The fate of the Terminator Comic Books was uncertain. With an interest in the mythology waining, and the latest Terminator movie flopping in theaters, it looked like Terminator wouldn’t be returning to the Comic Books either. The last solo Terminator series was released by Dark Horse Comics in 2018, and the last time the Terminator mythology graced the pages of a comic book was in 2020's Transfomers vs The Terminator, jointly published by IDW and Dark Horse. Not that I craved for more, since the Terminator comics got progressively much worse since the new millenium, but I sure didn't want the utterly ridiculous, humorous Transformers crossover to be the last Terminator comic series.
Flash forward to 2024, and Dynamite Comics, who held the license in the early 2000s, acquired the license again and announced a new Comic Series to celebrate The Terminator's 40th Anniversary. As of this writing, it is unknown how many issues there will be, but the 2024 brought us three issues and those will be the one's we'll take a look at. Spoilers ahead.
DYNAMITE COMICS
THE TERMINATOR (October - December 2024)
Dynamite description said that the series will focus on different characters and different time periods, and will show multiple Terminators going after important targets in the past. I know I criticized the revolving doors in Time Travel before, but I mean you can't have Terminator without that character being in our times. It was always the fish out of water element that was so classic and core to that mythology, and there were certainly some very good Future war stories, but I do agree placing the action in the "past" is the way to go. I approached the series with an open mind, after all, nothing can be worse or as bad as what Dark Horse released between 2010 and 2020. Anything will be a massive improvement
Issue #1 "Out Of Time" Written by Declan Shalvey, Art by Luke Sparrow with Colin Cracker
The first issue, albeit relatively brief, or at least feeling brief, is a great start. It's short, and simple, but amazingly it manages to create real people and real emotion on those few pages. It gives no backstory, no explanation, just story. It's a tale about an elderly couple who live by the lake, very much in love but somewhat fearful that a Terminator that had tried to kill them before, will find them one day. There's no explanation why they're a target other than a hint that their children or grandchildren will be important. While the husband is fishing and the wife is taking care of the house, the Terminator emerges from the water. It's a somber and heartbreaking story that shows us what happens in those few moments after the Terminator reacquires its target, and the heartbreaking demise of the elderly couple.
While a great story, my issue is with the flawed premise, which originated in Jonathan Mostow's third movie. If a Terminator is sent back to eliminate other important resistance figures and succeeds, it won't ever be sent back for them because they won't exist. There's no loop here, and more importantly, no event that would break the loop, would impact the timeline and alter the events like Sarah did in T2. Anyway. it serves the story, so all forgiven. Great artwork too
There's a beginning of another story in that issue called "Buried Alive", Written by Sal Crivelli, Art by Colin Cracker. It's just 2 pages so it's really just a beginning without much context. The story takes place somewhere in the Middle East. A terminator arrives from the future, tries to drive over someone some time later but gets stopped.
Issue #2 "Apocalypse Then: Part One" Written by Declan Shelvey, Art by David O'Sullivan
The writer of the first story from the first issue returns to this one, but the momentum doesn't. The series started pretty good, and then it kind of fizzles out with this story. It takes place in Vietnam during the Vietnam war. American personnel is being evacuated from a city with hostiles closing in, but despite the danger, the main character, soldier named Duggan, decides to stay and retrieve a mystery thing that isn't explained in this issue yet. Meanwhile, a Terminator arrives nearby and quickly gets into fight with Vietnamese military, including their tanks! That's my 2 decades old problem with portraying Terminators without its creators - they're way too powerful like a superhero, and they never were in the original 2 films. It's also interesting that tanks, machine guns and artillery hit him but his hat is still on
The art isn't as good as the first issue's and the style doesn't really reflect the type of story it's telling, it's too 'comic booky"
Not a fan of this one, it's just is if you know what I mean. A very uninspired dime a dozen story. Terminator tips over a tank with his punch and fights a military armed to the teeth while a soldier in a nearby city says he can't evacuate yet and leaves for a nearby village. That's all. There's no mood to it, no pacing, no art.
There are 2 more pages of the "Buried Alive" story but one page just shows a Terminator arriving 20 years ago and going into hibernation and then waking up and fighting someone in one panel. So no verdict on this one yet
Issue #3 "Apocalypse Then: Part Two" Written by Declan Shalvey, Art by David O'Sullivan
Continuation and a conclusion of the story from the previous issue. So the mysterious thing that the soldier didn't evacuate for appears to be a secret wife with a small baby. Duggan encounters the Terminator, who was fired upon and hit by more tanks, but appears to be fine other than saying "tzt" a lot and losing all the flesh of course. He tricks Duggan and his wife into boarding a chopper with him but Duggan takes him out easily with a pistol. Ironically, he even says "The NVA, VC and US couldn't stop you. After all that finished you off with a Colt". Of course I understand the Terminator is suppose to be fragile from being hit by tanks and artillery earlier, but it's still comes off so anticlimatic. After dropping his wife off, the Terminator reawakens with hanging head and tries to strangle Duggan but Duggan crash lands, successfully shaking off the Terminator off of him. It is later revealed that Duggan dies decades later anyway in the August 29, 1997 attack.
2 More pages from "Buried Alive" can be found at the end of the issue, but I still don't know what's going on as the story so far isn't a story just an arrival of a terminator and a fight. In these 2 pages, one guy gets behind the car and drives into the Terminator who tried to drive into them. The Art seems fine so far, and it's one of the two artists from the first issue.
So that's all for 2024, and there's more issues coming but I'll review them in another chapter. So far it's the same old - most (but not all) of the Terminator comics throughout the history had been either very bad or didn't feel like part of the saga, and all the ones published in the 21st century were just plain bad, and it seems to be the same way with these. While not truly bad per say, they're not indulging or exceptional in any way, other than perhaps the first issue with the elderly couple, which had some pacing, backstory and good characters with real relationship.
Read about all the other Terminator Comic Books ever published here:
