Animated series that revolved around teams were huge in the seventies, eighties, and most of the nineties. Not only were they fun, but they allowed a wider cast from which an audience could pick and choose their favorite characters, not to mention better diversity for a larger fan base. For toy lines, team cartoons also usually meant big bucks. One of the best of these team-oriented cartoons was no doubt Silverhawks (1986), a sleek and entertaining sci-fi themed animated series often compared to its predecessor Thundercats due to the fact that they shared the same production company, voice actors, style of stories and stellar animation.
Despite these similarities, Silverhawks took every chance to set itself apart from Thundercats with a bird-themed team of space police traveling around alien worlds and fighting all sorts of gangsters and robotic criminals. Presumably set in the future, the team is led by Quicksilver, a winged police man who patrols the galaxy alongside his group of enforcers. All of the team (including Quicksilver) are draped in varying shades of glimmering silver that allow them to be “partly metal, partly real,” as the memorable theme song boasts. Hired by their superior Stargazer, the group resides in the Hawk Haven space base, which allows them to strike in to action against the evil crime boss Mon*Star and his group of intergalactic cronies.
Silverhawks managed to entertain with a consistently action-packed series of episodes, as well as characters that were unique and never felt stock. Among the colorful characters were Quicksilver and his trusty Tally Hawk, the brother and sister pairing of Steelheart and Steelwill, and Lt. Colonel Bluegrass, the pilot of the Hawkhaven and incidentally the only Silverhawk incapable of flying. Finally there’s The Copper Kidd, a young Silverhawk from a planet of mimes who speak in whistles and tones a la C3P0.
With a slew of really fantastic heroes, all of whom had their own abilities, the series also relied on equally colorful villains which included the evil Mon*Star, the Minotaur villain Mumbo Jumbo, and the vicious war machine Buzz-Saw just to name off a few. Later in the series four more Silverhawks heroes were introduced, slowly replacing or starring alongside the original roster, including an African American hero, Hotwing, and a private detective, Condor.
Though the show is mainly about the team, Copper Kidd becomes the avatar for the young audience with every episode ending with Copper Kidd learning something new about our galaxy (courtesy of Bluegrass), simultaneously teaching the audience about planets, solar systems, and the like. Aside from the education endings though, the show was pure science fiction.
Though the series was closely associated with Thundercats, the teams never clashed or paired for a battle – though Mon*Star does make a cameo appearance in the ill-fated Thundercats reboot. The series itself lasted a respectable sixty-five episodes, and was very well known for its toy line which offered kids durable and beautifully designed representations of the characters from the show. And damn it, they promised Silverhawks, and Kenner gave us Silverhawks. I fondly remember playing with Quicksilver (who you can still get, in the box, for anywhere between $75-$150) and Tallyhawk as a kid, and loved to spin he shoulder saws on the green Buzz-Saw action figure for hours.
Silverhawks also spawned the release of a limited series by Marvel, as well as a board game, a few puzzles, school supplies, and pajamas for children. In 2008, Warner Home Video released Volume 1 of the series on a deluxe DVD with the first thirty two episodes of the series and, finally, Volume 2 in 2011 through their Warner Archive Collection which contained the final thirty three episodes of the show. Though not as iconic or celebrated as Thundercats, the Lorimar-Telepictures series is still widely celebrated and argued by some as the better of the two animated series. Which series did you enjoy more?
