The final battle between Skynet and humankind has begun and we have a front row seat to the action in this 12 issue story arc appropriately titled The Final Battle. This story has promised to be the end all of the Terminator universe and with the first issue last month, J. Michael Straczynski delivered a very solid and entertaining opening to what looks like it will be a good series. I enjoyed it and was salivating in anticipation for more. There was no doubt that the Terminator Salvation movie left me with a very sour taste in my mouth after its release. That taste has been eradicated with the opening of this comic. We now we find ourselves here in issue two and after reading through it a couple of times, I have to say that I am digging on it, a lot. Straczynski has continued to impress me with his writing in this series that I have found to be fresh, energetic, and smooth flowing, which is a nice accomplishment as the story jumps around from time period to time period quite rapidly. The jumps are never choppy however and they are depicted well by Straczynski’s touch. It is fun to read with an ample flow.
Issue two primarily deals with the story of Dr. Serena Kogan both in the past, present, and future. We see some of her back story as well as the current action. Serena had been dying from Cancer, but through the aid of some err uh “future” influence, she has been rescued from her fate of certain fast death and is whisked away to develop her technology of fusion between humans and robots that figure very prominently in this story. We also get to see some action in relation to the hunt for serial killer Thomas Parnell who apparently has the interest of both the machines and man as both are looking for him. As the final battle is set to begin, we are left with several clues, but many unknowns which make for an entertaining issue.
Straczynski continues to write the story in the flow of a movie that has excellent pacing. He adds a nice touch to his writing as he shifts from time period to time period by having a voice over style on the frame before the next transition which I found to be well played.
Pete Woods’ artwork also continues to be good as he has an equal depiction of man and machine that lacks in much of the Terminator lore of the past as the machines typically are just drawn as pure emotionless evil. The Terminators in Woods’ art are still soulless Terminators, but they definitely have a human element in their artistic depiction that makes for very interesting speculation as we are just two issues into this 12 issue arc.
Unless some colossal letdown occurs, I believe that Terminator Salvation: The Last Battle is definitely a winner here in the infancy of the story. We are two issues in and the action is moving at a good pace with 10 whole issues to go. A solid foundation has been built and the sky is the limit to how good this arc can be. They have my interest. Let the battle begin.
Score: 4/5
Writer: J. Michael Straczynski Artist: Pete Woods Publisher: Dark Horse Comics Price: $3.99 Release Date: 12/31/13