Over 15 years after his merging with Vector Sigma, Optimus Prime's lifeless body was spirited away in a sinister plot to destroy the Autobots by Dark Nova, the big bad guy du jour. Nova duplicated Prime's body, using the copy to create the evil False Convoy. The elite Autobot team, the Battlestars, defeated False Convoy and retrieved the real Prime's body from Planet Lucifer, and then used the mysterious energy source known as the Zodiac to restore Prime to life. Transformed into Star Convoy, Prime was also reunited with Hot Rod, who became his Micromaster partner.
