The second instalment of ThunderCats finds the series hitting its stride—not with the clash of swords, but with something rarer in children’s television: patience. Where the opener Exodus was a breathless sprint through origin stories and cataclysmic, er, exodus (not for nothing was it named after a biblical book), The Unholy Alliance sits down, takes a breath, and starts laying track for what’s to come. It is, one suspects, the point where the creators stopped shouting “Look at this!” and began murmuring, “Now pay attention.”
This episode introduces us properly to the signature villain of the ThunderCats’: the necrotic yet inexplicably articulate Mumm-Ra. He is a villain not content to cackle and wave a staff—though he certainly does that too—but one who comes with the vague but thrilling implication of deep history. His claim to have ruled when the planet was still called First Earth is so undefined it might as well have been lifted from a discarded Tolkien footnote, and yet it’s this ambiguity that gives him mythic heft. The message is clear: the ThunderCats may be new arrivals, but they’ve landed in someone else’s haunted backyard.
And what a backyard it is. The animators, clearly emboldened by the budget and the promise of afternoon syndication glory, deliver a genuinely striking visual sequence in Mumm-Ra’s transformation. He goes from shrivelled sorcerer to steroidal pharaoh with the aid of some lightning, smoke, and voice acting that would give Brian Blessed pause. This metamorphosis is so satisfying that the series will repeat it endlessly, like a magician endlessly pulling the same rabbit out of the same hat and daring you not to applaud.
The episode’s great gamble, however, isn’t visual but structural. Showrunner Leonard Starr opts to dedicate half the runtime to the villains—specifically Mumm-Ra and his newly acquired Mutant associates: Slithe (reptilian and grumpy), Monkian (simian and panicked), and Jackalman (jackal and constantly angling for promotion). It’s as if Star Wars had opened its second act with a boardroom scene on the Death Star and made it riveting. And it works. The villains are not just functional foils but actual characters, drawn with enough care to make you momentarily forget they look like they were designed by a toy-line committee mid-way through a lunch break.
Mumm-Ra and the Mutants form the “unholy alliance” of the title, a sort of Third Earth version of the Axis powers, though with better punchlines. Their mutual disdain is a delight: one gets the impression none of them would trust the others with a sandwich, let alone a world-domination plot. There’s something refreshingly adult about this subplot—cartoon evil given the texture of realpolitik.
Meanwhile, Lion-O, still physically an adult but mentally somewhere around Year Six, spends much of the episode sulking. He’s petulant when asked to help build the ThunderCats’ new home, dismissive of the “gentle creatures” who inhabit the planet, and only reluctantly steps into his role as leader. It’s rare for a cartoon protagonist to be allowed to grow up in real time, and rarer still for that growth to involve such believable adolescent immaturity. This is a hero who must learn to lead not by swinging a sword but by washing the dishes. He’s Arthur before the sword in the stone, and it’s all the more compelling for it.
The climax sees Mumm-Ra defeated not by force or cunning, but by seeing his own reflection—a trope that feels borrowed from the Brothers Grimm via an after-school special. In what might feel like narrative laziness in an episode otherwise brimming with thoughtful decisions, it establishes a precedent that would be revisited (and revisited, and revisited) in later episodes: Mumm-Ra attacks, the ThunderCats repel him, he retreats into his pyramid muttering vows of vengeance. Rinse, repeat. A perfect recipe for a Saturday morning cartoon that is destined to evolve. We just didn’t know it yet.
Lion-O: “It was its own reflection that drove it off! Yet it feared nothing!”
Tygra: “Except the evil in its own unspeakable face.”
The Unholy Alliance sets the stage for what ThunderCats would become: not merely an action cartoon, but a serialized epic for kids with just enough philosophical and emotional depth to keep the grown-ups interested. Mumm-Ra, with his ancient evil and tragic grandeur, emerges not just as a villain, but as the series’ dark heart—a symbol of power corrupted by time and solitude. He’s as crucial to the series as Lion-O himself, and in many episodes, far more interesting.
To watch The Unholy Alliance today is to witness a rare moment in 1980s animation when ambition met opportunity, and both came out on top. It’s not perfect—but then neither is Lion-O, or indeed Mumm-Ra. And that’s precisely the point. The real strength of ThunderCats lies not in its action sequences, but in its willingness to let even its most outlandish characters feel real.
Next time: “Berbils”