Later still, in 1983, a Microman sub-line, MicroChange was introduced, featuring "actual size" items that transformed into robots, such as microcassettes, guns and toy cars.

Given the success of that strategy, the process was repeated in 1984 when Hasbro marketing vice president Bob Prupis approached Marvel to develop their new robot series, which Jay Bacal dubbed "Transformers.

"[3] Marvel's Editor-in-Chief at the time, Jim Shooter, produced a rough story concept for the series, creating the idea of the two warring factions of alien robots – the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons.

Hastily performing the revisions over a weekend, Budiansky's new names and profiles were a hit with Hasbro, and production began on a bi-monthly four-issue comic book miniseries, and three-part television pilot.

This series focuses on the Transformers, split into two warring factions: the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons as they crash land on Earth and continue their eons-long conflict there.

The story follows Optimus Prime's heroic Autobots and Megatron's evil Decepticons as they leave their metallic homeworld of Cybertron to search for new sources of energy to revitalize their war efforts, only to crash-land on Earth, where they remain entombed and offline for 4 million years.

[11] Awakening in the year of 1984, the Decepticons set about pillaging the energy sources of Earth, while the Autobots—aided by human father and son duo Sparkplug and Spike Witwicky—attempt to protect the new world on which they find themselves.

The miniseries concludes with the Decepticons believed dead after their space cruiser is sent plunging into the ocean depths, while the Autobots prepare to return to Cybertron.

[citation needed] Story-edited at Marvel Productions by Bryce Malek and Dick Robbins, the season begins with the revelation that the Decepticons have survived the events of the pilot and follows them as they set about constructing a "space bridge" to teleport resources back to Cybertron.

A loose story arc centered on this technology spans the season, culminating in "The Ultimate Doom",[13] a three-part episode in which the Decepticons teleport Cybertron itself into Earth's orbit.

[14] Forty-nine further episodes were commissioned for the show's second season in 1985, bringing the total up to the "magic number" of 65 required to move the series into weekday broadcast syndication.

Season 3 picks up where the movie leaves off, with the Autobots now in control of Cybertron once more, working to restore their homeworld and serving as peacemakers for worlds all across the galaxy.

Interconnected episodes, running plot threads and small story arcs became more common in the series, including the return of Starscream (following his death in the movie) as a ghost, frequent battles between the giant Autobot and Decepticon cities of Metroplex and Trypticon and the threat to both sides posed by the alien Quintessons, introduced in the movie and revealed in the season's premiere miniseries "Five Faces of Darkness" to be the true creators of the Transformers.

This season saw story-editing duties transfer from Marvel Productions to Sunbow, overseen by Flint Dille, Marv Wolfman and Steve Gerber.

Written by regular series writer David Wise, the Autobots and Decepticons encounter the alien world of Nebulos, where they bond with the native Nebulans to become Headmasters and Targetmasters.

The miniseries concludes with the successful restoration of Cybertron, but the Decepticon threat not yet quashed as Galvatron and Lord Zarak argue over who will rule the galaxy upon their victory over the Autobots.

The stories were presented as though they were historical recordings displayed by the "Cybernet Space Cube", which added computer-generated borders and scene-transitions to the original animation.

For the third season, episodes were tagged with "The Secret Files of Teletraan II", a series of short featurettes that used clips from the show and new narration from Caroli to provide histories for the Autobots, the Decepticons, the Quintessons, and other subjects.

[17] Supplementary manga written by Masami Kaneda and illustrated by Ban Magami ran alongside each series in Kodansha's TV Magazine.

[18] Due to missing 35mm film stock, some sections of the Rhino Entertainment release use earlier incomplete animation, often introducing errors, such as mis-colored Decepticon jets, Skyfire colored like Skywarp, missing laser blasts, or a confusing sequence where Megatron, equipped with Skywarp's teleportation power, teleports but does not actually disappear.

[23] These releases corrected most of the newly introduced Rhino animation errors, but this was necessarily accomplished by using lower quality sources taken from the original broadcast master tapes.