The Hammer Strikes

And what better way to kick start off the second season of Street Fighter than bringing back Saturn Hammer, who was last seen in "Desert Thunder"? This time she's taken a nuclear warhead to blow up California so Guile and co rush out to stop her.

At a deserted army air force base, Guile is in a street fight with Sawada as Blanka sits outside. A lot of trash talk between the two leads to Sawada using a samurai sword against Guile, with it slashing through barrels Guile tries to smash Sawada with. Sawada, you see, is now the head of the AN force, a place that used to belong to Guile.
 

Guile jumps onto a tank, but Sawada manages to break it in half with his sword. Guile falls down but kicks Sawada so hard that he is sent flying into a hangar wall and breaks though it. Guile rushes in and throws a Sonic Boom, but Sawada runs towards it and hits it with his sword. The result of this is a gigantic explosion which totals the hangar.

T.Hawk shoes up and tells the two to break it up as they were suppose to be in training exercise and not be killing each other. Guile and Sawada agree, only for Blanka to suddenly start making a lot of yelling. They head over to him as he generates a lot of electricity everywhere which destroys a few things nearby.
 

Guile asks Blanka what's wrong and Blanka is seeing visions of Dhalsim who wants him to go meet him up in the Himalayas. Guile gets ready to go with Blanka but Sawada decides to go along too, something Guile isn't happy about. Blanka states that Dhalsim said the name "Saturn Hammer" which immediately gets T.Hawk's attention and he demands that he gets to go as well. They all get into a jet and blast off to Dhalsim's monastery.

When they finally get there Blanka demands that Dhalsim shows himself. Dhalsim suddenly appears behind them and shows them the reason they came: the small matter that Dhalsim has stolen a nuclear warhead. Sawada reveals that he came because he needed to find where it went as it was an AN weapon being used as a test. He tries to arrest Dhalsim but fails. Dhalsim tells them that the test ground for the weapon would have destroyed sacred land and he could not allow it. However Saturn Hammer learnt that Dhalsim stole it and tried to take it, but did not succeed. However, she and her force will be back to try again.

And oh look Saturn Hammer arrives and deploys several men. Only these men are armed to the teeth with lasers and heavy mech suit armour. However, they're still no match for the Street Fighters who take them all out fairly easily. Saturn Hammer is not impressed and decides to have a go herself, leaving her ship with more men in an attempt to get the nuke.

They start to blast away at the Street Fighters to distract them whilst some of the men go and take the nuke. They manage to and Saturn Hammer and her forces all retreat back to the ship. Guile and T.Hawk grab onto one of the men though and hitch a ride up. In the ship Saturn Hammer tells T.Hawk that they worked well together and that they should join forces again. Guile decides to take her out with a sonic boom but T.Hawk grabs him and they both fall out of the ship.
 

As they fall Guile makes the point that T.Hawk can't fly, but T.Hawk says he can glide and that that should be enough to save them. He grabs hold of Guile and crashes into the snow, and they both somehow survive. Naturally Guile is pissed as T.Hawk for shoving him out of the plane in the first place, but T.Hawk gives the excuse that Saturn Hammer's men were behind Guile about to shoot him. Guile rubbishes this claim, but then the rest of the team show up and tell them to stop arguing. They all get back to their jet, along with Dhalsim, and take off after Saturn Hammer's ship.
 

They track Saturn Hammer's ship, and Guile uses the jet's lasers to take pot shots at it. They all miss however, but Saturn Hammer's ship crashes into the sea. Dhalsim uses his power to reveal that the ship has transformed into a sub. Guile learns from T.Hawk that Saturn Hammer intends to blow up California with the nuke, so they have to stop before she gets the chance. Guile sends Blanka down into the sea to make the sub submerge, which he does by using his electricity to blow out all the power systems.
 

Guile says that they should move in apart from T.Hawk as he can't be trusted with Saturn Hammer. However, T.Hawk jumps out the plane and manages to take a guard who was just happening to open a hatch. He soon meets Saturn Hammer who starts being nice to him, but really just wants to shoot T.Hawk and get him out of the way. However she decides to give him a chance to join her again, and then tells him that the reason she wants to blow up California is because there is a lab there.
 

And here is Saturn Hammer's tragic back story. Her brain was brilliant, but her body was dying. She went to a certain lab because they promised to help her live, but secretly they only wanted her research she had being doing for her robotics. She was eventually left as half human half cyborg and lost everything to the labs. After telling T.Hawk this he says he feels sorry for her but he cannot let her kill millions with the nuke. Saturn Hammer gets angry and brandishes her laser, but Hawk says that she wouldn't shoot him.
 

On the outside, the team use jet packs to cruise down to the sub (including Dhalsim which is lolarious for some reason) and meet up with Blanka. They hear a shot and rush inside only to find T. Hawk on the ground. He's been shot, but he isn't dead. Saturn Hammer then appears and holds the nuke's detonator in her hand, saying she doesn't care any more and is willing to blow herself up as long as she gets to kill Guile and the rest of the team.
 

T.hawk suddenly grabs Saturn Hammer and makes her fall, dropping the detonator. However, just as T.Hawk grabs it, Saturn Hammer jumps over and presses the activation button, which starts the nuke's countdown. Two minutes is all they have before it detonates, and Dhalsim believes that they are all doomed. However, Blanka convinces him to try and deactivate the bomb, and he eventually decides to have a go at it. Sawada cuts open the top of the nuke and Dhalsim starts the deactivation process.
 

Dhalsim succeeds and as you can see is as happy as Larry. Everyone else is too, but Saturn Hammer has gotten away. The team drop Dhalsim off back home and on the way back home T.Hawk can't believe that Saturn Hammer shot him, so Guile asks him if he's gotten over Saturn Hammer yet which I suppose is to be the most hilarious thing ever that Guile could say.

Despite what you saw in "Desert Thunder" T.Hawk has lost all flight abilities in this episode. Guile sums it up pretty well. T.Hawk requires to jump onto the jet pack wearing bad guy to get a rid to Saturn Hammer's ship whilst in Desert Thunder he simply flew up.

Sawada's second appearance; he first appeared in Keeping The Peace. He was originally a new character in the Street Fighter live action movie who was seen in the battle scenes near the end. He looks quite different there than here though, and never used a sword to attack. He was also put into the console versions of the SF Movie game, but again, never used a sword and fought shirtless. Here, however, his uniform can be compared to Rolento's, and his accent is completely different to the movie version of Sawada.

Last appearance of Saturn Hammer, sadly, it's never revealed what she did next. She definitely didn't die or get captured though as T.Hawk states that she managed to get away at the end of the episode.

What is up with Guile's Sonic Booms at the start of this episode? One of them is so powerful in manages to destroy an entire aircraft as he and Sawada fight. Yet in the rest of the series they just usually stun people.

Guile also seems to talk a lot faster in this episode than usual.

The animation here is pretty decent as well, for the Street Fighter cartoon at least. There's some scenes which are completely cell animated, a true rarity.