SFXB Forum

I have seen a cartoon named Silverhawks mentioned on this site; apparently it's a bit like Thundercats. I notice it has a hawk's head logo, so I can't help but wonder if it was influenced by Terrahawks, to some extent, too? It does arouse one's curiosity! Were there any remarkable characters in it? Maybe I'm just ignorant, but I have truly never heard of it before.

Ah, no, no Terrahawks connection at all. Apart from the "Hawks" bit anyway No, this is one of those random 80s cartoons that I've heard other people mention and so I sought out a tape. The Thundercats connection lies in the fact that the voice actors and overall style of Silverhawks is very similar. In the extended version of the intro, it was quite clearly Lion-O doing the introduction to the team. It's basically your classic toy tie-in. Better known in the States - there are a few sites around. Quite enjoyable but nothing ground breaking and I think it probably had the potential to get old very rapidly...

In Thawks, they just have hawk-themed names for the good guys' characters and vehicles. In Silverhawks, do the heroes happen to be actual feathered, beaked creatures, by any chance? In the way that the Thundercats were (virtually) anthropomorphic animals?

Kind of. You can download the intro you know! They're cybernetically-enhanced humans (plus an alien) and hey folks, that makes them "partly metal, partly real"! Basically their bodies are very metallic and when they go into their flight mode they bring a sort of beak-style visor down and then extend wings from their back in a glider sort of way, a bit like in Battle of the Planets. Watch the video, it'll make more sense!

I have now read a bit about it online; you can tell it's related to Thundercats, the Copperkid character has the elfin look of Wilykit & Wilykat. I'm still convinced at least one of the writers had been watching Terrahawks: besides having the hawk logo, one of the baddies is called Mon Star (adapted from the word monster, the way Zelda's relatives have similar names adapted from Youngster and Sister). And from an episode list, there even seems to have been a character called Zero (one ep is called Zero the Time Thief). All very uncanny! There were obviously even more of these superhero cartoons around in the 80s, than I realised at the time. I vaguely remember another of that ilk, called the Fantastic Four.

The Fantastic Four is a very famous (in comic circles anyway) team of Marvel super heroes. They've yet to make it onto the big screen, but you often see parodies of the characters in other productions - one was stretchy, one could turn herself invisible and cast force fields, one was living flame and the other was hard as rock and about as pretty....!

partly metal partly real siverhawks. I thought this was a rankin bass rip off of gatchaman in all forms what with the copper kid form the planet of the mimes and all.( very keyop)i thought the monstar designs where quite good as well.