The Origin Story

Commander Stargazer sends an emergency transmission to Earth from the Galaxy of Limbo: there has been a breakout on Penal Planet 10, and Mon*Star is free. Through heavy interference he files his report. A Moon*Starburst shone its rays directly into the penal planet, and although the guards blacked the place out, the light found its way into Mon*Star's cell. Mon*Star had offered the guards wealth beyond wealth to let it in, and they laughed him off, reminding him that Stargazer had recaptured him once already. As the countdown reached zero the rays struck his eye, and he became an armoured giant.

At 1340 he went back to the penal planet and freed the most dangerous criminals in the galaxy. Stargazer transmits pictures of them: Mo-Lec-U-Lar, the master of disguise; Melodia and her shattering musical power; Mumbo Jumbo, the strongman; Hardware, the weapons man; and Windhammer with his tuning fork. He asks Earth for help.

On Earth, General Rawlings and the Professor review the volunteers on a holograph projector: Jonathan Quick, former head of Federal Interplanetary Force 8, now Quicksilver; the twins Emily and Will Hart, now Steelheart and Steelwill; a mathematical genius from the Planet of the Mimes, the Copper Kidd; and a colonel who looks like a cowboy, Bluegrass. Only someone partly metal can make the journey, so all of them have been modified. In the final check the twins' real hearts fail the readout, and mechanical ones are fitted.

The SilverHawks then launch on a test flight, with Bluegrass flying the Mirage, the newest fighter, against a remote-controlled combat drone, and the Mirage effect is tried for the first time. The General is satisfied, and blast-off for Limbo is set for the next morning.

When intergalactic criminal Mon*star breaks out of prison and is transformed into an android monster, Earth sends biomechanical androids called Silverhawks to fight him and his army of android monsters in Limbo Galaxy.

Commander Stargazer: "You getting all of this or am I just talking to myself?"

"But right now we can only send one who is partly metal and partly real."

"Now their code names really fit."

Before the story begins, the opening narration tells us that the SilverHawks sacrifice their human bodies for the long journey to Limbo, and Peter Lawrence's first episode spends its second half on what that means. There is no fight with the Mob at all; instead we get a prison break told as a crackly long-distance report, a slideshow of the new enemy, and then a long stretch in an Earth laboratory where five volunteers who have already been fitted with metal parts get their final check.

The first half belongs to Commander Stargazer, and Lawrence stages his exposition as a bad radio call. His transmission keeps breaking up, Earth keeps asking him to repeat, and when he finally files his report he sounds tired of repeating himself: "You getting all of this or am I just talking to myself?"[1] The flashback he narrates is the stronger material, with Mon*Star behind bars offering the guards "wealth beyond wealth" to let the light in, the guards laughing at him, and a countdown to the Moon*Starburst that the animation stages in hot reds and tight close-ups of the star in his eye. The spikes and plate he wears afterwards show us why Stargazer is worried before Stargazer says so!

Back on Earth, Lawrence shows the SilverHawks as people who have given something up, and he puts the final stage of it on screen. The General and the Professor page through the volunteers on a holograph projector, and most of them get a human name before a code name, Jonathan Quick before Quicksilver and Emily and Will Hart before the twins' steel.[2] The Professor's regret, "right now we can only send one who is partly metal and partly real", gives the phrase from the theme song a practical reason: an ordinary person cannot yet survive the trip.

The best scene follows, played as a pre-flight checklist read in a flat technician's voice: shoulder jets, arm jets, heel jets, talons and wings all in order, until the readout on the twins' hearts comes back negative. Their real hearts cannot take it, so they get mechanical ones, and the Professor answers the General's worry with a pun: "Now their code names really fit." It plays as a joke, but the twins have just had their hearts replaced, and nobody in the room stops to remark on it. When Steelheart gets her close-up a few beats later she is drawn with a set jaw and no sign of loss, which you could call restraint or a missed chance, depending on how much you wanted the show to linger.

Where the episode sags is the test flight. The combat drone is a stand-in opponent with nobody inside it,[3] the Mirage effect gets its demonstration and another "I'm impressed, General" that we have already heard once, and the SilverHawks, who have been the subject of every scene since the halfway mark, barely speak as themselves until Bluegrass quizzes the Copper Kidd in the closing segment. The likely reason is the job the episode was given: a first episode has to introduce a ship, a team, a commander and a Mob in one slot. Lawrence chose to give up the fight. It was the right thing to lose.

By the time the General wishes them good flying, we know what the SilverHawks gave up far better than we know who they are; an origin can leave their personalities to the later episodes.

1 ^ Stargazer dates the Moon*Starburst to 1300 intergalactic standard time on the 40th day of the year 2839, and Mon*Star's return to the penal planet to 1340.

2 ^ The other two are introduced by description. The Copper Kidd is introduced as a mathematical genius from the Planet of the Mimes, and Bluegrass is mistaken for a cowboy until the General points out that "That cowboy's a colonel, professor, and the best pilot in the solar system."

3 ^ The warning, delivered to the General, is that "our remote controlled combat drone will find him out" if Bluegrass cannot handle the Mirage.

1. Stargazer dates the Moon*Starburst that frees Mon*Star to the 40th day of the year 2839, 1300 intergalactic standard time.
2. The volunteers' names before conversion: Jonathan Quick, former head of Federal Interplanetary Force 8 (Quicksilver), and the twins Emily and Will Hart (Steelheart and Steelwill). Bluegrass is a colonel; the Copper Kidd is a mathematical genius from the Planet of the Mimes.
3. The twins receive mechanical hearts after their real hearts give a negative readout in the final modification check. In Darkbird Steelheart fits Steelwill with new parts after he is damaged.
4. Stargazer's briefing covers Mo-Lec-U-Lar, Melodia, Mumbo Jumbo, Hardware and Windhammer. Buzz-Saw and Poker-Face are named in the opening narration but are not in the briefing.
5. Recycled animation: the winged SilverHawk from the opening titles at 0:38 is the same drawing as the foreground figure on the test flight at 16:58, where the Copper Kidd has been added behind him.
6. The Mirage is introduced as Earth's latest fighter, and the Mirage effect is described as brand new and tried for the first time on the test flight.
7. In the closing segment Bluegrass quizzes the Copper Kidd on the solar system, with three points each for Earth and Mercury, and promises lessons on the simulator at Hawk Haven. The quiz continues in Darkbird.

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.