3 out of 5

Post the events of The Terminator, the comic timeline – as scripted by then-newbie John Arcudi – has a few more freedom fighters deigning it necessary to future-fiddle once again.  This time, we’ll leave that Connor boy out of it, though, and instead go after what’s been determined to be the seedling of AI technology: Dr. Hollister’s Bellerophon project in 1993.

Some naked “youse is from the future?” antics ensue; several terminators make their way back to 1993 as well, meaning exo-skeleton exposing explosions also ensue.

But it’s all in service of some pretty competent, comic book fun, with John showing the rough version of his abilities of juggling big and small plot points well, and giving characters dashes of personality within a few panels.  His skills aren’t honed, though: the cast of future humans and present-day compatriots proves a bit too broad, making us jump around and undercut the potential impact of various scenes.  There’s also the mention that the war in the future is, for intents and purposes, over, and that doesn’t effectively trickle down into where we pick things up, making for an odd tension disconnect if you start to think about things too much.  In general, the setup of the timeline and Cyberdyne scientists is all rather pedestrian reading; en media res might’ve been a more exciting way to go.  However, John executes a pretty awesome twist in his tale that significantly ups the 11th hour ante, and the way he scripts the terminators – half through omniscient narration, half through unspoken machine-to-machine communication – is effectively creepy.  These dudes read / feel like a threat.

Artist Chris Warner is stuck in the “everyone looks like a bodybuilder” method of figurework, but his layouts are page-turningly exciting, his direction during action sequences especially excellent, even if – between the writer and artist – we never get a great sense of what the terminators can withstand or not in terms of damage.  Inker Paul Guinan and colorists Chris Chalenor and Rachelle Menasche complete the look with clean, dynamic inks that supplement the momentum and an effective color palette that sells both the grungy future and humdrum streets, each with a nice, wide range of tints.  Letterer Karen Casey-Smith does very clean work with an appealing font, though placement sometimes had me reading out of order.

I don’t know what the world of terminator conics are generally like, but this would’ve been a pretty exciting addition to the storyline back in the day.  It’s rough around the edges, but likely moreso only knowing how much better John gets at this stuff later on in his career.