob takes control of Limbo's artificial sun, and the Silverhawks prepare to launch a counterattack.

Commander Stargazer: "I knew something was going down."

Commander Stargazer: "I heard that Wrangler!"

"If you ask me, he kind of likes being obsolete."

Every crew has somebody who is sure something is about to go wrong, and on Hawk Haven it is the man in charge. Peter Lawrence opens "Save The Sun" on a tanker run nobody else is worried about. Steelheart tells the Commander to relax his rivets, because there has not been a tanker raid for months, and Stargazer answers with a spaceman's proverb, warning her not to count her satellites before they are in orbit. He is right, and nobody finds out until the Professor arrives by cab.

Stargazer is an old man running on old parts, and in this episode his hunches beat his crew's confidence, which gives him the best reversal of the week. When Professor Power reaches Hawk Haven with the news that the Mob has hijacked the sun, Stargazer does not rage; he throws his crew's own lines back at them, "Well, relax my rivets." and then "Blow my circuits!", before landing the one he has been waiting all episode to say: "I knew something was going down."[1]

In the Mirage scene that follows, the crew talk about him behind his back. Stuck waiting for an interception point, the team teases the commander: "Figuring and figures aren't exactly his strongest points." Steelheart reckons she and Will could update his circuits in a couple of hours, and somebody concludes, "If you ask me, he kind of likes being obsolete." Stargazer comes back with zone eight, sector seven, hears himself compared to a scavenger hunt, and glares out of the screen with "I heard that Wrangler!" He heard all of it, and his numbers are good.

On the villains' side, Melodia carries the scheme once Mon*Star has announced it. The animation has fun with her: she strikes poses with her keytar in the Sun's control room, raises her fists in triumph against the starfield, then fires a stream of musical notes through a window when the SilverHawks come for her. The SilverHawks set off promising to "go rearrange the ladies' keys", but the fight ends with Bluegrass on one knee, looping his lariat round her wrists.

The weakness is how the news reaches Hawk Haven. Melodia's radio blackout means someone has to carry it, so the Professor escapes in a pod and the vehicle that turns up is Seymour's cab, whose driver has been grumbling about a lack of fares. It is cheerfully played, but it is a contrivance. The likely reason is the running time: a twenty-two minute episode needs its messenger fast, and a talkative cabbie gets the Professor home quicker than a rescue would.[2]

The ending belongs to the team. One of the team shrugs off the Professor's thanks with "Oh shucks, Professor. Like the lieutenant says, it weren't no hill for a stepper." and another has to translate: "He means it was all in a day's work." Nobody on Hawk Haven tells Stargazer he was right about the tanker.

1 ^ The phrases are the crew's. Steelheart tells him to relax his rivets at the start, and while he fumes about the overdue tanker he is warned that he will blow his circuits.

2 ^ This is the first appearance of Seymour and the Space Hack, and the cab picks up a fare for the Mob in Stop Timestopper the very next day.

1. First appearance of the Artificial Sun, Professor Power, Seymour and his Space Hack.
2. The Mob moves the Artificial Sun off station by blowing anchor charges; the Professor's closing line has the sun safely back on station.
3. Melodia cuts off the tanker and the Sun with a radio blackout, so the news has to reach Hawk Haven by cab.
4. Steelheart reckons she and Will could bring Stargazer's circuits up to date in a couple of hours; in Journey to Limbo he had been promising himself a trip back to Chicago to be refitted.
5. Stargazer's interception point, zone eight, sector seven, is good: it brings the Mirage to the hijacked tanker.
6. Bluegrass subdues Melodia with a lariat, one of the objects the episode's guide lists alongside his guitar.
7. Off duty at Hawk Haven, Steelheart wears a long white coat over her armour, and the Copper Kidd flies the closing quiz in a white jacket.
8. Bluegrass's closing quiz runs from the seventh planet out to the smallest one and its satellite Charon, and the Kidd finishes on eleven points.

6 names enter the series in this episode.

• Star Tanker Three Captain
• Professor Power
• Seymour
• The Artificial Sun
• Star Tanker Three
• The Space Hack

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.