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Terminators.
Relentless killing machines created by the all-powerful computer, Skynet. Their only purpose to infiltrate and destroy the last remaining vestiges of human resistance in one of the bleakest futures ever to be put on the silver screen or the comic page.
I LOVE The Terminator franchise! Within the framework of a dark future ruled by machines, there's potential to tell both hopeful AND hopeless tales of resistance and desperate battle against inhuman monsters created by mankind's own technological hubris.
There's been a lot of Terminator comic stories. Probably the best known coming from Dark Horse, who held the Terminator license for about twenty years! But what we have here is the FIRST Terminator comic book. The opening issue for a 1988 series by NOW Comics that lasted just 17 issues before handing things over to Dark Horse.
It seems a bit strange to me that the first comic to expand on such a popular franchise is worth about. . .well. . .pretty much nothing when it comes to "key" value of comic books. MAYBE ten bucks for a absolutely perfect copy. . .in theory, anyway. This is a series that you can find every single issue of (including this first issue) in the bargain bin.
But, like everything else with over thirty years' worth of material behind it, there's good Terminator stories and there's bad Terminator stories. Which one is this? Let's find out!
THE TERMINATOR #1
NOW Comics (1988)
COVER: Mitch O'Connell
THE COVER:
Now THERE'S the good stuff! I've got a lot of Terminator comics in my collection, but this is my all-time favorite Terminator cover! It's just. . .perfect. It's a great, creepy piece of highly-detailed artwork that can stand toe to toe with some of the best comic covers out there, period.
So the cover is one of my favorites in my collection. What about the story?
Let's get inside this thing!
THE STORY:
THE TERMINATOR
SCRIPT: Fred Schiller
PENCILS: Tony Akins
INKS: Jim Brozman
The time: December 22, 2031. The Place: Just North of what's left of Miami, Florida.
We begin our tale with a woman, carrying a baby and being pursued through the ruins of Miami by a relentless killing machine. . .a Terminator. She trips and falls. The Terminator moves in for the kill!
The woman is saved by the timely arrival of a team of human soldiers. The Terminator is destroyed and she tells them that she's looking for an underground group called "Sarah's Slammers". Her baby is sick and she needs a doctor.
She's in luck. The soldiers belong to the Slammers and offer to take her and her baby back to their hidden base for medical treatment. But then, one of the soldiers gets a bad feeling about the situation and blasts the woman! She's actually a Terminator! IT'S A TRAP!
As the patrol tries to make sense of the ambush, they move to rescue the child, only to discover that it's ALSO a Terminator! A tiny baby Terminator! THE HORROR!
SHIFTING SCENES. . .
We find ourselves aboard a high-tech aircraft, hovering over the ocean nearby. The crew of the ship is led by a woman named Berwanger. They are scientists, gathering plankton samples to take back to their base. There's a problem! An accident and the ship's systems begin to fail!
Their stealth cloaking device and thrusters go offline. The ship begins to drift toward the mainland, where their sensors indicate an intense firefight is occurring!
RETURNING TO SARAH'S SLAMMERS. . .
More Terminators have arrived at the scene of the trap! The Slammers are pinned down by heavy fire. As they desperately fight for their lives, we see the mysterious aircraft drifting closer as the crew tries to reactivate their cloaking device, thrusters, and shields. It's too late! The cloak completely fails and the ship is exposed to those fighting below.
Mistaking the disabled aircraft as a new kind of Terminator ship, Sarah's Slammers turn all their firepower onto it, causing the vessel to crash nearby. The Slammer Commander, Leahy, orders her men to retreat before they take any more losses.
Nearby, the surviving crew of the crashed aircraft have abandoned ship. As they make their way along the shoreline, they run into the retreating soldiers. There's a standoff between the two groups. Leahy is informed that there's another Terminator transport on the way. They need to figure things out and get moving before they're overwhelmed!
The crew of the downed aircraft use a high-tech homing missile to easily take down the approaching transport. But Leahy learns another FOUR transports are on their way!
Impressed with the newcomer's weapons, Leahy quickly makes the decision to invite them to the Slammer's hidden base. They all leave together before Terminator reinforcements arrive.
SHIFTING SCENES AGAIN. . .
We find ourselves following Martin Reedfoot, one of Sarah's Slammers on a mission to infiltrate a Skynet "Flesh Farm" to gain intel on the facility.
The Flesh Farms are a recent Skynet project, breeding and cultivating docile human servants. . .and also providing a ready supply of human skin for their Terminators.
As he makes his way through the eerie town of Bedford Falls, gathering information on the docile human population, Reedfoot is discovered by one of the Terminator guards!
MEANWHILE, AT THE HIDDEN INSURGENT BASE. . .
Sarah's Slammers are based in an old Minuteman missile silo that they imaginatively call "Homebase". We learn that the crew of the mysterious aircraft are actually from. . .The Moon!
