The Bounty Hunter

At an emergency meeting of the Mob, Yes-Man runs through its failures against the SilverHawks. What the Mob needs, Mon*Star decides, is someone who can take the SilverHawks by surprise, and he finds him on the penal planet. The Mob springs the Bounty Hunter, once the best in the universe, and Mon*Star asks him to hunt down an old friend: Commander Stargazer, the man who put him away. The Bounty Hunter agrees, but first he wants to beat a few SilverHawks to boost his energy.

He catches the Copper Kidd patrolling Sector 9 and drains him. The Steel twins go looking, find the Kidd's Space Racer and fly into a trap. At Hawk Haven, Stargazer plays a history tape from Criminal Records: the Bounty Hunter can absorb energy from almost any source and feeds on it.

Seymour turns up with a delivery for the Commander, cash on delivery: a message from the Bounty Hunter's asteroid home, Hanging Rock, showing three captured SilverHawks and giving Stargazer two hours before he destroys them and comes after him. Stargazer grudgingly pays Seymour, then remembers he stopped the Bounty Hunter once before with a solar energy bazooka, if only he can find it. Quicksilver and Bluegrass take the Mirage to Hanging Rock, where Steelheart is strapped to an electro-rack that drains her energy. Quicksilver slips in to free her but is caught, and Bluegrass tries to lasso the Bounty Hunter, only to be sent flying.

Stargazer finds the bazooka and has Seymour drive him to Hanging Rock at double the meter. The Bounty Hunter means to drain the weapon and then Stargazer, but the bazooka is solar-powered and he cannot absorb that much energy. He overloads, the energy straps weaken, and the SilverHawks are freed. Stargazer takes his prisoner back to the penal planet in Seymour's cab, and tells Seymour he can claim his fare from Headquarters, on the proper forms.

The Bounty Hunter breaks free and sets up a base called Hanging Rock on an asteroid, preparing to attack once more.

Commander Stargazer: "It was 200 years ago."

Bluegrass: "One of these days, I'm going to have to learn how to fly without a ship."

"I guess you could say he ate too much."

Every old soldier has a story that follows him around, and in J.V.P. Mundy's script Commander Stargazer's has been waiting on the penal planet for two hundred years. The Mob opens the episode by reviewing its own failures on a screen, and the idea Mon*Star lands on is somebody from the past: the Bounty Hunter, once the best in the universe, who has spent every day of his sentence thinking about the man who put him there.

The Bounty Hunter is well built for a grudge match. He feeds on energy, so every victory makes him stronger, and he has no interest in the Mob's plans beyond the chance to settle his own account. He picks off the Copper Kidd and the Steel twins to fuel up, then sends Stargazer the bill, since the message from Hanging Rock arrives by Seymour's cab, cash on delivery. Old business comes back for Stargazer, and the old man settles it himself, with his own weapon, while the younger SilverHawks are held on Hanging Rock.

The standout is the scene in Stargazer's office after the delivery, which plays the Commander's age as comedy. Seymour wants his fare, Stargazer threatens him with the hoosegow, and the team talks him round to paying; then the one weapon that ever beat the Bounty Hunter turns out to be missing. When he is asked whether he remembers where he put the solar energy bazooka, Stargazer's reply is the best line in the episode: "It was 200 years ago."[1] The office is drawn cluttered, desk and shelves piled high, which makes a lost bazooka easy to believe.

Then the episode sends Stargazer into the field himself, in the back of a cab, at double the meter, cash in advance. The final shot of him with the bazooka on his shoulder, eye to the sight, is the best frame in the episode, and the plan behind it is a smart one. The Bounty Hunter eats energy, so Stargazer feeds him more of it than he can hold, and the overload that beats him also weakens the straps holding the team.[2]

The weakness is the Mob. Mon*Star calls the meeting, springs the prisoner and hands him the job. The Bounty Hunter is a freelancer, and the script cares more about him than about the people who hired him. In a twenty-two minute slot that is the right priority, but after the jailbreak the Mob never checks in again, and Quicksilver's own capture at Hanging Rock passes so quickly that the rescue team is reduced to Bluegrass and a lasso.[3]

The prisoner rides back to the penal planet in the cab, and Seymour learns that his fare will come from Headquarters once he fills out the proper forms, which "shouldn't take more than six months." It is Stargazer's episode, and it suits him!

1 ^ The Bounty Hunter spent those same two centuries on the penal planet, by his own account.

2 ^ As one of the team puts it afterwards, "I guess you could say he ate too much."

3 ^ Bluegrass, thrown clear after lassoing the Bounty Hunter, reflects that "One of these days, I'm going to have to learn how to fly without a ship."

1. First appearance of the Bounty Hunter, sprung from the penal planet by the Mob; he returns in The Bounty Hunter Returns.
2. Yes-Man's recap of the Mob's failures includes the Artificial Sun hijack, Hardware's mega-missile and the events of The Great Galaxy Race.
3. Stargazer's history tape from Criminal Records says the Bounty Hunter can absorb energy from almost any source and feeds on it.
4. The Bounty Hunter's base is an asteroid he calls Hanging Rock, and his electro-rack drains captured SilverHawks and stores their energy for him.
5. Stargazer beat the Bounty Hunter once before with the solar energy bazooka, and has to hunt through his office to find it again.
6. Seymour brings the Bounty Hunter's message cash on delivery, and later drives Stargazer to Hanging Rock at double the meter.
7. Stargazer's arm is gold and mechanical where his sleeve is rolled back, as the office frames show.
8. The closing quiz is about Jupiter's Great Red Spot, most like a storm of the three choices offered, and the Copper Kidd finishes on ten points.

2 names enter the series in this episode.

• The Bounty Hunter
• Hanging Rock

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.