The Bounty Chase

Lord Cash fits a new lock to Dollare's main vault and leaves the only key with Commander Stargazer, who promises to keep it in his office at Hawk Haven. On Brim*Star, Mon*Star sends Mo-Lec-U-Lar back for it in a form the SilverHawks would never suspect. The shapeshifter hails Seymour's Space Hack, with Zeek the Beak aboard trying to sell fish, orders the cab down onto an asteroid and robs the pair of them.

Soon afterwards Seymour and Zeek are in Stargazer's office, demanding payment on a stack of overdue taxi IOUs signed by the SilverHawks. While the Commander digs through his filing cabinet for the vouchers, the key disappears, and by the time he works out that one of his visitors is Mo-Lec-U-Lar, the thief is gone. Stargazer sends Steelwill after him, while Quicksilver, Bluegrass and the Copper Kidd take the Mirage towards Brim*Star and into a fight with the Mob.

Steelwill and Stronghold chase Mo-Lec-U-Lar and Volt-ure to Automata, where Steelwill is caught in a crush until Stronghold pulls him clear. Boxed in between the two SilverHawk parties, Mo-Lec-U-Lar takes over Space Tanker 44, forces the pilot out and heads for the Artificial Sun to refuel. Steelwill decides that Professor Power is the shapeshifter and handcuffs him, while the real Mo-Lec-U-Lar opens the fuel lines; only a struggle with the main valve, and help from Stronghold, keeps the Sun from exploding.

Professor Power's advice is to beat Mo-Lec-U-Lar at his own game. Steelwill goes in disguise as a buyer, outbids Mon*Star for the key and grabs both the key and the seller the moment it changes hands. Mo-Lec-U-Lar gets away, but the key comes home. Steelwill then plays one more part, offering to sell the key to Stargazer, and once he drops the act the Commander insists he knew it was him all the time.

When Mo-Lec-U-Lar steals the key to Dolare's main vault, a wild chase ensues.

Steelwill: "You've run this play too many times to fool me Mo-Lec-U-Lar now, I'm throwing you a 15-yard penalty on the penal planet"

Professor Power: "Mo-Lec-U-Lar may be a master of disguise, but you only need one good one to lure him into a trap. Think about it."

Commander Stargazer: "Ah, I knew it was you all the time."

Nobody at Hawk Haven can trust a face while Mo-Lec-U-Lar is loose. Bruce Smith's script opens by letting him borrow a form the SilverHawks would never suspect: a visitor off Seymour's cab with a grievance and a fistful of IOUs, "all signed by the SilverHawks". Commander Stargazer has just told Lord Cash that Hawk Haven is the safest place in Limbo. Now he rummages through his filing cabinet, and the key disappears while his back is turned![1]

What follows is a chase. Steelwill goes from Brim*Star to Automata to the Artificial Sun with Stronghold at his shoulder, and at every stop the thief is somebody else. He is a tanker pilot, then a voice on the radio assuring Professor Power that everything is completely normal, and finally, in Steelwill's own head, the Professor himself. Steelwill cannot catch Mo-Lec-U-Lar by suspecting everybody he meets, and he only wins once he puts on a disguise of his own.

The best scene is Steelwill arresting the wrong man. At the Artificial Sun, Steelwill snaps the cuffs on the real Professor Power and talks to him the way he talks to everyone, in the language of the gridiron: "You've run this play too many times to fool me Mo-Lec-U-Lar now, I'm throwing you a 15-yard penalty on the penal planet". It is a funny line. Down among the pipes the real shapeshifter is opening the fuel lines, drawn small against the machinery with Volt-ure coiled in the foreground. The fight with the main valve that follows is the one stretch of the episode where Steelwill is losing, and his apology afterwards, "Sorry I got on your case, Professor", is the only time he admits a mistake.

The weakness is the Mirage team. Quicksilver, Bluegrass and the Copper Kidd set off for Brim*Star, Yes-Man calls out the boys, and Bluegrass ends up pinned on his back in a bed of white goo. From then on we only check in on the fight with the Mob; the plan is to leave Mo-Lec-U-Lar to Steelwill. The opening is muddled too, since the robbery on the asteroid and the scene in the office never quite settle which visitor is the thief.[2] A chase that has to make a new stop every few minutes leaves no room for a second plot inside twenty-two minutes, and the Mirage team is there because every SilverHawk has to appear.

Professor Power supplies the answer: "Mo-Lec-U-Lar may be a master of disguise, but you only need one good one to lure him into a trap." Steelwill puts on his one good disguise, outbids Mon*Star,[3] and pulls it off in the thief's face as he takes the key. Mo-Lec-U-Lar slips away, promising that Steelwill will never get him, but the key comes home. The coda then turns the trick on Stargazer, who orders the stranger to hand over stolen property and, when Steelwill unmasks, announces "Ah, I knew it was you all the time." Nobody in the room believes him! Steelwill nearly blows up the Sun by suspecting the Professor, and gets the key back by taking his advice.

1 ^ Mo-Lec-U-Lar has already robbed Seymour and Zeek the Beak by then, ordering the Space Hack down onto an asteroid while Zeek was still trying to sell him a fish.

2 ^ The scene ends on "That means you must be Mo-Lec-U-Lar" with both Seymour and Zeek in the room, and the dialogue never makes plain which of them is the fake.

3 ^ Mo-Lec-U-Lar says Mon*Star will give him fifty grand for the key. Steelwill offers to double it, enough, he says, to set up in any galaxy he chooses.

1. Lord Cash installs a new lock on Dollare's main vault and gives the only key to Stargazer, who calls Hawk Haven the safest place in Limbo.
2. The visitors to Stargazer's office bring IOUs for taxi trips on official business, all signed by the SilverHawks and all overdue.
3. Zeek the Beak, who has an episode of his own in Zeek's Fumble, is aboard Seymour's Space Hack trying to sell fish when Mo-Lec-U-Lar hijacks it.
4. Steelwill's partner through the chase is Stronghold, who pulls him out of a crush on Automata and helps at the fuel valve.
5. Monotone is on duty at Automata and reports intruders in the central mining complex.
6. Professor Power, overseeing Space Tanker 44's refuelling at the Artificial Sun, tells Steelwill the procedure cannot be interrupted once it has begun; the sabotaged fuel lines threaten to make the Sun explode.
7. Despite the title, the Bounty Hunter does not appear; the bounty here is the price on Lord Cash's key.
8. The closing quiz is about the planets' rotation, and the Kidd finishes on eleven points.

5 names enter the series in this episode.

• Pencil
• missile
• Space Tanker #44 Pilot
• Mini Space Ship missile
• Space Tanker #44

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.