Silverhawks

"Wings of silver, nerves of steel... Silverrrhawwwwks!"

Thundercats In SPACE! (Not entirely, but darned close). A Rankin/Bass Animated Series from 1986 that shares most of its production and creative teams with its predecessor.

The Silverhawks, the "partly metal, partly real" space law-enforcement for the Limbo Galaxy (which wasn't much bigger than a solar system) oppose The Mob, run by the evil Mon*Star. The show wasn't as bad as you might have thought (with a few exceptions), despite its total lack of astronomy, physics, or really any sort of science. However the character designs are interesting, the characters themselves are engaging, and most of the stories are fun.

Tropes used in Silverhawks include:

• Action Girl: Steel Heart.
• Action-Hogging Opening
• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: A subversion. While it does occur at the end of each episode, it's neither a "moral of the story", nor a "public service announcement". Instead, it's a short astronomy lesson (mostly about the solar system and its then-nine planets [Pluto is now a dwarf planet]) presented within the context of Bluegrass training the Copper Kidd as a pilot.
• Bad Guy Bar: The Sinistar Saloon. 100% alcohol-free.
• Big Bad: Mon*Star.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Yeah, it's by the people who did Thundercats, alright.
• Brother-Sister Team: Steelheart and Steelwill. They're both Gadgeteer Geniuses who work together all the time... and then punch down walls together all the time. They even suffered heart failures at the same time, requiring them to get fitted with bionic replacements prior to the Silverhawk assignment.
• Cool Starship: The Maraj. Aesthetically pleasing design, it also contains compartments to launch each of the Silverhawks from, and the main cockpit can detach into a fighter-like mode while the rest of the craft goes invisible.
• Cute Mute: Copper Kid.
• Distaff Counterpart: In-series example. Like Bluegrass (a Silverhawk), Melodia (one of the mob) attacks using a musical instrument that shoots lasers shaped like music staves (plural of "staff"). In Melodia's case, she uses a keytar ^[1] whereas Bluegrass uses a guitar.
• Environment Specific Action Figures: The action figure line included Quicksilver, Steelwill and Bluegrass in "ultrasonic suits" as well as their regular outfits.
• Episode Title Card
• Everything's Squishier with Cephalopods: Mon*Star's mode of transportation and battle mount is the Sky-Runner, a five-tentacled space squid clad in armor.
• Expository Theme Tune
• Expy:The Big Bad is a gravelly voiced villain who has his own transformation phrase and can transform into a much more powerful form. Hmm, on what show was there also a character like that?
• Five-Man Band: At least for the first season, until later characters were added to the squad.
  • The Hero: Quicksilver.
  • The Lancer: Bluegrass.
  • The Big Guy: Steelwill.
  • The Chick: Steelheart.
  • The Smart Guy: Copper Kid.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Hardware, one of Mon*Star's mob, as well as Steelheart and Steelwill.
• Heroic Mime: Copper Kid, who hails from the Planet of Mimes.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: Seymour and Zeek .
• Hey, It's That Voice!: In addition to reusing some cast members from Thundercats, Melodia was voiced by Janice from Friends, seriously!
• Hollywood Cyborg: The Silverhawks.
• Instrument of Murder: Bluegrass's guitar and Melodia's keytar.
• Merchandise-Driven
• Methuselah Syndrome: People apparently measure their lifespans in the millennia.
  • Considering that their civilization has Faster-Than-Light Travel and cyborgs that breathe in space, it actually makes sense to have that kind of longevity. With that kind of biotech, a century's lifespan would be ridiculously small.
• Mirror Morality Machine
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Condor's voice is an imitation of Humphrey Bogart.
• Obsolete Mentor: Commander Stargazer.
• The Other Darrin: When Adolph Caesar (the original voice of Hotwing) died during production, another actor took over the role.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Where to begin!?
• The Shadow Knows: Molec-U-Lar's disguises have one flaw...
• Sixty-Five-Episode Cartoon
• The Smurfette Principle: Occurs on both sides with Steel Heart (good guys) and Melodia (bad guys).
• Space Police: The premise of the show.
• Surfer Dude: Moon Stryker.
• Team Pet: Tallyhawk, Quicksilver's cyborg hawk.
• Team Title
• The Teaser: Each episode opened with clips from that day's story, accompanied by a Narrator giving a brief plot synopsis.
• Those Two Guys: Seymour and Zeek.
• Time Stands Still: Timestopper's power.
• Transformation Sequence: Combined with By the Power of Greyskull and Alliteration. Different in that the bad guy does it.

"Moonstar of Limbo... give me the might... the muscle... the menace... of MON*STAR!!"

• Twin Telepathy: Steelheart and Steelwill. This is why their hearts failed simultaneously. Used at least once after that, but not much more than that.
• You Fail Physics Forever: Again, where to begin?!
  • Well, okay, for starters, in this show, space has air. And also a "down." A few harmless insectoid workers get thrown off a ship in one episode and this is as close to an on-screen death as we usually get.
• Weird Sun: The Artificial Sun, a titanic flashlight at the edge of the sector.
• Wicked Witch: Melodia isn't one per se. However, the way she talks is a cross between this and the Valley Girl accent. She also laughs like a Wicked Witch (and also acts like one...).

1. ↑ A musical keyboard designed to be held like a guitar, and one of the iconic musical instruments of synthpop bands in The Eighties. Roland is the only company that still makes them (the AX-SYNTH is their flagship model, along with the AX-9 and out-of-production AX-7).