They are the children of inhabitants of a moon colony called "Little Houston", who could only watch in horror as Skynet took over the world 33 years ago. There was strife in the colony about what to do, but it was decided that there wasn't much they COULD do, and so they remained on the moon.
They have to occasionally return to Earth for secret resource-gathering missions in their cloaked ships. It was during one of these missions that their ship was shot down, and how they ended up with a bunch of rag-tag insurgents hiding out in an old missile silo.
BACK AT THE FLESH FARM. . .
Reedfoot desperately tries to make his escape from the Terminators at Bedford Falls, but he is surrounded. He sends a burst transmission to Homebase with the information he's gathered. After that, his fate is uncertain. . .
AND THEN, BACK AT THE INSURGENT BASE. . .
Berwanger and Leahy have a bit of conflict over the moon base's inaction while humans bleed and suffer on Earth, but they eventually come to an agreement once Reedfoot's information is received.
Berwanger agrees to supply Sarah's Slammers with weapons and medical supplies in exchange for equipment and parts needed to fix their ship. Unfortunately, the high-tech gear needed will only be available at a Skynet facility. . .like the Flesh Farm Reedfoot was scouting.
Leahy agrees to help Sarah's Slammers assault the facility.
BUT THEN. . .
While Leahy and Berwanger discuss their agreement, there's a commotion elsewhere in the base! The Slammer's viral scanners have detected a non-human! There's a Terminator among them! It's one of the Moon Crew!
BUT WAIT! THEY CAN EXPLAIN!
To be continued. . .
THE REVIEW:
Okay, there it is. Let's break it on down!
I review a lot of first issues here at Longbox Junk. I have just TWO simple expectations from the first issue of a series. And in MY humble opinion, neither one is too much to ask. . .
1. Does it introduce the characters and their situation in a new reader-friendly way?
2. Does it make me want to read more?
Is that too much to ask? You'd think not, but there are a lot of first issues I've read that can't even hurdle those two pretty low bars. But hey, I don't write 'em. . .I just read 'em.
I guess comic publishers know what they're doing when they decide that a good introduction and a hook to buy the next issue aren't necessary. Who am I to tell them THEIR business, right?
ANYWAY. . .
Question number one. . .is this a good introduction? Well, the whole issue is basically introduction, so I'll say yes on this one. Actually, I really liked the story in this issue.
Even though it was almost completely introduction to the characters and the setting, the writer moves it along at a pretty brisk pace and we get all the information we need organically as the story unfolds instead of it looking like an obvious info-dump, which is ALMOST as bad as not getting enough information in a first issue.
It's a gritty, hard military science fiction story. Very straightforward in laying out the brutal nature of what the world has become. I like the addition of the Moon Colonists as a sort of "privileged" storytelling foil to the hardcore Sarah's Slammers. The colonists make it so the writer is able to give more than one perspective on the same events (more so in later issues, but that foundation is nicely set up here).
Question number two. . .Do I want to read more? Yes I do. I'm a fan of gritty military science fiction, which is what draws me to the Terminator franchise in the first place.
Even though what we have here is almost completely introduction and setup, it's solid introduction and setup. I want to see how these two different groups come together to achieve their separate, but intertwined goals as the story unfolds.
BUT. . .
Then there's the art. Let's talk about the art.
It's bad.
Garish colors, practically nonexistent backgrounds, sketchy, and in places looking almost unfinished. This comic has an AWESOME cover, but inside? No Bueno.
It's an issue that a lot of NOW comics suffered. Great, eye-catching covers with good stories, but art that slaps and insults you. . .and not in the fun way. What I'm trying to say is that the art in this comic is crap. There's no tiptoeing around it. The cover is premium, the inside is amateurish.
CONCLUSION
So, a solid military science fiction story that delivers a good introduction and makes me want to read more, backed up by art that looks like the logical progression of Napoleon Dynamite's high school sketches.
Is the art bad enough to make me not want to recommend this? I guess not. The story is good and the art DOES get a little better as the series goes on. Not by much, mind you, and the garish colors never go away, but there's improvement at least.
This isn't the best Terminator comic out there. Not even close. But it's a cool little time capsule of the time before Terminator WAS a franchise. There was the first movie, and there was this. That was it.
NOW took the Terminator idea and ran with it. . .giving us a thirty year time jump into what was one of the best parts of the original movie, the short scenes showing future humanity fighting the terrifying robots of Skynet.
For just the sheer non-canon, "Where do we go from here?" aspect of this series jumping off of the very narrow starting point of the original Terminator movie, I'll recommend this series. Just understand the art is generally awful from start to finish, even though it does show some improvement in later issues.
The series has never been collected, as far as I can tell, but like I said in the introduction, it's not hard to find every issue (including this first issue) in the bargain bins. Pick 'em up and check 'em out if you happen to spot some.
That's it for this edition of Longbox Junk. Thanks for stopping by to spend a little time, and I hope you come to visit again. Until next time, remember that comics are worth more than money!
