Sky-Shadow

Mon*Star is tired of Tally-Hawk spying for the SilverHawks and demands a bird of his own, as evil and mean as he is and able to destroy Tally-Hawk. Hardware has a Sky-Shadow delivered to Mon*Star's fortress on Brim*Star. He plans to give it armour and quantum power thermal lasers, and then to make it the toughest bird in the universe by encoding a scan of Tally-Hawk's internal control systems into it. When Commander Stargazer spots a space freighter heading for the fortress, he sends Tally-Hawk to look, and Mon*Star orders Hardware to bring Tally-Hawk back alive.

The SilverHawks launch in the Mirage to go after Tally-Hawk, but Melodia sends the ship out of control. Bluegrass regains it just as Tally-Hawk's distress signal comes in, and the team catches up with the Mob's limos. Windhammer freezes them with a space blizzard, leaving Bluegrass and the Copper Kidd stuck with a frozen Mirage while the others go on to Brim*Star.

On Brim*Star, Mon*Star transforms. Quicksilver takes him on and sends the Steel twins to find Tally-Hawk. Mon*Star shows Quicksilver Tally-Hawk under glass, growing weaker while Sky-Shadow grows stronger. The twins chop their way into the sealed workroom and interrupt the transfer, so Sky-Shadow may not be at full power. Caught by Mon*Star's Light-Stars, the twins break free by concentrating together. Sky-Shadow carries off Tally-Hawk and Quicksilver warns Bluegrass it may be heading his way, but Tally-Hawk gets the better of it. The Mob vows that one day it will finish them, and Bluegrass picks up the team and takes them home.

Eager to create his own spy, Mon*star orders his henchmen to kidnap Tally-Hawk so his circuits can be used in their new weapon.

Mon*Star: "A bird as evil and mean as I am."

"Tally-Hawk is outgunned, outclassed, and outwinged."

"Looks like Tally-Hawk showed your bird the door, Mon*Star."

Kimberly Morris opens "Sky-Shadow" on envy. Mon*Star has watched Tally-Hawk circle over his fortress for long enough, and has just been told, "That's why the SilverHawks are always one step ahead of us." "I want my own bird," he says, and then, in case Hardware missed the point, "A bird as evil and mean as I am."

Hardware's answer is a Sky-Shadow delivered to Brim*Star by freighter, with armour and "quantum power thermal lasers" to follow, and then the last upgrade: "a scan of Tally-Hawk's internal control systems", encoded into the new bird so that it will be everything Tally-Hawk is. A partner cannot be bought off a freighter or copied out of somebody else's bird, and Mon*Star wants one badly enough to try both.[1] The SilverHawks spend the episode getting their partner back, while on Brim*Star the order is that the new bird be ready "now!"

The design team makes the copying look like engineering. Hardware's plans come up as glowing wireframes, first Sky-Shadow's bat wings with laser mounts bolted into them, then the outline of Tally-Hawk laid over the frame. When the real bird arrives it is a fine piece of villain design, a red bat with a cat's head, pointed ears, a yellow eye and two fangs. Tally-Hawk, all brown-and-white head and chrome wings, looks nothing like it.

The standout belongs to the Steel twins, who are sent to find Tally-Hawk while Quicksilver takes on the transformed Mon*Star. They chop their way into the sealed workroom and break up the transfer before it finishes. Then, pinned by Mon*Star's Light-Stars, they get out by thinking together, calling to each other ("Do you hear me Will? I'm trying to get through to you." "I hear you sis.") until the hold gives. Mon*Star, meanwhile, is trying to get the same thing out of a scanner. The joke that follows is a good one too: somebody would rather have "good old-fashioned brute force".[2]

The weakness is Sky-Shadow's own debut. The pre-title narration bills him as the SilverHawks' most dangerous opponent yet, and the episode has barely announced that "Tally-Hawk is outgunned, outclassed, and outwinged" before the verdict is in: "Looks like Tally-Hawk showed your bird the door, Mon*Star." The interrupted transfer is the excuse the script gives, and a fair one, but the duel between the bird and his copy is over almost as soon as it starts. The Mirage, meanwhile, is sent out of control by Melodia and then frozen by Windhammer's space blizzard, which parks Bluegrass and the Copper Kidd for much of the rescue.[3] Both choices look like the twenty-two minute slot at work, with a new villain bird that has to survive his first outing and a story with room for only part of the team inside the fortress.

The Mob gets the last threat, that one day "we'll finish you forever", but Mon*Star is left with a bird built from a scan of someone else's, and the SilverHawks go home with theirs.[4] Sky-Shadow deserved a longer first fight!

1 ^ The Mob has tried this before. In Darkbird Hardware builds a copy of Quicksilver, and here he tries to build a copy of Quicksilver's bird.

2 ^ The line answers a twin wondering whether the trick would work for the lieutenant, meaning Quicksilver. Bluegrass calls him "Lieutenant" too on the way out, which sits oddly beside the "Colonel Bluegrass" he announced to the Triangulons in The Threat of Dritt.

3 ^ Windhammer's blizzard does not last: on arrival, Brim*Star melts his snowstorm.

4 ^ As they leave, the shot of Quicksilver taking wing at 19:20 appears to reuse his pose from the opening titles, laid over a red background.

1. First appearance of Sky-Shadow, delivered to Mon*Star's fortress by space freighter and rebuilt by Hardware as Mon*Star's answer to Tally-Hawk.
2. Hardware's upgrades are armour, quantum power thermal lasers and an encoded scan of Tally-Hawk's internal control systems; Tally-Hawk is described as "partly metal and partly real".
3. The twins' interruption of the transfer is given as the reason Sky-Shadow may not be at full power when he meets Tally-Hawk.
4. Windhammer's space blizzard freezes the Mirage's engines, so Bluegrass and the Copper Kidd have to wait it out while the others go on to Brim*Star.
5. Steelwill and Steelheart escape Mon*Star's Light-Stars by concentrating together, calling to each other by name as they do it.
6. Bluegrass addresses Quicksilver as "Lieutenant", after calling himself Colonel Bluegrass in The Threat of Dritt.
7. The flying shot of Quicksilver at 19:20 appears to reuse his wings-out pose from the opening titles over a red background.
8. Bluegrass's closing quiz is about rotation, and the Copper Kidd finishes on eleven points for the day.

One name enters the series in this episode.

• Sky-Shadow

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.