Now Comics’ original “Terminator” series improves from bad to mediocre — and finally gives readers the hook of meeting John Connor for the first time – in Issues 9-17 (1989-90), when Ron Fortier becomes the regular writer.
The stories and character arcs become more streamlined, and Fortier delves into specifics of how the resistance and Skynet trade volleys in 2031. We get our first visual image of Connor in an Issue 11 flashback: He inspires the creation of an in-vitro fertilization center beneath Disney World (called “Mort Dizzy World” here) to repopulate the Earth, provide more soldiers and allow women to fight without the burden of pregnancy. John enters the story proper in Issue 12, bailing out Konrad, Tim Reese and other rebels during a battle with Terminators at a baseball field in Georgia.
A big Fortier concept is the personification of Skynet’s central computer beneath the mountains of Montana (the base is oddly dubbed “Techno-dyne World Defense Network, code name Skynet”). The central computer creates manifests as an image of God or Ben Franklin or a clown when it speaks to an individual Terminator unit.
CHARACTERS
John Connor: He makes his first appearances of the entire “Terminator” saga in Issues 11 (flashback) and 12 (“live” action). He has red hair and a beard and none of the scars we would see in “T2’s” Future War scenes. John is known as the Golden Bear (presumably Jack Nicklaus’ estate is not around after Judgment Day to file suit), and one of the groups John had trained at his Mexico mountain headquarters is called Connor’s Grizzlies.
Sarah Connor: She’s presumably dead during this time.
Kyle Reese: We learn that Kyle is indeed dead (as per the events of the movie). John had been searching for Tim to give him the news about his older brother, along with a letter from Kyle. John doesn’t tell Tim or any of the resistance fighters about Kyle’s jump through time.
Tim Reese: We learn more specifics about Kyle’s kid brother. He is 14 in 2031, and Tim last saw Kyle when Tim was 6 (in 2023). Kyle would’ve been 13 at that time. We know Tim will at least live to age 50, as he tells a story from the perspective of 2067 in Issue 13.
Miguel De Verona: One of Connor’s most trusted officers, “he and Connor had grown up together as children and their bond of friendship was forged in the fires of a hundred bloody campaigns.” He doesn’t play much of a role in these stories, but he’s notable for being John’s childhood buddy.
The IVF people: They breed babies via in-vitro fertilization beneath “Dizzy World” and ship the babies to various resistance bases. An IVF convoy from Orlando to Arkansas is at the mercy of Terminators before John Connor sweeps in with guns blazing.
The Cuban/Russian resistance: This bunch has been fighting Skynet in Cuba. Their base, Habitat, produces weapons such as personal energy shields and armored fighting suits.
TERMINATORS
Goliath-103: Skynet is not pleased with the performance of DIX-190 (a T-800, although a rebel mistakenly calls it a “1000-series” in the previous batch of issues) in its fight against the synthetic man Konrad, so Skynet reconstructs DIX-190 into a Goliath-103 in Issue 11. Features include a laser firing arm and a targeting eye camera. However, in the next issue, John easily destroys the Goliath-103 with a big gun. In Issue 13, Skynet believes the “101s” are obsolete and it is rightly disappointed in the first “103.” Fortier seems to think of all T-800s as “101s”; I had previously thought “101” indicated the model that looks like Schwarzenegger. The Goliath series is theoretically more advanced than the T-800, but it’s much easier to kill than the T-800 in the movie. Then again, that’s true of all the T-800s in the Now Comics series.
Goliath-107: Manufactured in a slave labor camp in Detroit (Issue 15), this is Skynet’s latest model.
Endoskeletons: These basic models patrol the death camp in Darwin, Calif. (Issue 17).
T-800s with human heads and endoskeleton bodies: Perhaps these units were pulled off the assembly line before their human skin could be completed (Issue 17).
CONTINUITY
These comics continue to chronicle the war in 2031, with peeks into the American South, Cuba and Darwin, Calif.
In flashbacks in Issue 13, we learn that Skynet had complex reasons for both wiping out most of humanity (it felt they desired death, based on reckless behavior ranging from drug use to war) but not all of humanity (Skynet would be bored if it had no one to fight, and as such only fired off 25 percent of the world’s guided missiles). We don’t learn exact dates of Skynet’s self-awareness or its launching of the nukes. But we can deduce it launched the nukes after 1998 (when the United Nations moon base is started) and before 2010 (when Kyle Reese is born).
Issue 13’s tale is told from the perspective of Tim Reese as a 50-year-old. Because he’s writing his story via candlelight, we can assume the Earth is still ravaged by war in 2067.
TIME TRAVEL
There is no time travel in these issues, although Issue 11 makes it look like DIX-190 is stepping into a time-displacement bubble. However, it’s just a way to communicate with Skynet.