U.K. series writer Simon Furman began 1988 with “The Legacy of Unicron!” — a story that (like Transformers: The Movie) took place entirely in the future timeline. (He would also begin 1989 and 1990 with future-centric stories.)

More to come.

These issues saw a small but noticeable decline in quality. The Blaster / Goldbug traitor storyline included some of the finest issues of the series. Published alongside it, the Headmasters mini-series was similarly of high quality. But once the Headmasters came to Earth, the quality of the U.S. stories began to decline. By the end of the year, despite stories still containing interesting ideas and narrative moments, the series was a shadow of its former self. It’s hard not to wonder if the mandated focus on the Headmasters, who essentially took over the series, wasn’t partly to blame. Of course, the need to incorporate new toys had always posed a challenge, sometimes requiring new characters to be shoehorned into ongoing plots. But new characters would appear in stories grounded in familiar ones. Now, the traitor storyline felt like it had just stopped. It was left on a cliffhanger (U.S. #36). Blaster, Grimlock, and all of his Autobots wouldn’t be seen again until five issues later (U.S. #41). The series had long jumped around, in terms of setting and focal characters, but now, the reader could feel a sense of dislocation, as the story shifted settings without resolving where older characters even were. As time went on, it seemed as if these older characters didn’t matter anymore. And it didn’t help matters that the U.S. stories’ artwork also seemed to decline around this time. 1988 was the year everything began to shift, and in many ways the original comics series never recovered.

“Space Pirates” took place entirely in 2008.