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Released By: Dark Horse
Release Date: November 26, 2014
The Story:
A comic series like Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle was made for the trade paperback format. Like so many out there who can't keep track of what happens in the simplest of television shows from one week to the next and cherish the invention of DVD or blu-ray season sets, comic readers are also struck with the affliction of not being able to remember details from one month to the next. And in the case of something like this series, forgetting details is something that can't happen if one wishes to maintain some sense of cohesion throughout the storyline.
More or less running in parallel, sorta kinda, with the films, Book 1 takes us to Houston, Texas in 2003, as a familiar ball of electricity lights up the night sky and a muscular naked man appears. Not too far away in Dallas, another ball of light appears, revealing three naked figures, who promptly break up a party in an effort to get clothes. Of course, the two simultaneous events are linked; all of these "Terminators" were sent back to find Thomas Parnell, a recently-escaped homicidal maniac. But while the lone Terminator has thoughts of termination on his mind, the other three want to save him.
Meanwhile, in war-torn Colorado, 2029, resistance leader John Connor rallies the troops in an effort to take down Skynet's armies, hoping to create enough chaos that he can sneak Kyle Reese back to the past to....well, you know. But there are more than a few issues relating to the past...for example, cancer-stricken Dr. Serena Kogan has accepted a message from Skynet in the future, offering to save her life if she helps them hook the body of Parnell into the mainframe, allowing him to turn the army of Terminators into more effective killers.
With so much going on in the series, it's almost impossible to document all of the story/timelines. Although this is a bit of a weakness for somebody like myself who has a hard time getting the events of Back To The Future in order, it's a testament to the creativity of Writer J. Michael Straczynski. Maintaining a number of parallel worlds and crossing in and out of them is certainly no easy feat, but Straczynski lays it all out in a pretty straight-forward manner through these six issues....even though you'll probably be doing yourself a favour by reading through it twice.
The action is pretty fast and heavy when it needs to be, with a strong, compelling storyline when the BuddaBuddaBudda's stop, and Pete Woods' artwork is nothing short of spectacular, giving each of the alternate realities its own look and feel.
Vague though this review may be, it's simply because the complexity of Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle can't be explained in a few short paragraphs.
The Final Word:
You had me at BuddaBuddaBudda. Looking forward to seeing what happens in the next volume.
