Terminator comic books have a long and rich history, and the license went through several publishers, from Now Comics, through Dark Horse and Marvel, to Dynamite and more. However, only one mini series was actually made in tandem with people behind the films, and that was the excellent Cybernetic Dawn and Nuclear Twilight from Malibu Comics, published in 1995. To make story short, it was a mini series overlooked and co-developed by James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment, so it wasn't just a licensed fanfiction (no offense to other Terminator comic series', some being really good, but as far as canonicity and ideas, the Malibu T2 comics were the only "real" Terminator comics for a lack of a better term), but a series which worked with the source. For fuller story and detailed description and review of these two T2 mini series', go HERE.
The event of actual T2 comic books, which were the first and only ones aside from the Marvel Adaptation (there were Dynamite comics series' which were called Terminator 2 but that was in name only, as it did not follow the movie at all and continued directly and only Jonathan Mostow's film. See HERE), was so significant that the fantastic Starlog Magazine picked up the story in their January 1995 issue and interviewed Mike Paniccia, the writer of the Future war part, Nuclear Twilight as well as Dan Abnett, the writer of Cybernetic Dawn.
As some of you may know, or just found out from the article/review I linked to, the parallel mini series' tell a story of how everything went back to the original chain of events after the timeline tremored through the events of T2. It appeared that two more T-800s have been sent back in time, along with one more T-1000 whose mission was to make sure Skynet is developed and is developed "on time". No protector is sent this time in order to not to stretch the credibility of the story too much.
Paniccia talks about working closely with Lightstorm Entertainment and including T2's omitted scenes in Dan Abnett's Cybernetic Dawn (my preferred storywise and visually). What's interesting is that he says the mini series "coincided with the effort by Cameron to expand the Terminator universe", and that Cameron's Universal Terminator 2 3D: Battle Across Time will be released shortly after the series. So perhaps those mini series' fill the gap between T2 and T2 3D: BAT and explain how everything still happened and how Cyberdyne went back on track? Sarah's narration in the hijacked broadcast in T2 3D: BAT does not acknowledge but at the same time does not contradict the events of the comic series'.
At the time of the article they didn't have a license to use Schwarzenegger's license, but as we all know they eventually got it because he's all over both series'
I remember reading about this series in a European DC newsletter column (yes, DC) around the time it was coming out in 1995, and I remember how shell-shocked I was for a minute that the T2 story was continued in any way. For me, Return of the Jedi and T2 were the most obvious and definitive endings to their stories. I was so insanely curious of this series but it wasn't published in Europe so it wasn't until few years later that I got a chance to own it
Go back to http://www.jamescamerononline.com/TerminatorTrilogy.htm
