Marvel also produced a four-issue limited series written by Louise Simonson, with art by Michael Chen, Ian Akin, and Brian Garvey, and covers painted by Bill Sienkiewicz.
The leader of the Destructors, Slaughter Steelgrave, becomes craven at the thought of deactivation upon the restoration of the humans and enslaves the Protectors after what he believes to be a successful attempt to destroy all of the Guardians.
A band of Protectors, eventually joined by a few dutiful Destructors, sets out to release the humans from their overly prolonged hibernation.
As the Starriors lived on, and their intellect advanced, they developed more defined personality traits and most took on mental gender characteristics, though with the exception of Geo, a non-toy character exclusive to the comics, their body designs were genderless.
They could fit over most Wastors' forearms, and their narrative function was to transfer a Starrior's mind into a new body if their old one became incapacitated, as happened to a number of the characters in the comics series.
Designed to destroy the largest and most powerful mutant monsters on the planet, Deadeye is far larger than any Protector, immune to their attacks, and capable of killing large numbers in a single assault.
As a result, the toys have a number of stylistic links to the early Zoids, such as the Bigasaur, as well as sharing similar labels and even carrying Helic Republic insignias.
The molds for Runabout and Speedtrap were reused and released in at least three-color variations each, for the small Japanese toyline Transforming Machine Beast Starriors (変幻機械獣スタリアス Hengen Kikaijū Sutariasu).