Ah yes, now this is a show I've been wanting to both revisit and review for quite sometime. If someone was to ask me 'What's your favourite cartoon based upon childhood memory?', Honestly I'd have to go with this one.
Storm Hawks is a computer-animated television series that was created by Asaph Fipke and produced by Nerd Corps Entertainment - a Canadian-based studio that was known for specialising in 3D animated action cartoons. I'll be covering another one of their shows soon.
The series takes place in the fictional sky-based world of Atmos; home to a variety of towering land-masses called terras. Each one is protected by a squadron which in turn is led by a sky knight. Our titular protagonists - The Storm Hawks - are a group of young bandits determined to take on the Cyclonian empire and restore peace to the skies of Atmos.
In honesty I didn't think much of it at first seeing it through TV promos, but when I did start to watch the show I became attached and I even remember watching a marathon of episodes one day.
The first episode I ever saw and the one that got me hooked to the series was Best Friends Forever (episode 6 out of season 1), which followed Piper - a knowledgeable crystal expert and the only girl on the team - getting swept into a storm and rescued by a mysterious girl named Lark as they became friends. Later in the episode Lark lures her into a trap revealing herself to be Master Cyclonis (the antagonist) in disguise.
I know this sounds mad but as a little kid I had a crush on Piper. I saw her as this cute teenage girl fighting evil forces alongside her group of friends. As well as Piper the other members of the team are Aerrow; the sky knight of the team and the main protagonist, Finn; the immature wise-cracking guy who fights with his sharpshooter, Junko; the strong one of the team who is part of a race of human-rhino hybrids called the Wallops, Stork; the carrier pilot for their ship and Radarr; a rabbit-lemur like creature who is Aerrow's co-pilot.
Having re-watched this show in my 20's, Stork has now become one of my favourite characters as well. He's just so over the top with his paranoia and pessimism that it's hard not to love him. Often times he'd look at a grim situation and utter the phrase "We're doomed". He belongs to a race of green-skinned creatures known as Merbs, we never know much about Stork's home-planet other than the fact it was attacked by Cyclonians.
Speaking of which, I remember thinking the villains of this show were the best. To me this show was just unlike any other I had seen before. In my eyes Storm hawks was like the combination of anime and video games put together into a whimsical, action-packed adventure series filled with a great story and excellent worldbuilding.
With all that said I still don't get why Cartoon Network felt they needed to pull this show after season 2 when there was still so much more that could've been done. For instance we never found out the reason why Dark Ace pulled an Anakin Skywalker and killed the former Storm Hawks squadron in the first place before joining Cyclonis' side. And what else is there on the other side of Atmos?
If there was any way for this show to be brought back without it ending up like TTG, I wish we could have just one more season to fully wrap up the story with Cyclonis defeated. Maybe give us a TV movie or even a prequel series about Stork, and the origins of his home terra before becoming the team's carrier pilot.
Despite it not being properly finished, Storm Hawks is just a fun ride with a lot of twists, turns, good humour, great voice acting and some of the best CGI animation I've ever seen. If you haven't seen this show before luckily you can watch it all for free on YouTube, thanks to channels like Storm Hawks HD if you want to see good quality episodes.
Storm Hawks is a computer-animated television series that was created by Asaph Fipke and produced by Nerd Corps Entertainment - a Canadian-based studio that was known for specialising in 3D animated action cartoons. I'll be covering another one of their shows soon.
The series takes place in the fictional sky-based world of Atmos; home to a variety of towering land-masses called terras. Each one is protected by a squadron which in turn is led by a sky knight. Our titular protagonists - The Storm Hawks - are a group of young bandits determined to take on the Cyclonian empire and restore peace to the skies of Atmos.
In honesty I didn't think much of it at first seeing it through TV promos, but when I did start to watch the show I became attached and I even remember watching a marathon of episodes one day.
The first episode I ever saw and the one that got me hooked to the series was Best Friends Forever (episode 6 out of season 1), which followed Piper - a knowledgeable crystal expert and the only girl on the team - getting swept into a storm and rescued by a mysterious girl named Lark as they became friends. Later in the episode Lark lures her into a trap revealing herself to be Master Cyclonis (the antagonist) in disguise.
I know this sounds mad but as a little kid I had a crush on Piper. I saw her as this cute teenage girl fighting evil forces alongside her group of friends. As well as Piper the other members of the team are Aerrow; the sky knight of the team and the main protagonist, Finn; the immature wise-cracking guy who fights with his sharpshooter, Junko; the strong one of the team who is part of a race of human-rhino hybrids called the Wallops, Stork; the carrier pilot for their ship and Radarr; a rabbit-lemur like creature who is Aerrow's co-pilot.
Having re-watched this show in my 20's, Stork has now become one of my favourite characters as well. He's just so over the top with his paranoia and pessimism that it's hard not to love him. Often times he'd look at a grim situation and utter the phrase "We're doomed". He belongs to a race of green-skinned creatures known as Merbs, we never know much about Stork's home-planet other than the fact it was attacked by Cyclonians.
Speaking of which, I remember thinking the villains of this show were the best. To me this show was just unlike any other I had seen before. In my eyes Storm hawks was like the combination of anime and video games put together into a whimsical, action-packed adventure series filled with a great story and excellent worldbuilding.
With all that said I still don't get why Cartoon Network felt they needed to pull this show after season 2 when there was still so much more that could've been done. For instance we never found out the reason why Dark Ace pulled an Anakin Skywalker and killed the former Storm Hawks squadron in the first place before joining Cyclonis' side. And what else is there on the other side of Atmos?
If there was any way for this show to be brought back without it ending up like TTG, I wish we could have just one more season to fully wrap up the story with Cyclonis defeated. Maybe give us a TV movie or even a prequel series about Stork, and the origins of his home terra before becoming the team's carrier pilot.
Despite it not being properly finished, Storm Hawks is just a fun ride with a lot of twists, turns, good humour, great voice acting and some of the best CGI animation I've ever seen. If you haven't seen this show before luckily you can watch it all for free on YouTube, thanks to channels like Storm Hawks HD if you want to see good quality episodes.