With time nipping at his heels, the launch of Operation: Volcano going ahead whether he returned or not, Magnus allied himself with the Earth Autobots and worked to discover what had caused Optimus Prime, Prowl and Ratchet to vanish from the middle of the Autobot base, while the other Autobots battled the threat posed by Galvatron, a Decepticon who had travelled back in time from the future. The appearance of three more Autobots from the future, Hot Rod, Kup and Blurr, gave Magnus his answer: the mass-displacement effect yielded by Galvatron's time travel had shunted Prime and the others into the limbo between dimensions. Ultra Magnus then engaged Galvatron in battle as Kup and the others set up a scheme to force Galvatron back into the future, and even though Magnus was severely beaten by the more-powerful Decepticon, the plan succeeded and the future Decepticon returned to his own time. Magnus, however, was too late to return for Operation: Volcano, but the plan was nullified when the intended Decepticon victims were called away by Megatron, but a parting shot took the life of the Wreckers' leader, Impactor.